11/11/2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)
Review: Our Beautiful Mess by Adele Parks
Adele Parks delivers another gripping domestic thriller with Our Beautiful Mess — a story that proves even the happiest families can hide devastating secrets. The novel begins innocently enough: Connie is thrilled to have her daughters home for the holidays, but when her eldest, Fran, introduces her new boyfriend Zac, everything starts to unravel. Connie can’t shake the feeling that Zac reminds her of a mistake she thought was long buried — and from that moment on, tension crackles through every page.
Parks does what she does best: she pulls you deep into the emotional heart of a family while slowly twisting the knife of suspense. The characters feel real — flawed, loving, desperate — and the mix of family warmth and creeping dread makes this a true page-turner. The story moves quickly, with short, sharp chapters and reveals that keep you guessing who’s telling the truth and who’s protecting a lie.
If you enjoy authors like Lisa Jewell or C.L. Taylor, you’ll love this. It’s full of twists, secrets, and moral gray areas that make you question how far you’d go to protect the people you love.
A few parts felt slightly over-packed with subplots, but overall, Our Beautiful Mess is an engrossing, emotionally charged thriller — perfect for a weekend binge-read.
A tense, twisty, and deeply human story about family, forgiveness, and the danger of the past refusing to stay buried.
