Title: The Girl Before
Author: JP Delaney
Publisher: Quercus Books
I am very excited to be part of the blog tour for The Girl Before, a great new novel by JP Delaney (a pseudonym for another mystery author). It’s full of twists and turns; read on for my review below.
Yesterday’s blogger was Laura’s Little Book Blog; visit here. Tomorrow’s review is Crooks On Books; visit here.
[Synopsis]
Enter the world of One Folgate Street and discover perfection . . . but can you pay the price?
For all fans of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl comes this spellbinding Hitchcockian thriller which takes psychological suspense to the next level
Jane stumbles on the rental opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to live in a beautiful ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, on condition she abides by a long list of exacting rules. After moving in, she discovers that a previous tenant, Emma, met a mysterious death there – and starts to wonder if her own story will be a re-run of the girl before. As twist after twist catches the reader off guard, Emma’s past and Jane’s present become inexorably entwined in this tense, page-turning portrayal of psychological obsession.
Following in the footsteps of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, The Girl Before is being brought to the big screen. The film is set to be directed by Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard.
[My Review]
Having read the sampler for this novel (something I never usually do, but I was really intrigued by the premise), I knew I wanted to read the full version as soon as I could! It really hooked me in – and the book did exactly the same.
Now I do love the kind of genres that The Girl Before fits into – mainly mystery, suspense, psychological thrillers – so this might not apply to people who don’t, but I really enjoyed this book. I raced through it in record time. It’s easy to read, well-written and has plenty of twists and turns!
The characters are intriguing but largely annoying, though that is no doubt JP Delaney’s intention. I found Edward quite annoying as a person, due to his controlling nature and the way he seemed to pray on the (mainly) vulnerable women that live at One Folegate Street. He was rude, overbearing and a bit of a d*ck really. So, not someone I’d like to meet myself, and I can’t see why all these women would be throwing themselves at him (though I guess it happens all the time in every day life) but his character was obviously serving a purpose, and he was hard to work out, as a reader and for the house’s inhabitants themselves.
The two women, Emma and Jane, weren’t hugely likeable, and had their annoying habits. Emma especially got on my nerves, and some of her phrases to Edward (“Yes Please, Daddy” in particular) were particularly cringe-inducing. There were parts of their personality that you didn’t know whether to trust… I won’t give too much away about either of them as I don’t want to ruin anything, but as a reader you really feel like you have to question every character. No one is quite as they seem, and I really enjoy books that make me suspect everyone!
Then, of course, there’s the house itself, as a character almost in its own right. I could definitely conjure up a real image of what I imagine it to look like, and with news that the film rights have already been snapped up by Universal, with Ron Howard directing, I will be eager to see how it all translates onto the big screen!
This is definitely a riveting read that I got completely absorbed in – I raced through it in a day! It’s a little different and has a very interesting concept which I really enjoyed reading about. Definitely recommended!
Great review! 🙂
I felt very similarly about this book. In fact, I started to be quite impressed with how gripping a story he’d managed to write given just how unlikeable the characters were!!
That’s it – hard to create a great book with unlikable characters I think!
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