The antagonist is in the family

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:01]Howdy.

[00:00:02]I am Anne Butler of the Book Griffin.

[00:00:05]Welcome to another book chat.

[00:00:08]>> [music] [music] >> In this episode, I'll talk about where the antagonist in the story is a family member.

[00:00:30]From seriously dangerous to toxic to abusive or just being problematic and putting our protagonist in a bit of a bind, making their lives difficult or even unbearable.

[00:00:49]My red list is filled with stories matching this trope.

[00:00:55]It's a tried and tested device, right?

[00:00:58]Flogged to death from the time of Austen and James. And even TV soaps are full of them. From EastEnders and Corrie here in the UK to The Bold and the Beautiful and going old old school to Dallas and Dynasty.

[00:01:17]Do you remember J.R.

[00:01:19]and Alexis Carrington and Fallon?

[00:01:23]>> [laughter] >> You get the point.

[00:01:26]I love novels with this trope.

[00:01:30]Unless I find at the end that the antagonist gets away with their shenanigans.

[00:01:40]Grr.

[00:01:42]It might make for a stronger story, but I hate it.

[00:01:47]Right.

[00:01:48]So, some stories that fall in the toxic problematic family camp.

[00:01:55]No promises, by the way, that I didn't go guh at the end of one or more of these books.

[00:02:03]I'm not going to tell you which one of them made me go guh by the way.

[00:02:06]>> [laughter] >> Right, so the first book is Escorted written by Claire Kent.

[00:02:18]This story is very sexy.

[00:02:21]It's about a woman who's reached the right old age of 30 and she's still a virgin.

[00:02:29]Yep, we've got a trope within a trope.

[00:02:32]We've got there's she's still a virgin trope.

[00:02:37]Right, so she decides to hire an escort.

[00:02:44]The escort is Ander.

[00:02:48]Ander, we get to find out has a troubled family history.

[00:02:54]And he has serious self-esteem issues.

[00:02:59]This comes out during the course of the novel.

[00:03:02]And I have to tell you the novel received mixed reviews on Goodreads.

[00:03:10]I enjoyed it. Um the areas that reviewers found problematic were not problematic for me.

[00:03:20]I guess some of them were just tired of the 30-year-old virgin trope.

[00:03:25]Anyway.

[00:03:28]Uh so back to Escorted. Ander's antagonist is his dad.

[00:03:35]And what a piece of work his dad is.

[00:03:38]I won't say any more than that other than I wanted someone to punch this man's lights out so badly.

[00:03:49]Randa.

[00:03:52]Anyway.

[00:03:53]Moving on.

[00:03:55]Next, we've got a thriller.

[00:03:58]It's called What Lies Between Us, and it's by John Marrs.

[00:04:05]Oh my goodness.

[00:04:08]What is so good about this story is that we, the reader, have to work really hard to find out who the antagonist is.

[00:04:21]Is it the mother?

[00:04:23]Is it the daughter?

[00:04:25]Or is it someone else?

[00:04:27]Huh?

[00:04:28]So dark and so good.

[00:04:32]And that's all I can say without giving too much away.

[00:04:37]But this was a great read for me. It was a great read.

[00:04:41]Next, back to romance territory and and I'm about to talk to you about Lethal.

[00:04:50]Lethal was written by Summer Page, and this is a thriller romance with a badass leading woman, my favorite kind of FMC.

[00:05:01]Astoria, Tory to her friends, is a society darling with a sociopath for a father.

[00:05:11]She tries hard to steer clear of his machinations, which is putting her in actual physical danger, not that he cares.

[00:05:21]Um how she handles the situation um and um spoiler spoiler spoilers.

[00:05:32]Right, I'm going to leave it as how she handles the situation makes this an enjoyable read, especially for fans of badass female characters.

[00:05:47]Tory was definitely in that camp.

[00:05:51]Right, the final story is Caught Out.

[00:05:55]It is one of my own stories.

[00:05:59]It features um as the antagonist, a mother who pulls out all the stops for her children.

[00:06:10]There's nothing she won't do for her children, including blackmailing the man that her youngest daughter fancies, forcing him to date her.

[00:06:24]But, it has to be a secret.

[00:06:29]>> [laughter] >> The mother's name is Trinity, and Trinity is bare-faced, hard-faced, and you could say is only really toxic to those outside her family.

[00:06:45]Unless there's a backlash.

[00:06:50]Miranda Priestly, the character from The Devil Wears Prada, has nothing on Trinity.

[00:06:59]Check this out. In fact, go and check out all of the stories I've talked about in this episode. So, a quick recap. They are Escorted by Clare Mackintosh, which was published in 2012.

[00:07:15]What Lies Between Us by John Marrs, which was published in 2020.

[00:07:24]Lethal by Summer Page was published in 2024.

[00:07:31]And Caught Out by me, Ann Butler, was published in 2025.

[00:07:38]Thanks for listening.

[00:07:42]So, you have been listening to Anne Butler, The Book Griffin.

[00:07:46]Please hit the like button if you enjoyed this episode.

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[00:07:58]If you would like to feature as an as an author on one of my book chats, then do let me know in the comments and I'll get back to you.

[00:08:13]See you next time.

[00:08:19]>> [music] [music]