The Dream Family

by Lisa Hall

We’re the dream family. Just ask my hundred thousand followers.

A dream cottage in the town I grew up in. A fresh start for ten-year-old Cora. The mums at the school gate welcome me straight away. Coffee after drop-off. Drinks at the pub.

Then a message appears from a number I don’t know.

B***H.

Just wait until your new friends find out what you’re really like.

Someone gets into my house. Someone posts things only I should have seen. Someone is tearing my perfect family apart, one post at a time.

I’ve never told anyone what I did here, all those years ago.

Now my little girl is gone. And the latest message asks:

How does it feel to lose the one you love the most?

AN EXHILARATING BLEND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE, NAIL-BITING TENSION WITH A SHATTERING FINAL TWIST.

293 pages, Paperback

Expected publication November 5, 2026

About the author

Lisa Hall lives in Fall Branch, Tennessee with her husband, daughters and their pets. In addition to “The Cutie Pie Chronicles” series, Hall is the author of numerous short stories.

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heather and Jason move back to Heather’s childhood town needing a fresh start,their daughter Cora has had problems with bullying and a big change is needed for them all

Heather runs a very successful Mumsy lifestyle influencer page and doesn’t feel she is appreciated by Jason or her Mum who see it is a ‘hobby’,truth is she earns more for a campaign than Jason in a year

Things go well,at the start of the move,Heather meets the ‘School Gate gang’ and is mostly accepted,everything seems good

Maybe too good

Because it is too good and little by little Heather’s life unravels with nasty Watsapps,trolling on her page and things happen in her new home that she can’t explain

But why? Heather has never donej anything to warrant this……has she?

Once again Lisa Hall writes a top notch thriller brimming with suss characters and past secrets and events that seemingly not everyone has forgotten

A good stark look at the world of influencers and how the love of likes and comments can turn on a pin and suddenly all that was positive becomes negative

An unexpected ending which is always good

Brill read

[Amanda Jane · Rating 2.5 out of 5]

This was a quick read for me. However, I didn’t like any of the characters in this story. I kept rolling my eyes a lot throughout and wanted to give the main character a really good shake many times!

Thank you to the Publisher and the Author for the opportunity to read and review this ebook.

[Mona Sami · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of *The Dream Family* before publication. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

I really enjoyed the premise of *The Dream Family*. Heather has built a successful online life around the image of having the perfect home and family, with more than one hundred thousand followers watching everything she posts. After moving back to her hometown with her husband and ten-year-old daughter Cora, it initially seems as though she finally has exactly the life she wanted.

Then the anonymous messages begin.

Someone clearly knows far more about Heather than they should. Private things start appearing online, someone gets into her home and the messages become increasingly threatening. What makes it worse is that Heather has a secret from her past that she has never told anyone, so she has no idea whether the person targeting her is connected to what happened years ago or to her very public life now.

I liked the social-media element because it makes the story feel very current. Heather has deliberately invited strangers into her life by creating this carefully controlled version of herself online, but she has no real control over how much people can discover or what happens when somebody decides to use that information against her.

The story becomes much more frightening when Cora disappears. From that point, all the smaller incidents and threatening messages suddenly feel much more serious, and Heather has to question the people she has recently welcomed into her life as well as the secrets she thought she had left behind.

There are some familiar psychological-thriller elements here, particularly the anonymous messages and hidden past, and I did suspect parts of what was happening before the reveal. But the pacing is strong, the suburban school-gate dynamics work well and there are enough questions around Heather herself to keep the story interesting.

Overall, *The Dream Family* was tense, addictive and very easy to keep reading. I really enjoyed the contrast between Heather’s perfect online image and the reality of what was happening behind it, and the disappearance of Cora raised the stakes effectively. A very entertaining domestic thriller with a particularly relevant social-media angle.

[Susan Belman · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMG, WHY ARE INFLUENCERS LIKE THIS?! 😂 I rolled my eyes so many times while reading this book that I'm pretty sure I gave myself a workout. The cringe-worthy moments, the side-eye, the snarky thoughts running through my head… these women are basically the ADULT VERSION OF MEAN GIRLS, and I was not enjoying their behavior one bit. And yet, I couldn't look away!

On the outside, this is the dream life. A beautiful cottage, a fresh start for ten-year-old Cora, new mom friends, coffee dates, drinks at the pub, and a picture-perfect family with a hundred thousand followers watching their every move. But behind those carefully curated posts? Yeah, not so much. When nasty messages start arriving, someone gets into the house, and private moments begin showing up online, it's clear someone is determined to tear this perfect little life apart. And then Cora goes missing. Suddenly, the games feel a whole lot more sinister.

Honestly, the amount of money these people have is almost impressive… but is it REALLY worth all the games, fake smiles, and exhausting facades they have to maintain? 😳 Everyone seems to have something to hide, and I was giving pretty much EVERYONE the side-eye. I didn't trust anyone, and I kept wondering who was playing who. The drama was practically dripping off the pages, and I had plenty of snarky thoughts about these women and their ridiculous behavior!

But here's the thing: even with all my eye-rolling, I was invested. I wanted to know what had happened in the past, what secrets were being kept, and who was behind everything. And when the reveal came? **SURPRISE!** I was suspicious of everyone, but I still didn't see that one coming. Nicely done, Lisa Hall! I love when a thriller manages to keep me guessing even when I'm convinced I've got everyone figured out.

Overall, *The Dream Family* (also published as *The Play Date*) was packed with mean-girl energy, social media madness, secrets, and enough questionable behavior to keep my inner commentator VERY busy. 😂 The characters drove me crazy, but the mystery kept me hooked, and that reveal earned the book some extra credit. Four stars from me! Now excuse me while I go appreciate my quiet little life without a hundred thousand strangers judging my every move. 😈

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: The Playdate/The Dream Family
Author: Lisa Hall
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
Publication Date: November 5, 2026

Heather makes a living as a social media influencer, which is so applicable to today's society. I've often said social media will be the death of society, and this book solidifies my thoughts. Heather spends way too much time focusing on photos, videos, captions, and posts. It gets to be annoying.

Someone is doing their best to torture Heather and make her life miserable. She receives cryptic messages, her daughter's belongings get tampered with, and things get moved around in her home. There are soooo many possible suspects, it was difficult to determine who was responsible.

Something worthy of note, I had a difficult time locating this book on any platform. When I first downloaded it from NetGalley, the title was "The Playdate". By the time I went to read the book, NetGalley had changed the upload to a book called "The Dream Family". I was super confused, but realized after reading the synopsis, it was the same book. I can honestly see why the title was changed as the first 85% of the book has absolutely nothing to do with a play date. In fact, thats about how long it took for the prologue to make sense.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion/review.

[Cin (cinsnextchapter) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book! The Dream Family was absolutely unputdownable and full of twists! Heather is a mommy influencer with quite a lot of followers. Soon after moving back to her old hometown with her husband Josh and daughter Cora, she lands a huge brand deal, makes friends with a group of parents from Cora’s school, and life seems to be going perfectly. Except there’s a troll leaving nasty comments and DMs on Heather’s social media. Then other things start happening. Things go missing, her posts are wonky, and soon she’s at risk of losing everything she’s worked so hard for, including her family. But who is out to get her? I had no idea WHO I could trust in this cast of unlikable characters. I suspected literally EVERYONE! Even when I finally guessed who was behind everything, I STILL did not expect the ending!

[Hannah Giorgio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you so much, Joffe Books and NetGalley, for this ARC!

This was a very fun ride! I loved the domestic thriller/mean moms thriller vibes going on with this one. I really enjoyed the writing style and reminded me a lot of Freida McFadden in terms of how addictive this was! I would definitely recommend this book to any McFadden fans out there.

The reason I rated this only 3 stars is because of the ending! I won’t go into details, but it didn’t hit for me- perhaps too far-fetched for my liking. I would still recommend this book, and I will definitely be looking for more books by this author!

[Nethanja · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this story or any of the characters. I really don't understand people who are using their family and specially their children to make money. And the conclusion....
Totally not my kind of book, have only finished it because it was an ARC.
Not gonna read this author again.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this story.

[Emily West · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent thriller that was a quick and easy read. I liked the premise but I figured out the twist really early on so there wasn’t any big reveal for me at the end. There was a bit of repetition in the story and many of the characters were throughly unlikeable but you could also see the standard stereotypes of the different types of parents at pickup time. Overall, a good read.