Moorewood Family Rules by HelenKay Dimon-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date April 25, 2023

Knives Out and Ocean’s 8 meets The Nest in this hilariously twisty novel by award-winning author HelenKay Dimon, about a woman who returns home from prison to her dysfunctional con artist family and tries to get them to go legit.

One day a con man met an heiress, wooed her, married her, had two kids…and kept on conning. Jillian Moorewood is the oldest child from that meet-cute-gone-wrong marriage. The stable one. The sensible and dependable one. The one who protects and fixes. The one who went to prison to save their sorry butts. Now, thirty-nine months later, she’s out and she’s more than a little pissed. Finally home she finds the scheming clan in full family fleecing mode. They all claim they didn’t really agree to Jillian’s previous go-legit-or-else ultimatum before she went away. They viewed it as a “suggestion” then ignored it. So, business as usual. But Jillian is done with the lies and fakery. She demands the whole messed-up crew clean up its act, and this time she’s not kidding—she has the leverage to make it happen.

Problem is, her life is in shambles, but with the help of a great aunt (crooked but loveable), a bodyguard (who is a nice surprise after three years in prison), and a few allies (all working undercover), Jillian starts to put her life back together. She kicks out a few mooching relatives living under her roof, sets limits on everyone’s access to the money, ducks from their various attacks, and sees if that bodyguard is maybe interested in sticking around for a while. For the first time, she’s Jillian Moorewood, her own woman, and she’s ready to figure out who she is.

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REVIEW:  MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES by HelenKay Dimon is a contemporary, adult, stand alone story of mystery and suspense surrounding the Rhode Island, dysfunctional Moorewood family of grifters, liars, cheaters and thieves-Jillian Moorewood, her sister Emma, their cousins Tenn, Anika and Astrid-their father Jay, and great aunt Patricia.

Approximately thirty-nine months earlier, Jillian Moorewood took the fall for her family in the wake of an FBI investigation into fraudulent claims and financial crimes. The Moorewood family come from a long line of grifters and scammers, and their thieving ways had caught up. Someone in the family turned the blame on our story line heroine, who upon her release, set about to uncover the who and how. Terms are presented, threats are made, and mandates not met as Jillian sets about to reclaim everything she lost but Jillian needs protection, and estate manager Kelby hired Beckett Romer to stand guard over Jillian Moorewood. With Beck at her side, Jillian begins to ferret out the truth, devising a plan to give everyone exactly, what they deserve.

There is a very large and often confusing ensemble cast of secondary and supporting characters, few of whom have any redeeming qualities including the aforementioned Moorewood family members: Gregory Paul (jillian’s ex) and Emma’s new boyfriend; Security/bodyguard Beck Romer, family business manager Kelby McAllister, Harry (Anika’s boyfriend), Harry’s mother Beverly Tolson, and Jay’s girlfriend Izzy.

MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES is a story of power and control, deception and betrayal, and reads like a mix between Clue™ and Knives Out™. The family of grifters are scamming one another, conning their soon to be significant others, and getting conned themselves. Jillian Moorewood’s mandate to stop conning, upon her arrest, only intensified the family’s need to amass a collection that does not belong. The premise is intriguing, interesting and detailed; the romance between Jillian and Beck is subtle, almost a cozy mystery feel; the characters are numerous but most are questionable, misguided, unethical and immorally wrong

Copy supplied by Edelweiss

Reviewed by Sandy

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HelenKay Dimon spent the years before becoming a romance author as a…divorce attorney. Not the usual transition, she knows. Good news is she now writes full time and is much happier. She has sold over forty novels and novellas to numerous publishers, including HarperCollins, Kensington, Harlequin, Penguin Random House, Riptide and Carina Press. Her nationally bestselling and award-winning books have been showcased in numerous venues and her books have twice been named “Red-Hot Reads” and excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine. She is on the Board of Directors of the Romance Writers of America and teaches fiction writing at UC San Diego and MiraCosta College. You can learn more at her website: www.HelenKaydimon.com