The Woman In The Window is journalist A.J. Finn’s debut thriller and has received glorious acclaim having topped the New York Times Bestseller list in its first week. And it’s no wonder that Fox have bought the film rights, as this has all the makings of a major film. With its powerful Hitchcockian suspense, this book was a welcome distraction during a 6 hours’ wait for an operation and when I was awake enough to resume reading afterwards, helped to take my mind off any ensuing aches and pains!

Dr Anna Fox is a child psychologist, who is grappling with PTSD and suffering from agoraphobia to the extent that she has been house bound for the past 10 months. Prisoner in her own home in New York, she divides her time between drinking wine, popping pills, watching her extensive film noir collection, or spying on her neighbours and documenting their lives. She still cares about her previous child patients and tries to track how they’re doing online incognito. After joining an agoraphobia chat room, she finds herself counselling other sufferers once it becomes known that she’s a psychologist, but is defeated when it comes to following her own sound advice.

Anna is under a psychiatrist and is heavily medicated, but the outlook for any improvement in her condition seems unlikely. As she randomly swallows the pills and knocks back an endless stream of wine, she goes through each day with her mind in a fog. She is separated from her husband, Ed and 8 year old daughter, Olivia, whom she speaks to every day. We don’t know what the history is - is it because she’s an alcoholic, or had an affair? What happened that reduced a once confident and successful woman to this sad state of affairs? Some trauma has been hinted at, but we are forced to put our questions on hold as the plot takes over...

New neighbours move into number 207 across the street from Anna - Alastair and Jane Russell and their 16 year old son, Ethan. All three independently visit her and she particularly likes Jane and Ethan, but has reason to be wary of Alastair. As she trains her Nikon D5500 with its Opteka zoom lens on their house, she suddenly finds herself a witness to something so shocking that she can hardly believe her eyes. But if what Anna saw really happened, why will no one else substantiate it and what will it take for someone like her - doped up, unwashed and a drunk, who can’t even leave her house, to convince the police of what she saw?

Incredibly suspenseful, the reader is embroiled in a plot as sticky as treacle, so be prepared to discard what you think is happening, and do prepare yourself for a fraught and charged climax! An absolute treat to read and a remarkable new talent, who’s in a league of his own. Sit back and enjoy! I can’t wait to read more by A.J. Finn.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Harper Collins UK and A.J. Finn for the opportunity to read The Woman In The Window in return for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. There are a lot of twists in the plot and a slow build up of suspense. The ending is brilliant. I did not see it coming. I was totally blindsided by it. I think that Anna's fear of going outside and the way she feels has been captured perfectly. Anna's love of black and white films and her choice of film all tie in with the plot. This story has been well thought out and well put together. I would definitely recommend this book and I will be looking out for more books by this author.

The book starts slowly but the tension builds and the foibles of Anna, the main character are gradually revealed. Lots of film references might be confusing to some but I enjoyed them and then in the second half the book takes of and there is a totally unexpected twist.

Maybe a bit formulaic but what really counts is whether you are engrossed by a book - and I certainly was.

I was aware of a buzz around this book, I'd seen some of my favourite authors tweet about it etc. I can understand that now I've finished. It's a cracking thriller which revolves around a really interesting, extremely flawed main character. Thankfully I managed to keep faith with the narrator and as the plot develops her motivation / lack thereof becomes more clear. You begin to understand why she won't leave her house / can't seem to break out of her situation.

So this is the book that everyone is allegedly talking about! I really enjoyed it. It is very reminiscent of Paula Hawkins' Girl on a Train. Anna is suffering from agoraphobia after a traumatic incident. She drinks heavily, and self medicated with a variety of prescription drugs. She spends much of her time watching the comings and goings of her neighbours. One night she sees a stabbing take place in the house of a family who have recently moved in, but when she reports it, no one believes her. After all, she was probably hallucinating. This is a very pacy story with lots of twists. I can see that it will make a very good film. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
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Okay but this book was FANTASTIC. I sped through it faster than I actually thought I would and for a thriller, this really did impress me. For a novel blurbed by Gillian Flynn, I had high hopes and they were so well met. This cinematic, fast-paced thriller is perfect for early winter reading.

This novel follows Anna, an agoraphobic child psychiatrist who has been holed up in her home for over a year, watching over the other neighbours on a street in Harlem, New York. One day, however, Anna believes she witnesses the murder of a woman in the house opposite, and she spends her time struggling with how to make everyone believe that the murder was real.

Right from the very beginning, you see the obvious Hitchcock-ian influence on this book, particularly 'Rear Window', which this plot is almost entirely lifted from. Yet, it still manages to hold its own and present a chilling, twisting narrative that leaves you questioning whether or not what you're reading is real or not. It's actually ridiculous that I couldn't predict what was happening on the next page and I just completely devoured this book within a number of days.

Even with an incredibly unreliable narrator, you find yourself sympathising with Anna, especially as her back story is unfolded through a series of dreams and flashbacks. Her relationship with alcohol and the huge number of pills she's on to deal with her own mental health issues feel too real at times, particularly for someone who has struggled with it before, it's presented a really interesting character that I connected with.

For a guy writing a female character, I was incredibly impressed by his portrayal of Anna and how she wasn't demeaned to a 'sad, crazy woman'. She was interesting, complex and flawed- the way people should be writing strong, female characters. I hope AJ Finn continues to write such interesting fiction.

I loved this book. What a marvellous story with so many corkscrew twists and turns. There was a feeling of an old black and white Hitchcock movie throughout, the atmosphere was so tense and electric. I don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone, but the action takes place mostly either within the main character’s home or witnessed in the surrounding neighbourhood from her windows. I would recommend anyone who loves a psychological thriller and old-fashioned murder mystery to read it.

An interesting read that was a little different but I found there was something missing. Perhaps it was just that it didn’t live up to its hype.

An unreliable narrator is never going to be endearing but whilst I was keen to read on I didn’t get the satisfying pull that I usually get from a psychological thriller.

The use of the film noir and the quotes have it a different feel to other books of this nature but whilst it was a good read it didn’t knock my socks off!

3.75-4*

I would define The Woman in the Window as a dark thriller (I just made that category up, I don’t know if it’s real or not). It’s being made into a film (yes, even before it’s release as a book – I think that tells you everything you need to know). Unusually, I am actually looking forwards to the film because the book is so cinematic and has so many other film noir references that I think it could be made to look like a beautiful black and white Hitchcock style movie. I doubt this will actually happen but it would look AMAZING. Just saying, all-the-Hollywood-producers-who-don’t-read-my-reviews.

The book stars (do books have stars?) Anna, a psychologist living with agoraphobia which is so severe that she can’t leave the house. Unable to work and with alcohol dependency issues, she finds solace in online communities talking to other people in similar positions. Anna is also an avid watcher of people and knows everything that’s going on in her neighbourhood with the help of her trusty zoom lens camera. Most of the events that she glimpses are fairly mundane, until she spots what she believes to be a crime happening in the house next door. However, Anna’s diet of merlot and anti depressants make her a thoroughly unreliable narrator. Did she see what she thought she did? Is her mind playing tricks on her?

I read this book almost in one go, it was *that* good. Unfortunately, I started it in the bath, which made for one very cold and tired Lucinda so if you do decide to give it a read then please, make yourself comfortable before you begin. I really did find the novel unputdownable, it was so fast paced and there was so many twists and turns that kept me guessing right to the end. I did half work out part of what was going on but there was still enough red herrings included to make the outcome utterly unpredictable.

It’s at this point that I feel I should mention the elephant in the room – the comparison to Gone Girl. I fully expect the advertising for this book to begin with the line “fans of Gone Girl will love…” and it’s true that the overall “domestic drama” tag can be applied to both novels. Despite the similarities (unreliable narrator, female-centric, lots of twists and turns) there are also a lot of differences. Gone Girl is very much a 21st century novel, whereas The Woman in the Window has a much more vintage feel. Gone Girl has a major twist, The Woman in the Window has lots of little twists that help you to gradually build a picture of what’s going on. Gone Girl has a bit of a let down ending, The Woman in the Window finishes with a real bang. I loved both books but it’s important to note that The Woman in the Window is not the next Gone Girl, but a brilliant thriller in its own right.

I loved how beautifully dark and twisted The Woman in the Window was. Anna’s obsession with old black and white films, the restricted setting, the references to old Hollywood actresses all made the book feel like it was a revision of a play or an adaptation of a script from the 1950’s. I thought that the level of violence was just right – enough to provide a shock but not so much that it’s turned into a gore fest. The overall tone was a sense of foreboding dread, something that I think is really hard to maintain throughout an entire novel but which was dealt with brilliantly by the author.

I adored Anna’s character and I thought that her psychological problems were handled really well. It was good to see a middle class, educated person struggling with their mental health whilst also receiving treatment – usually if a character has money their problems are swept under the carpet. It was great that Anna’s character showed that depression and addiction can affect anyone and can be incredibly difficult to treat, regardless of how much you know your behaviour is irrational and self destructive.

The only teeny tiny criticism that I have of this book is the cover. Seriously, who came up with such a dull picture? I’ve also seen one that features the side of a building’s external fire escape (literally nothing to do with the story). I guess there’s been a very limited budget given to the artwork because I’m sure that once the film is released there’ll be a terrible “Now a major motion picture” cover but still, could they not have come up with something more intriguing in the meantime?

Overall, I absolutely loved this book. It had me gripped from the start and kept me in suspense right to the end. I loved the old Hollywood film noir feel juxtaposed with the gritty realism of alcoholism and depression. A great novel to get lost in.

The woman in the window is a fantastic debut novel by A.J.Finn and can't wait to see what comes next.
The woman in the window is Anna, she has had a traumatic past that gets drip fed to you over the course of the book. Anna cannot go outside and lives her life through the lens of her camera at one of her windows. Anna watches her neighbours comings and goings and finds out about them on the internet, to get through day to day life she depends heavily on merlot and antidepressants. I have to say the beginning was rather slow for me and I did wonder what all the hype was about but I loved the short chapters which are short and helped to make it feel as if it was really moving somewhere. Then the story picks up pace as she witnesses something in her neighbours window.....but did she, was it the alcohol and pills or did she really see what she thought she saw??
This was a fab thriller that kept me up till all hours to finish and I have to say the finish is worth it and I never guessed how this was going to plan out at all. I can't wait for the next one!!
I would like to thank Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

This book is hard to put down. The story has many "twist and turns and I did not see the end coming. It starts off quite slowly but the pacing gradually increases throughout the book all the way up until a tense and surprising ending. There was something menacing about the style of this book..... an unnerving feeling. If you enjoy Alfred Hitchcock psychological movies you will enjoy this. You will also enjoy the many old films quotes .

What a fantastic debut,

Anna Foxes story unfolds, she doesn't leave the house, but witnesses a murder.
This novel keeps you completely absorbed from the start. has great characters, plenty of twists and turns and an ending I just did not foresee.
What more can I say apart from .............JUST READ IT

Thank you netgalley, HarperCollins and A J Finn for allowing me to read and review this book.

There's been a veritable glut of psychological thrillers released over the last few years but when one comes recommended by the likes of Gillian Flynn and Stephen King, you have to sit up and take notice. I'm so glad I took a chance on this book because it's deserving of the hype and then some.

Child psychologist Anna Fox is trapped inside her New York apartment, suffering from agoraphobia and separated from her estranged husband and daughter, she lives her life through the activities of her neighbours. When a new family move in, Anna is quick to chart their movements and when she hears a scream and witnesses something terrible Anna calls the police only to find that no one believes her. Self medicating and drinking copious amounts of wine, Anna is the original unreliable narrator and witness. Obsessed with Hitchcock films and thrillers, Anna starts to wonder if what she saw was real or a hallucination.

The parallels with noir fiction are superbly done. Anna watches and references several of Hitchcock's films throughout the book and the writing has a real noir feel to it. A.J Finn is an excellent writer and while I'm not one to try and guess upcoming twists there were a couple in this book that virtually took my breath away. It's quite the cliche to call a book 'unputdownable' but it really does apply in this case as I found myself racing towards the ending.

This book is a cut above a lot of thrillers out there at the moment and the fact it's a debut makes it all the more stunning. An excellent book which I thoroughly enjoyed and would heartily recommend.

I received a free ARC from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

“A scream, raw and horrorstruck, torn from the throat”

Loved it, loved it, loved it! As a huge fan of Hitchcock and Hitchcockian films, The Woman in the Window was a must-read for me in 2018 and, in my opinion, totally holds up under the expectations placed upon it. From the tantalising opening to the thrilling climax, it is a completely compelling read that drew me in, wrapped me up and held me down until I was as much a prisoner of circumstance as Anna!

The book absolutely gripped me from the off and I could barely put it down: lunchtimes lengthened, bath water cooled around me, TV shows got rewound, paused and eventually switched off as I raced through it. There’s a constant drip drip drip of something not quite right throughout the story and you are constantly looking for clues to…well, you’re not even sure to what at first!

“…Les Diaboliques tonight. A rat-bastard husband, his “little ruin” of a wife, a mistress, a murder, a vanished corpse. Can you beat a vanished corpse?”

The plotting is fantastic and each chapter, while not necessarily ending on a cliffhanger, leaves you wanting more. I loved the structure and the deft style of planting the clues. I may have worked out one or two of the twists along the way but the final one was a kicker and the overall effect still floored me.

The book is also beautifully written, with a rhythmic style – almost poetic in places – and I highlighted lots of great lines on my Kindle. The descriptions, both of Anna’s feelings and of her surroundings are very artfully brought to life. My heart regularly broke for her on her emotional rollercoaster and I could absolutely envisage every inch of the beautiful but stifling town house, as well as her limited view of the world beyond.

“I remember dropping a glass onto the patio once; it burst like a bubble, merlot flaring across the ground and flooding the veins of the stonework, dark and bloody, crawling toward my feet”

Anna is a great character and a wonderfully unique narrator – vulnerable, fragile and fallible but also resolute, determined and decent; surprisingly, she is also frequently dry and often hilarious. I must admit that I was not expecting that from this book.

I lost count of the number of times I actually laughed out loud, re-read a perfectly constructed line and once again, highlighted it on my Kindle. Here are some choice examples, but there are dozens more:

“Second half bath, this one blued in ‘Heavenly Rapture,’ which is ambitious language for a room with a toilet.”

“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. DSM-5 for short…it sounds like a movie franchise. Liked Mental Disorders 4? You’ll love the sequel!”

“I scan my legs and torso with my hand, like I’m presenting a prize on a game show. You too can win this disused thirty-eight-year-old body!”

“I’m trapped in a police car fondling my fat. This is a new low.”

In summary, this book was pretty much everything I hoped it would be: thrilling, mysterious, exciting, dramatic and Hitchcockian. There are references to loads of my favourite films – Rear Window, Vertigo, The Lady Vanishes, they’re all in there, plus Gaslight, Charade, even shades of the more modern Copycat – but it is so much more than that.

With the added bonus of some witty lines, a marvellous lead in Anna and brilliant supporting characters, this is an incredible book and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

With thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollinsUK HarperFiction for the ARC of The Woman In The Window.

Insufferably self-absorbed, incredibly boring, agoraphobic alcoholic witnesses a murder in a house she regularly spies on and then does everything in her power to convince everyone she's insane and that the murder didn't happen.

Basic plot, flimsily dressed up as a smart psychological thriller. Author forgot to write in the psychological thriller part. 100% boring. Protagonist needed a nail gun to the head.

Plot twists were blatantly obvious long before they were 'revealed'. Unrealistic characters and flawed logic. Shit-loads of plot convenience.

99% filler.

Wouldn't wish this book on my worst enemy.

Would never read anything from the author again if my life depended on it.

0/5*

Marked as 'the book of 2018' with the film rights snapped up, is this the new woman on the train? The new gone girl? Well it stands up with them on its own merit.

Anna is an agoraphobic, struggling with alcohol, self medication and the separation from her husband and daughter. When she witnesses an incident in a window opposite her house, can she make sense of it all?

This is quite an eerie read and without giving the ending away it's a teeny bit predictable but still a brilliant read. The question is who would play Anna in the film!
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

The Woman in the Window is an intense, suspenseful thriller which I hugely enjoyed, from the very first page to last. The characters, though odd in their own ways (main protagonist Anna certainly has her quirks, and at times I was a little frustrated at her decisions, but I loved reading about her anyway) made for really great reading; there are plenty of characters whose integrity come into question, which I loved – in fact, even Anna, whose eyes we see the whole story through, made me doubt her at times. I felt bad doing so, because that’s exactly what everyone else is doing, but she’s certainly not helping herself – and there’s some strange underlying themes which can be a little uncomfortable to read about, but which only intrigued me more!

The story itself is slightly surreal at times, with strange things occurring and lots of ‘half-truths’ and ‘sort-of-seen’ things from Anna’s point of view to confuse the reader as you try and work out what is really happening – is she uncovering something very important in her neighbourhood or is it actually all in her head? Again, I loved this element of uncertainty; it only made me want to read on and try to work out what was happening…

I sort of guessed some aspects of the story, but there were also some fun twists and surprises along the way. I ended up racing through this in no time and would certainly like to read more from Anna.

Overall I found this a hugely absorbing and fun read which I couldn’t put down! The pacing is just right and I feel it definitely holds its own among the various heavyweights in this genre; it’s different enough to stand out but with enough mystery and twists to keep it classed as an excellent psychological thriller!

Of all the many psychological thrillers that are released this one stands out for all the right reasons. I had been looking forward to reading this book for some time and I’m happy to say I was not disappointed.

The Woman in the Window was exactly what I hope for when reading a book in this genre. It was creepy, full of suspense and it twisted and turned in ways I did not foresee and I was completely absorbed from start to finish.

Anna Fox is a former child psychologist who lives alone, although she still talks to her husband and daughter. As an agoraphobic she focuses most of her attention, between drinking too much and taking too many pills, on watching her neighbours and going on Internet forums. Her only human contact is form her lodger in the basement and one or two other visitors, such as her physical therapist.

The characterization was great and I felt sad for Anna at times, as she veered between, on the one hand, trying to deal with various issues in her life and, on the other, trying to anaesthetise them.

As the ultimate unreliable narrator, it’s no surprise that when Anna witnesses a crime being committed in her neighbours’ house nobody believes her. But that’s just the start…

I don’t want to say any more and spoil it for others, so I will finish by telling you to read this book. You will not be disappointed.

Anna Fox suffers from agoraphobia, the fear of being outside, and for the last ten months she has been inside her house watching old movies, counseling online other people who are agoraphobic like her, taking medications and drinking an alarming quantity of wine. In her former life, Anna was a child psychologist married to Ed with whom she has a daughter, Olivia. But now Ed and Olivia are gone and Anna only talks to them on the phone.

Anna spends her days spying on the neighbors and, at the moment, she is drawn to the Russells, the family who just moved next door: Alistair and Jane and their sixteen-year-old son Ethan. Anna starts to spy on them from her window but one night she sees something terrible, something that she wasn’t supposed to see. But when no one believes her story, Anna has to take the matter in her own hands.

What I loved about this book is that Anna is an unreliable character. The story is told in first person but, because of her drinking and medications and because of her psychological situation, you don’t know if she is telling the truth. As the truth about her past, about the cause of her phobia slowly unravels, the suspense raises and I couldn’t wait to read what would happen next.

If the first book I read this year is anything to go by, this is going to be a great year book-wise. THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW is the terrific, remarkable, and engrossing exploration inside a woman’s mind, her fears, her guilt, and her hopes. A. J. Finn’s writing is superb, captivating, and keeps you glued to the page. I loved the attention to details and the descriptions of Anna’s feelings are so vivid and evocative that I could really feel for her.

If you loved The Girl On The Train you will adore this. Unreliable drunk main character, she spies on people, she sees something horrible, nobody believes her. The right ingredients for the perfect thriller. Add an Hitchcockian setting and you have an unputdownable book.

Full of complex and well-drawn characters, a well-developed, twisty, and completely absorbing novel, suspenseful but also a bit emotional, I stayed up late at night reading and I refused to go to bed until I reached the end which resulted in me going to work next morning sleep-deprived but a very satisfied and happy reader.

OUTSTANDING.......
Clever clever writing by A.J Finn I was totally intrigued from the first page and had to finish in one sitting. I had no idea what was waiting for me from page to page I was absolutely gobsmacked with the truth. On tenterhooks.. brilliant