Utterly Engrossing

💛 The cover made me think thriller, but this is definitely more mystery. It’s about the discrepancy between perception and reality and the pitfalls in judging people. And I am HERE for it.

💚 The central characters, Suzie and Emily, are complicated and nuanced and thoroughly likable. Both start off as simple stereotypes based on the cursory opinions they had of each other. But after Emily goes missing, the missing details unfurl bit by bit to reveal so much more, all in time with the pace of Suzie’s search for her.
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SOUNDBITE

🎧 I basically listened to this in a day. I couldn’t get enough. It’s easy to digest and follow so it’s perfect for a commute or while doing other things. Meg Travers is understated in her performance, which I found refreshing for this genre. It gave me leeway to impose my own views on characters, while still conveying emotion.
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SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO...

This is a “The Girl” book by title, but genre-wise it doesn’t sit with the one “on the train” or the one “before”. I’d agree with the publisher’s comparison to Lisa Jewell, especially to her books The Girls and The House We Grew Up In in terms of tone.
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Big thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for providing me with an ALC in return for an honest review.

I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook.

Suzie and Emily are neighbours, but are not friends. Emily is very noisy and Suzie finds herself complaining about the noise a lot.

Until the noise stops. Suzie is convinced something has happened to Emily and starts investigating herself.

The story is told by Suzie’s perspective and starts a bit slow, the reader is left guessing, until the story starts being told by Emily perspective too and we start to find out more about what might have really happened.

I also found the style of writing very different to my usual, it was very descriptive, which was beautiful, but sometimes I found a bit annoying.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for letting me review this book.

Intriguing blurb but starts off extremely slow to the point I nearly gave up on it. I found Suzie wasn’t an interesting enough character to keep you interested and her constant inner thinkings did grate a little. The pace did pick up somewhat about half way through when you got another characters perspective but I found the plot somewhat unbelievable and certain details really bodering on the point of ridiculous. The outcome was a little out of left field and not much development towards it. I liked the narration and her voice did keep your attention. All in all wasn’t for me.

2.5/5 🌟🌟/🌟

Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for the opportunity to listen to and review this ARC that due to be published on the 9th of Dec.

Triple wow!!! It’s a good job I don’t have to get up for work in the morning; this audiobook was so good, I listened to it in a single sitting right through the night.! The narration throughout was absolutely spot on. Took me straight into each of the two central characters, Emily, the girl in question and Susie, her neighbour.

The plotting is superb. Perfectly paced, tense and with small reveals taking the listener deeper into the backstory of each with every chapter. Georgina Lees very cleverly explores grief, loss, obsession, friendship, familial ties and more in a satisfyingly complex emotional psychological thriller. At times I was frustrated with Susie, but began to realise more was going on than is first apparent. The same with Emily whose circumstances are totally different. There are so many twists it’s impossible to know how it will turn out. It’s rich in character detail, strong sense of location and there are few books that keep me totally engaged to the point of not sleeping because I need to hear more. Absolutely first class storytelling and I’m looking for more from this author.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley

I first read this book as an ebook, I enjoyed it so much that i listened to it again as an audiobook and found the narrator exceptional!

Wow, this book is mind blowing! Great, great read!!

It is a slow burner, so much so that I considered the possibility of giving up on it a few chapters in, but i'm so happy I didn't as this might as well be one of the best psychological thriller I've read this year.

There's so much depth to the story and the characters have so many layers that I was captivated by it and completely engrossed in it. I literally couldn't put it down and felt i just wanted to hug Suzie and Emily: it was very emotional for me to hear their side of the story and be privy to their real thoughts as opposed as to the actual facts only.

I highly recommend this book and I'll talk about it to anyone!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Suzie and Emily. Neighbours. But one knows everything about!?
When Emily is gone Suzie is the one that is investigating.
I would never understand this point of view but anyway. It has some secrets but not many turns or twists that would shock you. For those who do not need a gripping story this might be better.

Thank you to Netgalley and One More Chapter for this opoerunity.