Book Review #128: The Dream Home by T. M. Logan

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Soon after moving into a new house with his wife and children, Adam finds a secret room behind a hidden door. Inside the room is a collection of items that leads Adam on a mission that quickly puts his family in grave danger.

Every year I read and review the new T.M. Logan book. I've said many times on the blog that he's my favourite author and after reading this, he's still number 1!

I loved this book! Yes, there were a couple of things I'd change, but overall it's one of my favourite of Logan's so far!

But starting with things I'd change... the first three chapters. The first felt like a prologue - there was no information given, no character hints, and it just felt a bit weird.

The second and third chapters are then used to tell the reader about the hidden room Adam finds. We didn't need three chapters to do that, especially when there's not much in the room at all. For example, there was a large paragraph explaining an older mobile phone (that I'm assuming most of Logan's readers experienced first-hand!) that didn't add anything to the story. I just wanted to get into everything and these chapters felt a bit wasted on me.

But once the story got going, I got invested in it so quickly, especially the characters. Adam is a character that makes bad decisions and does a lot of stupid things, but I found him so likeable that I sympathised with him the whole way through, which made the story a lot more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.

The story itself is a really interesting mystery with so many parts that you never know what's going to happen next. 

The best thing about the mystery is how gradually it unfolds. So much happens that it takes a while to put all the pieces together, and even though there are definitely red herrings, nothing feels unnecessary.

Tension was created expertly - there were moments when the story was so exciting I couldn't put the book down, and definitely didn't want to!

The thing that let the story down, and the thing that stopped me giving the book 5 stars, was the reveal. It was fine, but I didn't love it.

In fact, I had a lot of theories as I was reading, and felt like any of them would have been more exciting than what actually happened.

Overall, despite not loving the ending, I loved this book and would definitely encourage any and all thriller lovers to read it! Along with most of Logan's other books!

4/5


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