In the Blood by Lisa Unger

This was my first time to read author Lisa Unger and I can't wait to catch up on her previous thrillers!  In the Blood is a great psychological  thriller - so many twists and turns that I absolutely did not see coming.  Very dark - very thought provoking as we learn about college student Lana Granger and all her problems.  She has led a very complicated life and her professor urges her to get her first job - babysitting troubled Luke (Of course the reader wants to say "No - don't take the job - run!").  Through flashbacks and a diary - we learn more about the past but we are not sure whose past we are learning about - again - lots of twists and turns!

Lots of thought provoking questions are still lingering after I finished and I would love to discuss - mental illness passed down from one generation to another - definition of psychopaths and what age can they be identified, how do you handle a difficult child, can a difficult birth cause problems in a child, how a troubled child affects a marriage, at what age can a child manipulate his/her parents, etc.
As I'm still thinking about this novel several days later, I'd give it 5 stars!  Dark good read!

Book Description from Amazon:

SOMEONE KNOWS LANA'S SECRET - AND HE'S DYING TO TELL.

LANA GRANGER LIVES A LIFE OF LIES. She has told so many lies about where she comes from and who she is that the truth is like a cloudy nightmare she can't quite recall. About to graduate from college and with her trust fund almost tapped out, she takes a job babysitting a troubled boy named Luke. Expelled from schools all over the country, the manipulative young Luke is accustomed to control­ling the people in his life. But, in Lana, he may have met his match. Or has Lana met hers? 

When Lana's closest friend, Beck, mysteriously disappears, Lana resumes her lying ways--to friends, to the police, to herself. The police have a lot of questions for Lana when the story about her where­abouts the night Beck disappeared doesn't jibe with eyewitness accounts. Lana will do anything to hide the truth, but it might not be enough to keep her ominous secrets buried: someone else knows about Lana's lies. And he's dying to tell. 

Lisa Unger's writing has been hailed as "stellar" (USA Today), "arresting and meaningful" (Washington Post) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press). Masterfully suspenseful, finely crafted, and written with a no-holds-barred raw power, In the Blood is Unger at her best.