Member Reviews
I think this book was a cross between my favorite authors' way of story telling but also something new. I loved it and really enjoyed Faulkner's writing. I can't recommend this one enough.
Reactions while reading this book: Who are these people? What’s going on? What? Who really are these people? It was a bit of a jerky car ride, stopping and starting suddenly with each change of narrator. I normally like the use of different characters to get a better rounded view of what’s happening but I often found myself lost. With a story line that slowly unravels as secrets come to the surface, this twisty novel is a slow start but speeds up as the character’s try nature’s come to light. While I found the use of multiple narrators confusing, I still enjoyed the plot twists and recommend that you give this one a try!
Quite a riveting thriller, with plot twists. Held my attention until the last page. Debut book by this author. I will be looking for more from her in the future.
As a fan of twisty thrillers, this one kept me guessing until the end. Wish there was more backstory on the family itself, but compliments to the author for a complex, satisfying ending. Thanks for my copy, and I look forward to the Bad on Paper podcast February 2022 book club episode about this novel!
So often these psychological thrillers don't work for me, but I fell in love with the cover. This is the kind of house in could see myself living in. It starts out rather slowly but as or reads the tension builds and builds. The entrance of the character Rachel, shakes things up. One is not sure what she wants with Helen and her family, but that she is not who she says she is quite apparent.. She seems to have many secrets and there are just too many coincidences. Clues are given throughout the story but I didn't try to decipher them, just went along with the ride.
It's been quite a while since I've not wanted to put a book down, actually kept reading late into the night. This is a debut author and I can't wait to see what she writes next. Comparisons to the novels of Lisa Jewell are apt.
I haven’t been in a mystery mood lately because i read so many of them - but this one stood out.
I enjoyed the dynamics between the characters and I thought it was really refreshing.
It was a great thriller with a lot of plot twist.
This is a fantastic debut. There is excellent character development, and the plot is intriguing with clues spread throughout the book. There are multiple narrators.
A thank you to Netgalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a solid, but somewhat uneventful psychological thriller that while engaging enough, was neither completely engrossing or containing that much anticipated "Ah-ha!" moment. Slow at times and hunkered down with detail, it meandered rather than zipped along, and the characters were rather insufferable, including those with which you would prefer to empathize. The inclusion of sexual assault stories and past and present rape trials added depth, but could also be serious trigger topics for certain readers, so a word of caution as the situations are not glossed over. Yet, despite its flaws, the book shows promise, and I'll be interested to see what this debut author offers up next.
If you're looking for a twisty turny read, look no further. In Greenwich Park we meet Helen, who is recently pregnant again after a few losses, her husband who wants to completely renovate their gorgeous new house, along with her brother who married a close friend of hers from university (also pregnant). In the whirlwind of baby classes and nursery prep, all is not what it seems.
When Helen meets a new friend in her birthing classes, things start to get a little exciting....and then a lot more exciting. This was a fun book to try to guess what was coming, who had secrets, and who was exactly what they seemed. I wasn't a huge fan of some of the flashbacks and felt they were a little too jarring and revealing, but it was a fun read regardless!
This recent publication took me on a wild ride y’all! About a third of the way through things really start to pick up and I got really invested. I loved the multiple POVs throughout the book and really didn’t see the ending coming. The twists!! There were several and made this overall a really wonderful read. Highly recommend for thriller readers!
For readers who loved Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train and the Woman in the Window, Greenwich Park is one of those domestic thrillers where you probably won't like any of the characters but still are fascinated to find out what happened to them all.
Wow! I don't read many mystery/thriller type of books so I was thrilled that I loved this one. Greenwich Park kept me engaged from the beginning and left me guessing until the very end.
Four close friends (two couples) and a mysterious new friend. How do they all intertwine? What's the motive of Rachel, the new friend - who suddenly appears everywhere in Helen's life? How do Serena, Rory and Daniel fit into all of it? So. Many. Questions.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the ebook in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner is a debut novel. This mystery follows Helen and her sister-in-law, both pregnant, as well as new friend Rachel and ties in to their pasts.
My thanks to #Netgalley and #GalleryBooks for this advance copy eBook in exchange for an honest review. Greenwich Park the debut novel by Katherine Faulkner, is a mystery involving Helen and her “perfect” life. Finally pregnant after several miscarriages, Helen befriends a pregnant stranger to help keep her mind off her, get this, pregnant sister-in-law. The plot surrounding the three pregnant women deepens and twists into a psychological thriller that kept me guessing right up until the very end. I look forward to what the future holds for Katherine Faulkner!
Helen, Daniel, Serena, and Rory have been friends since their days at Cambridge. They are now married couples (Helen to Daniel and Serena to Rory) and in-laws (Helen and Rory are siblings) who are both expecting babies just weeks apart. They live in close proximity to one another in a swanky London neighborhood, and the men are partners in the family architecture firm. On the surface, they are a close-knit, supportive group with every advantage and privilege.
The group's bonds begin to fray when Rachel, a mysterious woman who befriends Helen in a prenatal class, enters the picture. Rachel takes a highly unusual interest in the group, and seems to have an agenda with the potential to ruin their successful lives. When Rachel disappears after a party at Helen's house, Helen and the others are questioned by the police. Helen herself can't remember anything that happened after she argued with Rachel that night and asked her to leave, and the answers the others give are evasive. What happened to Rachel?
This taught, suspenseful novel hinges on the lengths one woman will go to to get justice and the lengths others will go to to keep secrets from coming to light. As the characters' interests intersect and collide, stunning betrayals and a shocking conclusion are revealed.
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pub. Date: Jan. 25, 2022
In this debut psychological thriller, what appears to be a growing friendship between two pregnant women leads to many unpleasant twists. The novel is filled with good levels of tension. My big issue with the story is that the protagonist is ridiculously unaware of the obvious. This does not mean that I guessed the twists, it just means that no one can be as naïve as our heroine, which the author should have realized.
A fabulous debut from upcoming author Katherine Faulkner! This thriller was enjoyable and I look forward to more work from Katherine. My first draw to this story was the cover. The cover is beautiful!
Each chapter is narrated by one of the main characters, each character is connected in some way. The start was a slow pace, but as I continued to learn the characters, I did not want to stop reading. The ending was predictable, but Katherine did throw a few twists in there. Read if you enjoy a character-driven thriller with twists!
Love love LOVED Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner. This book is taking bookstagram by a storm and for good reason!
<blockquote><b><i>Trying to work out where it all began, where it all started going wrong. And I suppose the real answer is it started years before you could have ever imagined it did.</blockquote></b></i>
Helen lives in her dream home, an old Victorian beauty where she grew up, with her architect husband, who has masterminded plans to change the house and make it even more grand.
Her brother and sister-in-law live nearby, and when Helen becomes pregnant with a long-desired baby and her brother's wife announces she's pregnant as well, Helen feels sure that her life couldn't be any more full and happy.
But when she meets Rachel, a single mother-to-be in her prenatal class, Helen begins to feel unsettled. The unpredictable Rachel is spontaneous and fun, but her behavior is also sometimes erratic, and she has an edge.
Rachel seems to know things about Helen's life and family that she shouldn't. When she alludes to mysterious connections between the women--and a long-ago crime--her persistent presence threatens to unravel the rest of the group's perfect lives forever.
Meanwhile the reader begins to suspect that Helen's loyalties and earnest, nervous desire for friendship and connection has been taken advantage of by those she has always trusted.
An unreliable narrator setup can be hit or miss for me, but in this case, I felt Faulkner deftly crafted Helen as naive, overwhelmed, lonely, and, at times, medicated. Therefore the omissions and confusion on her part--which allow the tricky situations at the heart of the book to be revealed slowly--aren't too convenient, and they add layers to the mystery of who exactly the nefarious force in the story may be.
Something sinister consistently bubbles beneath the too-perfect surface of Helen's life. Faulkner twists and turns through multiple potential suspects and snapshots of behind-the-scenes details, so that almost everyone seems potentially culpable. She keeps the tension rising with the stalkeresque aspect of the story, in which Rachel more and more deeply insinuates herself into Helen and Daniel's life--as well as through the creepy letters interspersed throughout, written by a dark, omniscient player in all of this after everything has come to light.
I received a prepublication digital copy of this recently published book courtesy of NetGalley and Gallery Books.
'Greenwich Park' is a great murder mystery novel. Honestly, it had a slow and frustrating start for me. At about 25% of the way through I was ready to DNF it because I found the main character, Helen, so annoying. However, that is because she is written well! She is weak and whiney and I just wanted her to have just a smidge more of a spine. But, I hung in there and the pay off was good; the pace picked up, the story began to be teased out in a way that you just need to turn "one more page" - until there were no pages left!
The story does have a few different view points that are denoted by chapter titles, but the characters were well written and it was quite easy to tell them apart. There are also a few time hops but not enough to be a dual timeline story.
The big reveal at the end held back a few secrets and was a great pay off! If you are like me, you will want to push through the beginning, because overall it was a great read.
Thank you @Netgalley and @gallerybooks for early access to this ARC in return for an unbiased and voluntary review.