The Inheritance REVIEW

• Date Published:
  2025
• Length:
  352 pages—Listening Time: 10 hours 39 minutes
• Genre:
  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
• Setting:
  Present day; Eilean Kilbryde, a fictional, remote private island off the rugged west coast of Scotland
• Awards:
  Edgar Award Nominee Novel 2026; The Times (London) and Sunday Times Best Books of the Year Nominee Crime Fiction 2025; NPR: Books We Love 2025
• Languages:
  English
• Sensitive Aspects:
  Strong language, murder, violence and blood, domestic abuse, child abuse and neglect, childhood trauma, references to rape, miscarriage, infertility, premature birth and infant loss, death of a child or sibling, fatal fire, alcohol misuse, infidelity, emotional manipulation and controlling family relationships, historical forced displacement and mass death
• Movie:
  The Inheritance is officially being adapted as a television series. The television rights were acquired by The Big Bang Theory star Kunal Nayyar through his production banner, Good Karma Productions.
• Recommended for Book Club:
  Yes

If you think your family has problems—really, truly, “we’re not discussing that at Thanksgiving” problems—then the family in The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha will make yours look like the Cleavers. Suddenly, the sibling who never pays you back seems almost charming. And that aunt who turns every gathering into an interrogation? Give the woman another slice of cake. Things could be considerably worse.

You could be spending your holiday with the Agarwals.

Sakhlecha brings this wealthy family together on a private island off the west coast of Scotland, where a reunion comes with something considerably more tempting than quality time: the prospect of a substantial inheritance. Patriarch Raj has decisions to make about his business empire, and his adult children have plenty riding on the outcome. It’s the sort of gathering where “We’re just happy to see you” deserves a raised eyebrow—and possibly an accountant.

The setting alone is an invitation to settle in. A secluded island. A wealthy family. Enough unresolved tension to make you grateful you weren’t assigned a guest room. But the real draw isn’t simply watching privileged people behave badly. Entertaining as that can be, there has to be something underneath the expensive upholstery.

Here, it’s loyalty—and the uncomfortable business of deciding what that word actually requires of us. Beneath the family’s polished exterior are secrets, resentments, and competing claims on one another. Protecting the people you love isn’t necessarily an innocent undertaking, and Sakhlecha makes that distinction central to the story.

That’s where this book draws its hooks into you. It presents moral quandaries that invite a much more personal question than “Which of these people should I trust?” How far would you go to protect your family? Would you lie for them? Put your own happiness aside? Support a decision you knew was wrong because refusing felt like betrayal?

It’s easy to announce your principles when nobody you love is testing them.

The more unsettling question is whether you’d recognize the moment your support became complicity—or whether you’d keep calling it love.

If your favorite family dramas give you both deliciously uncomfortable encounters and something substantial to argue about afterward, The Inheritance has an enticing premise: come for the money and secrets, stay for the questions about what people owe their families. Those competing demands of love, self-preservation, and obligation give this thriller its darker edge.

Just don’t expect the Agarwals to improve your faith in family vacations.

Spoiler-Free

A private Scottish island sounds like the perfect place for a family celebration. For the wealthy Agarwals, though, the guest list comes with plenty of baggage.

In The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha, the family gathers to celebrate Raj and Shalini’s wedding anniversary. But there’s another reason everyone’s eager to attend: Raj, who built a successful business empire in Delhi, is preparing to announce his succession plans. His three adult children have very different ideas about what they deserve—and plenty of reasons to want their father’s decision to go their way.

Hosting the reunion is Myra, the eldest daughter and owner of the island, whose ambitious plans for a luxury retreat conceal serious financial trouble. Her brother, Aseem, appears positioned to inherit the family business, but he’s caught between his responsibilities to his family and his marriage to Zoe. Meanwhile, youngest sibling Aisha is tired of being dismissed as the irresponsible baby of the family. Nobody arrives without expectations, and nobody is telling the whole truth.

For Zoe, marrying into the Agarwals hasn’t meant becoming one of them. Beneath her carefully curated life lies a much less comfortable reality, and this gathering brings the tension between belonging to the family and maintaining her independence into sharp focus. Shalini, meanwhile, hopes her husband’s retirement will finally give them time together after years shaped by the demands of his business.

As competing interests and hidden pressures threaten the family’s polished image, the reunion becomes something far more dangerous than an argument over money. Set against the island’s isolation, The Inheritance follows a family whose claims of love and loyalty are increasingly difficult to separate from control, obligation, and self-interest—with deadly stakes.

Here are reasons I think you might enjoy The Inheritance:

Perspective

Your family’s disagreements may look positively manageable after a visit with the Agarwals. If you enjoy fictional family drama from the safe distance of your favorite chair, their competing expectations, concealed problems, and strained loyalties give you plenty to sink into. Nobody needs you to referee, either.

You’ll understand the pressure—even when you don’t approve of the behavior

Most of us aren’t waiting for a share of a business empire, but wanting a parent’s approval? Feeling overshadowed by a sibling? Trying to keep your partner happy without upsetting your family? Those pressures give this wealthy family’s troubles a surprisingly familiar edge.

You’ll have reasons to question your own boundaries

It’s easy to say you’d always do the right thing. It gets harder when doing it might hurt someone you love. The book’s tangled loyalties invite you to consider where protecting your family ends and making excuses for them begins—the kind of moral discomfort that keeps a story on your mind afterward.

You’ll get that delicious “something is very wrong here” feeling

A secluded Scottish island, a family under pressure, and secrets nobody wants exposed: this isn’t a holiday you’d want to book, but it’s an inviting place to spend a few reading hours. The tension grows out of people forced into close quarters with far too much left unsaid.

You’ll recognize how exhausting it is to be the outsider

Through Zoe, who has married into the Agarwals, the story explores the uncomfortable distance between being connected to a family and truly belonging to it. If you’ve ever felt you were being assessed rather than welcomed, that part of the story may strike a nerve.

You’ll have more to chew on than the mystery

The Inheritance isn’t simply a tempting pile of money; it brings questions of entitlement, duty, and parental influence into the open. Watching those interests collide gives you something to think about alongside the suspense: what, exactly, do grown children owe their parents—and what are parents entitled to expect in return?

You’ll have plenty to argue about at book club

Who deserves sympathy? When does loyalty become harmful? Can you understand someone’s choices without forgiving them? The family’s conflicting obligations make this promising territory for a discussion where “I couldn’t stand that character” is the beginning of the conversation, not the end.

If the Agarwals left you craving more family dysfunction, dangerous secrets, and money with strings attached, these eight books deserve a place on your reading list. The first six lean toward mystery and suspense; the final two put family relationships and moral dilemmas front and center.

Not a Happy Family by Shari Lapena
After a wealthy couple is murdered following an uncomfortable Easter dinner, their three adult children face scrutiny—and each stands to inherit millions. The novel became a Sunday Times bestseller. Like The Inheritance, it turns parental control, sibling resentment, and anticipated wealth into a combustible mixture, making it a particularly strong choice if you enjoyed wondering whether anyone’s affection could survive an audit.

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman
Newly engaged novelist Harriet Reed is drawn into her fiancé’s powerful, old-money family, only to receive a disturbing recorded confession from its patriarch and become entangled in increasingly sinister family traditions. The novel was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Book of the Month selection. If Zoe’s uneasy position within the Agarwal family fascinated you, Harriet’s introduction to a wealthy clan with its own alarming rules offers another gripping exploration of belonging, power, and tests of loyalty.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley
A glamorous wedding on a remote Irish island brings together guests carrying old grievances and carefully guarded secrets, until the celebration ends in death. The novel won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller and was selected for Reese’s Book Club. It’s an especially satisfying match for The Inheritance if you loved the isolated setting, shifting perspectives, and tension of a celebration where the smiles conceal something much uglier.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Ernest Cunningham reluctantly attends a reunion at a remote mountain resort, where a snowstorm traps his deeply troubled family just as bodies begin to accumulate. The novel was shortlisted for the 2023 BookPeople Fiction Book of the Year award. It delivers another family gathering with lethal consequences and complicated loyalties, but its playful, self-aware narration makes it a good pick when you want your dysfunctional-family mystery served with a generous helping of dark humor.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
When twenty-five-year-old Libby Jones inherits a valuable London mansion, she begins uncovering the disturbing history of her birth family and the people who once shared their home. The novel was an instant New York Times bestseller and a Good Morning America Cover to Cover Book Club pick. If The Inheritance drew you in with the darker side of family bonds, this unsettling story offers another inheritance that comes with far more emotional baggage than its recipient could possibly anticipate.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Teenager Cadence Sinclair returns to her wealthy family’s private island, struggling to recover her memories of a summer that changed everything. The novel won the 2014 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction and earned a place on the American Library Association’s Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Although written for a young-adult audience, its island setting, privileged family, destructive secrets, and questions about the consequences of loyalty make it a compelling companion to The Inheritance.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
Four adult siblings must confront their financial expectations and long-standing resentments when their reckless older brother jeopardizes the shared trust fund they’ve been counting on. The novel debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list and rose to No. 2 the following week. Choose this one if the Agarwals’ dependence on an expected windfall interested you as much as the murder mystery: it trades deadly suspense for sharp, often funny observations about what happens when people build their lives around money they don’t yet possess.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
In carefully ordered Shaker Heights, Ohio, an affluent family’s life becomes entwined with an artist and her teenage daughter, while a disputed adoption exposes conflicting beliefs about motherhood, privilege, and belonging. The novel was selected for Reese’s Book Club and adapted into a television miniseries. Less a conventional thriller than a simmering family drama, it’s a strong choice if The Inheritance left you wrestling with moral quandaries about protecting loved ones—and questioning who gets to decide what a good family looks like.

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