About The Girl Before
Enter the world of One Folgate Street and discover perfection . . . but can you pay the price?
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.
My review of The Girl Before
The Girl Before was an absolute joy to read. It is dark, twisted and will have you hooked from the very beginning. This book is a physiological thriller and the story did make me feel uneasy from the mysterious and clinical setting of One Folgate Street. It is a captivating read.
The story is told from two points of view. We have the present day story in which Jane, who is the new tenant of One Folgate Street, tells her story, and we then hear Emma's point of view that is told from the past. She is the woman who died in mysterious circumstances while living there. Both stories are fascinating and as I read I wondered what connected these two women and how the house impacted upon their lives.
What does link them, and links the past to the present story, is Edward Monkton, the man who designed One Folgate Street and who is also the landlord. The concept behind this house truly fascinated me. This is a house which is minimalist to the extreme. There are no doors, you cannot leave anything on the floor. In fact the tenancy agreement comes with over 200 rules, so why would anyone want to live there? This is answered in the book and the reasons are believable.
This leads me on to Edward, who I couldn't really get to grips with, but, I think that this was the author's intention. I neither liked, nor disliked him, but felt that I could not be friend's with him. Strangely enough this is how I felt about Emma. However the character that truly intrigued me was Jane, and I did like her. No matter if you like or dislike these three characters, they are incredibly interesting and I needed to find out what happened to Emma. I also wondered if Jane would meet the same fate. That's the big driving force behind this book. What will happen to Jane, and who can she really trust? Does the past lie?
This book is incredibly dark, yet it is also sensual and playful at times. There is a huge undercurrent of desire, and the bones of the house seem to encourage this aspect. It is also a thriller of a read, that speeds up as we progress through it.
The Girl Before is a fascinating read and I was so pleased to read that it is soon to become a film. This book takes the domestic setting and turns it on its head it really is a clever psychological thriller.
The Girl Before is published by Quercus. It is available to read as an ebook and is available in paperback on 25 Jan. It can be found on Amazon here.
With thanks to the publisher and Bookbridgr for the advanced paperback copy, and to Alainna Hadjigeorgiou for inviting me on the blog tour.
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