Fifteen years ago, Gemma went to a party with her classmates to celebrate exam results. The next day, she was not the girl she used to be.

Flash forward to present day in this work of psychological fiction. Gemma is married to Joe and they have a son named Rory. She owns her own business, an estate agency, and Joe is a stay-at-home carer for their child. Gemma works all the time trying to make a go of her business and has several employees. She doesn't think anything of David Sanderson when he comes into the office wanting to be shown some properties and she takes him around but he doesn't buy anything. When Gemma meets him later when she is out of town at a conference, it seems natural for her to offer to buy him dinner -- after all, it's business and he is a client so she can write it off. Great conversation and two bottles of wine later, Emma barely makes it to her room before passing out. Her hangover the next day is fierce. She returns home and gets back to work. It's then that the trouble begins -- in the form of a copy of the restaurant bill sent in the mail. More incriminating pieces are sent and Gemma knows that she can lose everything if her husband finds out that she has not been truthful. NO SPOILERS.

The reader experiences the tension as the blackmailing escalates and Gemma is in a state of anxiety not knowing what to do. Of course we want her to just TELL JOE already, and go to police and figure out what is going on, but Gemma has her own way of doing things and wants to figure out who is behind this and why. It was an easy, fast read and the conclusion was satisfying and it all turns out the way you would expect.

Gemma Brogan works non-stop to make her real estate company a success. Her husband is a stay-at-home dad, which is a help to Gemma’s career but she wants more time with their son. She begins to resent her husband not working and the amount of time he spends with their son. However, there’s not much she can do about that now. She’s the one bringing in the money.

Then, during a work conference she meets with a client and has a bit too much to drink. She complains about her husband and she shares a kiss with the client. Gemma had so much to drink that she doesn’t remember any of it. When she receives a photo and video of the evening, she panics. Her marriage had enough problems, she didn’t need something she doesn’t even remember. It’s not long before she realizes, this situation is much more indepth than she suspects. It goes way back to a horrible event that occurred fifteen years ago. An event that left permanent scars.

This is a gripping story that keeps you on your toes. It’s about a woman trying to get on with her life after a tragic teenage event nearly destroyed her. It’s about a couple trying to come up with a fair way to raise their son and make their financial situation doable. It’s also a tale about revenge and betrayal. Thanks to annonymous threats, it’s also about a woman who becomes paranoid. Her life is torn apart.

The Girl I Used To Be is captivating to say the least. I enjoyed trying to untangle the webs of the story Gemma and others in her life created. The characters are well-written and vividly portrayed.

It is a full length novel, but I sped right through it. I had to know what was going to happen next. I am definitely going to check out this author’s backlist and keep her on my “must read” author list. She had my attention from page one and never let me go. Great job!

A wonderful, psychological thriller that will make you wonder what you would do if this happened to you!!!

I am a big fan of Mary Torjussen’s last book Gone Without a Trace. As a psychologist, I always find books that deal with the character’s mindset effectively to be so compelling, and this is an area Mary really excels in as an author. This book was one I read in two days (which, for someone who works full-time and has a dissertation to write is quite an endorsement). The steady building of suspense in this book had the reader feeling slightly off-kilter along with the protagonist—and that is what made it so hard to put down! I found myself skipping my lunch break to read a bit more, and turning down plans for drinks after work because I just had to know what would happen next!

PLOT

Gemma owns her own real estate business and loves her career. She has a wonderful husband and a beautiful son, but she also has some darkness in her past. Though Gemma loves her husband and they agreed for him to stay home with their young son while she builds her business, she finds herself occasionally resenting the time he gets with their son. But Gemma would never do anything to jeopardize the family she loves so much.

Until one day, Gemma is out with a client for dinner, and the next thing she knows she wakes up alone in her hotel room with no memory of the night and a blistering hangover… Gemma would never cheat on her husband, but she can’t seem to remember the events of the evening. Sure, she used to be a heavy drinker, but that is in her past, isn’t it?

As Gemma tries to shake off the sense of unease she had that fateful night, she begins getting reminders in the mail. First, she receives a receipt from that night. But why would the hotel mail her a copy of her receipt? Then, she gets a photo of her kissing someone who is not her husband in the hotel. As Gemma’s world begins to unravel, and the reminders get increasingly threatening, Gemma wonders if she will ever remember what happened that night, and if she does, will it be too late to save her marriage??

REFLECTION

Wow, I loved this book! Though I loved Mary’s first book, there is never a guarantee that the second one will live up to the first. In fact, often it is hard for an author to write a book that lives up to what was loved about the first book—but Mary Torjussen has done it! This book was very different in terms of the plot and characters from her first book, but the writing elements I loved were still there.

The slow but steady build in suspense was masterful. At the beginning, this could have just been a book about the struggles of work and marriage. And yet, there was always the sense of unease. That sense built throughout the book until the plot burst onto the page. I found myself at about 35% in shock and horror about what was happening. I couldn’t imagine being in Gemma’s spot! What would I do??? And the memory gap was masterful. The notion throughout the book that you can almost grasp the memory, but it escapes you—that is something we can all understand, and it really added to the suspense.

I loved Gemma. She was damaged yet strong. Shockingly strong, in fact. In so many of these psychological thrillers, the protagonist is such a mess, but Gemma was not that way. And for that reason, it was easy to put yourself in her place. To imagine what would happen if you were forced to keep a secret from those you love most, in part because you’re not entirely sure about what the secret is!

I want to thank the author Mary Torjussen for facilitating this Advanced Reader Copy for review. I also want to thank Berkley and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book honestly and fairly.

The Girl I Used to Be is really about two girls and how one fateful night changed them dramatically. The premise of lost memories and blackmailing is absolutely intriguing. The haunting memories of Gemma’s past magnify the frightening situation she currently finds herself in. Author Mary Torjussen slowly sets up her main narrator, Gemma, through the first half of the book. The daily tedium of her job, the longing to have more time with her son, Rory, and the resentment towards her stay-at-home husband is absolutely draining. Whether you abhor or tolerate cheating, it is easy to empathize with Gemma’s need for some attention.

However, in part two of the book, the plot tension ramps and the action picks up dramatically. The blackmail threats make Gemma fearful, but it doesn’t feel like there is much of a physical threat. Certainly, the situations are uncomfortable, and the fear of her husband finding out is palpable. When Gemma stumbles onto a major clue, she becomes the amateur sleuth who solves not only the blackmailing mystery, but she also exposes a manipulative socio-path.

The Girl I Used to Be is a story of jealously, malice, and revenge. Gemma is an interesting character, her protégé’s behavior is a bit questionable, and the antagonist is truly evil. The untenable situation they find themselves in will have you on the edge of your seat.

3.5 stars

When Gemma Brogan gave birth to her son she and her husband agreed that he would be the one to stay at home and care for their child while she got her real estate business up and running. Now four years later Gemma is beginning to resent being the only bread winner in the marriage and the long hours she puts in at the office although she still loves her family.

When a business trip calls Gemma away she gets a bit upset again when her husband had already put their son to bed and she missed talking to him. Frustrated to yet again miss out she heads out of her room and runs into a client who invites her to dinner. The night led to a lot of talking and quite a few drinks which left Gemma kicking herself for the hangover in the morning but when Gemma begins to receive threatening messages she begins to wonder just what happened that night she can’t recall.

The Girl I Used to Be by Mary Torjussen is a psychological thriller that is mostly told from Gemma’s point of view in the present but it does switch the point of view and include flashes back to past events in a few places. The story is one that is super easy to follow and everything flows along nicely though.

After reading Gone Without a Trace last year I knew when I saw The Girl I Used to Be I needed to pick this one up and thankfully yet again I found a book that was easy to get lost in as the story unfolded. As expected I found that just when you think you know what is going on there will be another twist and layer added in to change up the story and keep one guessing and the pages turning.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Well written characters but the plot was pretty predictable.

Fifteen years ago Gemma was excited about the possibilities the world had to offer but the events of the graduation party changed her. She had a rough time putting her life back together but now runs her own real estate business, is married and has a little boy. All should be good but lots of little things are starting to take their toll.

Her business, while it makes her happy and she feels successful, really does take a lot of time away from her family. She often catches herself feeling resentful of the time her stay-at-home husband spends with their son, Rory. She’s glad Rory is being taken care of by her husband but she thought the plan was for Joe to eventually find a job. Now he’s even talking about moving to Dublin to be closer to his family but no plans of finding work.

When she’s not worried about her home life, the success of her agency keeps her awake at night. Houses and apartment rentals aren’t moving very fast and she has commitments to her employees as well. Life of a small business owner is definitely stressful but when she has a training conference to attend in London she’s excited to think about a night at the hotel, getting some sleep and being away from it all.

At the bar before the conference Gemma runs into a client she was trying to find a house for. She decides to treat him to dinner but after drinks and stumbling back to her room, things are a bit fuzzy in her mind. All she knows is she can’t wait to get back home to her husband and son and put everything behind her but that’s going to be hard to do when she starts receiving incriminating messages and photos.

Gemma is going out of her mind and she just wants everything to stop. She wants things to go back to the way they were but first she has to get to the bottom of things.

This was a very suspenseful thriller. I loved how real Gemma’s worries seemed about work and life. She was the everyday woman trying to keep up with children, bills, work, chores, and marriage. So you couldn’t fault her for wanting one evening for a bit of fun unfortunately her decisions are going to have some serious consequences.

I haven’t read this author before but now I want to go and check out some of her earlier books.

After reading Gone Without A Trace last year, when I saw Mary Torjussen's new book on NetGalley I had to hit the request button. I couldn't remember, at the time, what my rating for that book was, but I do remember liking her writing style and was excited when I received the email telling me I was approved for this title.

What Torjussen does well is hooking you right from the start. Immediately you're brought right into the story until you get to Part 2, where the twist comes into play. While it's not throat punchy, it definitely does get your attention. The issue for me isn't that I expected that twist, because I certainly wasn't expecting THAT to happen. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, I had lost a tiny bit of interest. I went back to my review for Gone Without A Trace and realized it was due to the same reasons. It feels a bit repetitive at times and UFF, the husband - how ANNOYING was HE?! (Great job in making me hate this guy - 🤣.) When Part 2 comes in, then my interest gets piqued again. Where is she going to go with this? Will Gemma figure it out? Just how bad will this person go with these pictures to get to her and WHY is he doing this? All questions I need answered. We finally do get the answers ... but it's done a bit abruptly. What WAS supposed to happen at midnight? This never really got resolved. Among a few other questions I still have...

There's not doubt Torjussen brings us a fun and twisted story. This story is easy to read and perfect for those who like the lighter thriller without any out of the world twists that shake you to the core. I certainly will continue to see what she brings to the table. 🙂

This is a fast paced mystery. Gemma works day and night while her husband stays home with their son. Her real estate business was doing great but has taken a hit with the economy so instead of hiring more people Gemma just takes on the work herself.

A seemingly wealthy client shows up at a convention Gemma is at and secretly drugs her and takes potentially damning photos of her. When Gemma wakes up the next day with a wicked hangover her lies begin. Hoping to save her marriage and not really sure what happened the night before Gemma finds herself lying to her husband while trying to cover her tracks. What she doesn't realize is how close to home this sabotage really is.

This is a twisted tale that kept me second guessing myself. I didn't trust certain characters despite what seemed like good intentions. The story doesn't just stay in the present as it has ties to the past as well. I'm uncertain about the ending, I'm just not sure that her husbands reactions are realistic but lets say I have hope for him turning out to be a nice guy instead of the asshole that I was finding him through most of the book.

Gemma leads a busy life! Her husband Joe, has it pretty good. (Not that taking care of your toddler isn't a full time job), Gemma works full time and has to come home to a disaster all the time. Her life story is realistic and believable which makes it even more creepy when the plot thickens! 
Something happened to Gemma when she was a teenager that you know was traumatic but didn't find out just how horrible it was until much later in the book which adds to the suspense! 
What I love about every good thriller is the author's ability to intertwine the stories of the characters! Mary Torjussen does just that! She releases shocking details at just the right pace to keep you biting your nails and turning the pages. As the creepy plot thickens, you will feel incredibly connected to Gemma and your accelerated heart beat will not doubt mimic hers. 
If you fancy the kind of book where you get attached to the characters, root for them, plan the villains demise as you read, and then happen upon a twist that will have you gasping... you found your read! Now... go buy it, pre order it, borrow it... whatever it takes. It's that good!

Real estate agent Gemma Brogan runs a growing business and adores her small son. But with her increasingly strained marriage, an overnight business trip comes as a welcome break from her hectic life. And when Gemma agrees to an impromptu dinner with a prospective client at the hotel, it seems she might kill two birds with one stone.
The following morning Gemma wakes up disoriented, suffering from a pounding headache. She struggles to recall the previous night’s events but quickly realizes there is far more to regret than a few too many glasses of wine. Soon she begins receiving incriminating mementos from that night: A photo of a hallway kiss. A video of her complaining about her husband. And worse…much worse. Unable to remember any of it, Gemma’s life quickly spirals out of control. Soon, her increased paranoia and fear begin to trigger frightening memories from another dark night in her past, which changed everything—and is perhaps not buried as deep as she believed.

Gemma leads a busy life! Her husband Joe, has it pretty good. (Not that taking care of your toddler isn't a full time job), Gemma works full time and has to come home to a disaster all the time. Her life story is realistic and believable which makes it even more creepy when the plot thickens!
Something happened to Gemma when she was a teenager that you know was traumatic but didn't find out just how horrible it was until much later in the book which adds to the suspense!
What I love about every good thriller is the author's ability to intertwine the stories of the characters! Mary Torjussen does just that! She releases shocking details at just the right pace to keep you biting your nails and turning the pages. As the creepy plot thickens, you will feel incredibly connected to Gemma and your accelerated heart beat will not doubt mimic hers.
If you fancy the kind of book where you get attached to the characters, root for them, plan the villains demise as you read, and then happen upon a twist that will have you gasping... you found your read! Now... go buy it, pre order it, borrow it... whatever it takes. It's that good!

Thank you Netgalley for my free copy. I was a huge fan of Mary's last book, I really enjoyed it, so when I saw this one pop up on Netgalley, I jumped on it. While I enjoyed it, I didn't love it. I figured out the outcome fairly fast, so maybe the reason I didn't necessarily love this book is my own fault. I do think Mary is a great writer, and this book will be enjoyed by many. It just wasn't a great fit for me.

Amazing book. Full of twists, turns, thrills, chills, sadness, and achievement. I thought I had figured it out, but I was wrong, because the author had so many twists involved, you'd not be able to believe it would end that way! I know the subject was researched thoroughly before, evident by what was said in areas of the book. I also thought it ended perfectly. A high recommendation for my fellow disturbing thriller lovers!

Gripping psychological thriller, with plenty of twists

Gemma is working 7 days a week building up her estate agency business whilst her husband looks after their son. A quick drink during a business trip away has horrible repercussions and things quickly spiral out of Gemma's control, both at work and at home.

Though Gemma and her husband love each other, small things are not right with their marriage, but there is never enough time to sit down and sort things out. Then the business trip takes place, and plunges Gemma into a chilling series of events that result in her telling a series of small lies to her husband, which then mount up and turn an explainable event into something unbelievable.

Set mostly near Chester, in England, this is a thriller with many cliffhangers and, about half way through, a massive twist which makes the story even more chilling. Meanwhile more discord looms in Gemma's marriage, and Gemma is scared as to how it is all going to end.

An unsettling and very gripping psychological thriller, that had me absorbed throughout as I waited to see what Gemma would do next. 4*s from me, as some of the themes were too dark for me, however I couldn't stop reading it - I just had to know how it would all end.

The Girl I Used to Be by Mary Torjussen is a wonderful twisty read that you will zoom through in order to reach the very satisfying conclusion. Gemma is mostly happily married to the love of her life and is a very happy mom to her 3 year old son. While away for a training Gemma encounters a former real estate client and they grab dinner together. Soon after that dinner that Gemma barely remembers she begins to receive disturbing items that leave her wondering just what really happened during her night away. This book is sure to give you whiplash with all of the twists and turns in the plot. Read and enjoy!

This thriller was enjoyable to read. It had some great plot twists. It was definitely a page turner. I would recommend it.

Read all my reviews at: https://brainfartsandbooks.wordpress.com

Ok wait. What is going on here? I asked myself this question so many times while reading this book. Not because I didn’t understand the story or that it wasn’t written clearly, but because the author had me guessing at every turn. I suspected everyone throughout the book and just when I thought I knew what was going on…BAM!! A big door opens and oops! Wrong again!

Gemma’s past is something she’d like to forget. After getting wasted at a party and groggily waking up to find her clothing disheveled and underwear off while a guy leaves the room, she accuses Alex or rape. The charges were dropped due to the untimely scheduling of a family vacation by Gemma’s parents, and Gemma has tried to put it behind her. Fast forward to present day and Gemma is married to her great stay-at-home Dad husband. She has a job at a property agency and is the top dog. One evening, Gemma is at a business convention and she runs into a prospective client who she had shown around town. She ends up having dinner with him and can’t remember the rest. Did she sleep with him? Certainly she would have remembered it? Over the next few days, Gemma receives threatening messages and pictures showing her kissing the man she had gone out to dinner with. What exactly is going on? All of the little pieces of this books fall together nicely in the end and five the reader that big A-HA moment we are all waiting for. A juicy, thrilling read.

Thank you to Netgalley, Mary Torjussen and Berkley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Imagine, out of the blue, being terrorized and blackmailed by a stranger, claiming to “know what you’d done”… but you, having no memory at all of what the “what” in question actually was. Such is the premise of Mary Torjussen’s chilling psychological suspense, The Girl I Used to Be.
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During a rare night away from her family while attending a conference, (mostly) happily-married businesswoman Gemma Brogan has far too much to drink while dining with a potential client. The next morning, she wakes up in her hotel room—alone, in her underwear—with a savage hangover… and no memory of most of the previous evening.

Ashamed—and completely unsettled by the whole experience—she returns home to her husband and young son, vowing never to put herself in a similar position again (and to put what little she can remember of that whole weekend out of her mind).

Someone else has no intention of letting her forget, though… because a month later, a mysterious envelope arrives at her office, with nothing but a photograph inside: an image of Gemma, kissing a man in the shadows of a hotel hallway.

When she's contacted a second time, she begins wondering just how many photos of her there might be... how compromising they are... and where they might turn up next.

But the terrorizing of Gemma has only just begun…
______________________________

The Girl I Used to Be falls in line with the recent crop of psychological-thrillers-with-a-twist (begun a few years ago with Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl), and it does so, mostly skillfully; the twist (which I am not referencing here even obliquely, in order to maintain your surprise) wasn’t immediately obvious, but made sense, once it came out.

I did have a few smallish quibbles, though. There’s rather too much of Gemma internally doing the wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth bit about what’s happening to her, fretting about her family finding out, etc. (Once or twice through was plenty for me to understand her mindset and grasp how awful it would feel; numerous repetitions of the same thoughts grew slightly tedious.) There’s a scene—the big showdown—which was a wee bit too on-the-nose for my liking. (“Oh. You’re going to go there. Meh.”, was my precise sentiment at the time, I believe.) And, I never could quite work out why Gemma couldn’t stand up to her husband about a seriously out-of-whack situation in their marriage. (I bought that they were a mostly-happy couple, which made the lack of resolution on this One Big Issue that much harder to believe.)

Regardless, The Girl I Used to Be is still a fine psychological suspense… and a modern cautionary tale, to boot.
~GlamKitty

With thanks to the author, Mary Torjussen, and NetGalley.com for the Advanced Reader Copy.

"The Girl I Used to Be" is a well written thriller centered on Gemma, who owns a real estate firm in Chester, England, where she lives with her stay-at-home husband and 4 year old son. On a weekend training course, she bumps into a client and drinks a little to much at dinner, but cannot remember the details of the evening. Soon, a receipt for the dinner arrives in the mail, followed by a picture of herself kissing the client. Memories slowly return, but she's at a loss for why this is happening and what the sender wants. The plot keeps you guessing, and although I had an inkling of who might have started the trouble for Gemma, her accomplice comes as quite a surprise. The wrap up at the ending between Gemma and her spouse was a little too quick and easy, but all in all this was a quick and enjoyable read that kept me reading til the end.

This title will be enjoyed by fans of Gillian Flynn, Tess Geritson, and readers of psychological fiction in general.

This is one of those books that you can picture as a movie. No Way Home by Tyler Wetherall is a gripping story about Tyler’s childhood as the daughter of a man who was wanted by the FBI and Scotland Yard. The further I got into the book, the more I liked it and needed to know how everything was going to play out.

I love a good memoir and this one is the first I’ve read for 2018, did not disappoint!

Synopsis:

Tyler had lived in thirteen houses and five countries by the time she was nine. A willful and curious child, she never questioned her strange upbringing, that is, until Scotland Yard showed up outside her ramshackle English home, and she discovered her family had been living a lie: Her father was a fugitive and her name was not her own.

In sunny California, ten years earlier, her father’s criminal organization first came to the FBI’s attention. Soon after her parents were forced on the run taking their three young children with them, and they spent the following years fleeing through Europe, assuming different identities and hiding out in a series of far-flung places. Now her father was attempting one final escape—except this time, he couldn’t take her with him.