Book Review: He Started It | Samantha Downing

Wild!!!! Absolutely brilliant!!! The road trip from you-know-where will keep your glued to the book, while the tension ramps up to an utterly insane and delightful conclusion that will have your jaw on the floor!!!

About the Book

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven’t all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we’ll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.

But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.

It’s even harder when you’re all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory—a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won’t stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there’s a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.

But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.

Reflection

I need a cold glass of water after finishing this… Maybe a glass of bourbon or something to really jolt me back to reality…

This is a WILD ride! I wasn’t sure how on earth Samantha Downing could possibly match her previous book, which was one of the best books I read in 2019 without question. But then she came out with this book and I’m absolutely obsessed with it. Greed, betrayal, secrets, and a road trip that honestly sounds like my absolute greatest nightmare! The tension lies in part with what goes unsaid—the allusion to deeper unrest among the siblings and what truly happened on that road trip long ago.

Narrated by middle-sibling Beth, He Started It begins with a road trip. Three adult siblings and two of their spouses are recreating a road trip they took with their grandfather as children. They’ve lost touch as adults, only seeing each other on rare occasions. There is a reason for that, which they’ll explain more about in time.

When their grandfather died, he left quite a large inheritance behind to be split among the three kids, if only they follow his dying wish: to recreate the same road trip step by step that they took so long ago. Which road trip, you might wonder? There was only one…

Beth, Portia, and Eddie each have reasons they need the money to improve their lives. How bad can one road trip be? I’ll tell you. Bad. This road trip seems like a nightmare. Long stretches of being trapped in the car together, nightly stops at seedy motels, greasy fast food with barely a vegetable in sight, bizarre outings that they are forced to take and remember their grandfather telling them the stories. And on top of it all, someone seems to be following them.

They have to make it to the end of the trip to scatter the ashes, but it seems like someone will not rest until they have to abandon the trip. A stranger? Or could it be someone a bit closer?

Honestly I can’t say much about this book other than that I highly recommend it. This book is absolutely WILD! The tension slowly builds until you hit the last third and it moves at breakneck speed towards the end. I am still reeling! I had to reread a few parts because Downing has this brilliant way she weaves a jaw-dropping twist in so subtly that you won’t believe what you think you read. Well I’ll tell you now, believe it! And trust me, it will only get crazier as you go!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.