Member Reviews
Thank you NetGalley, Rebecca Griffiths and Bookouture Audio for the chance to review this book.
This book is more historical fiction than the mystery thriller I was hoping for. The audiobook was well narrated especially by Daphne Kouma. Jonathan Keeble was great except for his butchering of Joy's French accent in the chapters he narrated where she spoke. I wanted more of the John Reginald Christie's storyline as Queenie's storyline ended up feeling like it dragged a little by the end and I ended up disliking the character more and more by the end of the book.
The characterisation of the real life Rillington Place killer John Reginald Christie was sufficiently creepy.
I will definitely check out more written by Rebecca Griffiths in the future as I really enjoyed her writing style.
I love the idea of a fictional inspired by a real life crime and a serial killer to boot. I must admit I knew nothing about the Rillington Place killer, but why let that stop me. While this is listed as a thriller, I thought it creepy at times, but other than a few small parts, I thought it was more of a women’s fiction book. It dealt with social issues such as a single pregnant woman and homosexuality in the 1940s.
In addition to John Reginald Christie, the Rillington Place killer, the story focuses on a group of friends, Queenie, Joy and Terrence. I really liked Terrence, but at times I found both Joy and Queenie unlikable. As Christie plays a cat and mouse game, stalking his prey, I wondered who might become one of his casualties.
Jonathan Keeble and Daphne Kouma narrate the audiobook. And while they both do a great job, Jonathan steals the spotlight with his narration of Christie.
I found I enjoyed stepping back in time listening to this audiobook.
This book can be best summed up by a direct quote from the story itself: ‘Soothing in it’s mediocrity’. Based on a true story, I would class this tale as historical fiction, rather than a thriller or true-crime book. In all honesty, I didn’t find it at all ‘gripping’ - it was in fact quite long and flat, with the ending being pretty quick and disappointing.
Many thanks to NetGallery and Bookouture Audio for allowing me a copy of the book.
Thrilling fictional storey of a mass murderer’s trail of destruction, horrifying at times. Two women come close to being his next victim. There is other story line of trust and heartbreak following the lives of queenie and joy. Narration was excellent. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.
The Girl at My Door feels like two stories in one. A story of friendship and betrayal between the two female protagonists, Queenie and Joy, as well as a thriller with chapters narrated by a serial killer, John Christie, who’s character was based on a real life serial killer. Christie becomes particularly enamored with Joy, and the book accounts his thought process as he stalks his next victim.
The fourth protagonist, Terrence, acts as the bridge between the two worlds. Friend to Queenie and Joy, he becomes aware of Christie and his wickedness and ultimately does all he can to protect his friends and other women.
As an added bonus, I listened to this story as an audiobook, and the voice acting was incredible and very much added to my appreciation for the characters.
I found the book thrilling and engaging, although at times hard to follow as the two subplots weaved their ways together and apart. Ultimately, it was Terence’s story I found most compelling as his struggle with his identity lead him to be the hero of the book.
I’d recommend this read to anyone who enjoys a fictional thriller rooted in history and based on true events. Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for my advanced copy!
i enjoyed this audio book and the narrator was defiantly creepy enough but i did struggle with the merging of fact and fiction. i wasn't as keen on the story with queenie and found her to be a very self absorbed character. the parts about Christie were well researched.
i would recommend this book to people who like creepy thrillers and historical fiction
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I don't even know where to start writing this review. Since being a teenage I have always been intrigued about what makes humans tick. Wondering what it is that made certain people take that step into madness and loose all control of their sanity by committing atrocious acts and murder. John Reginald Christie is someone I have read about a lot of over the years, his crimes have been well documented in various books and television series here in the UK.
Let me start by saying whilst this book is about him and his crimes, he is kept firmly in the background watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike. The book is more centred on lives of Queenie Osbourne and her friend Joy. Set in 1949's post war London both girls are surviving the best they can. Queenie is adored by may as she singings in the local club, she has dreams of leaving dreary London and heading for the bright lights on America. Joy is the total opposite, she is French, very shy and unassuming, Queenie taker her under her wing and gets her a job at the Mockingbird. They make friends with Terence the pianist at the club, who is also living with the secret of being in love with a man, which is both forbidden and illegal at the time. The three forge a friendship. Which is ultimately ruined by betrayal when Queenie sleeps with Joy fiance. Finding herself pregnant and in desperation Queenie turns to '10 Rillington Place' the home of John Christie. Having been in the war years before he has made it known that he can help women in a certain predicament, with medical training that he received. The girls willingly go to him for help, not knowing it will be the last thing they will do.
Christie has been watching both girls and following them for a time, staying in the shadows. He is obsessed with Joy and means to have her for his own. However she has become wise to the fact he seems to keep appearing wherever she goes, and gets a bad feeling from him once she is one to one.
I think the worst thing about his character in this book is that the man himself is so unassuming, he is plain in looks and stature and moves around unseen and unheard in his plimsoles. I get the feeling most people didn't realise they were in danger until it was too late. He is the average man hiding a very dark secret.
I requested the audiobook version of the book and I have to say the narrators were brilliant. Especially Christie, read by Jonathan Keeble his voice sends chills down your spine, so much so I had to stop listening for a day or two as I was dreaming about it. The fact that it is based on real life events makes it an even more sinister read.
The author has definitely done her research on the serial killer, this is a brilliant work of historical fiction with a twist. I will look out for other books by her. It will definitely be a book that stays with me for a while, and parts of the story chilled me to the bone. A sign of a very good book in my opinion.
My thanks to Netgalley for my audio copy of The Girl at My Door. The title seems a little odd but be that as it may, this is a chilling, creepy and at times, nauseating fictional story portraying what other ghastly scenarios John Christie might have been involved in. It is even more frightening because of what history (and yet in my lifetime) has taught us. The fact that Timothy Evans was hanged for two of Christie's crimes, the unforgiving and unforgivable nature of society and the law at that time.
This book is extremely well written and so atmospheric that I would not have listened to it at bedtime, and the two narrators really did it justice. Totally gripping but very unnerving!
I struggled with this book. I couldn't gel with the characters and because they kept changing it became a little confusing. The voices were excellent though and I liked the fact there was a male and a female. The voice of Reg Christie was sooo good at times it gave me chills! Especially when he whispered! Thanks for allowing me to listen to this.
Unfortunately, Netgalley archived this title before I could complete the book. From the little I was able to hear, the book was intriguing, although a bit slow. My rating is based on that.
This book was interesting in the beginning and then some where in the middle I felt it ran flat. Although the characters all had their own demons the serial killer was the most interesting. I wanted more from this book but found myself zoning out.
The Girl at my Door is set in London in 1949. Best friends, Queenie and Joy are looking forward to the future. Queenie, who sings at the local pub is hoping to make it to America. Joy, a waitress, is engaged to a wealthy bachelor named Charles Gilchrist. Terry is Queenie's bandmate and has a secret, that is used against him in the book. Although she is helping to plan Joy's wedding, Queenie has strong feelings toward Charles and on a night out when Joy is unable to go with them, Queenie and Charles commit the ultimate sin. When Queenie becomes pregnant she turns to Terry for help and he directs her to 10 Rillington Place. As this story plays out, we also meet John Reginald Christie, who is known in history as Reg Christie, The Rillington Place Killer.
This is historical fiction meets mystery/suspense inspired by true crime. I enjoyed the story of Reg Christie and when I listened to chapters he narrated, I got chills. The romance/friendship parts of the story were just okay for me. I liked getting to know what life was like in this part of London in 1949 and I really got that feel. At a time when homosexuality was treated as a crime and the person a degenerate, it was nice to have Terence's story woven into this tale. I will say that I googled John Reginald Christie to find out what was true and what was fictionalized in this book. I had pictured him as I listened to this one and the unfeeling, psychopath I had pictured in my mind looked nothing like the actual person. This book has a mystery, history, a killer/stalker, tension, homophobia, friendship, betrayal and a creepy atmosphere, all well incorporated in this story. The audiobook is performed well by Jonathan Keeble and Daphne Kouma. Jonathan Keeble's voice for Christie was so creepy it gave me chills. I enjoyed this narration and felt the voices, accents and emotions well done. I enjoyed this book, but no as much as I had expected. There was some repetition and a bit of a character dump at times that kept me from giving this one five stars.
They were best friends, at least that's what they said, they were the new generation, making a difference, trying to survive, to be accepted. But something is always wrong when people are happy with each other.
A real crime story narrated so smoothly and clear, made me feel every single emotion and pain of the characters. Hard to pick my favorite, they all were awfully lovely, so real, so tangible sometimes sick and obscure. So far away from our reality and yet true.
We all have come a long way, things have changed, at least now we all have a voice for those who do not.
This ARC was granted to me through @netgalley and approved by @bookouture
**please note due to low rating I will not be leaving a public review for this book as I have not paid for it.**
I'm sorry to say this but as this review is for you only I can be brutally honest. I found this so be so incredibly boring. The narration and story, It was lacking life.
I received this as an audio galley to listen to for free in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture Audio for giving me access.
While reading or listening to The Girl at my Door, you have to keep in mind this is *BASED* on a true crime and is indeed not the actual facts of what happened with the Rillington Place Killer. So if you are a true crime lover, this probably isn't for you.
I did enjoy the overall story but while this review comes into question, nothing really stood out for me to actually remember. So this gets a 3.5 rating from me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either.
I loved this fictionalised story based on a real serial killer. What a great idea! Kept me hooked and interested throughout this page turner. Also, features one of my favourite narrators Jonathan Keeble who always does a fantastic job!
I had to DNF this one. I could not get into it. I couldn't pay attention at all, or remember who the characters were. This may be an easier read via ebook or paperback. LIstening to this one just did not work for me.
Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for allowing me to listen to this book before it was released.
I finished this book a couple days ago and had to sit on it a while before writing my review. My first thought about the book is that it was just OK, but after deeper thought I realize this is a very cleverly written work of fiction about three friends who have the unfortunate attention of serial killer Reg Christie. It shows a very realistic version of how he could have run across potential victims, and also how he could have manipulated people in order to get his way and stay under the radar in order to continue killing women. The stories of fictional characters Queenie, Joy and Terry were quite sad and also not enough to hold my full attention. It was only their stories woven in with Christie's that kept me staying with the story as I tried to figure out if everyone was going to be OK in the end, and would they find out what he had really been up to while he was 'helping' women in trouble.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the audiobook copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I enjoyed listening to the narrators and sincerely appreciated having both male and female voices to represent the large book cast.
Unfortunately this book just couldn't draw me in. The different perspectives were not written clearly enough, that meant that the characters melted together when reading. When a book has this many perspectives at once it is important that the reader can make a distinction among them and for me, that was difficult. The narration of the audiobook was an acquired taste because of the strong accents, but in the end it really helped with getting into the story. The fact that the book is narrated by different people depending on the perspective helped a lot. I found that I got distracted while listening to it and that ultimately meant that I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. The premise of the story was really intriguing and I found the slow burn and set up of the stalker very well done. I didn't connect enough with the character to really get into the uncomfortableness that the author had clearly intended, but I found that the plot had it's strong points. For me the downfall of my enjoyment was just the characters and the lack of distinction among them.
There are multiple POVs for this story. I had a hard time with the Audio keeping up with who was who. But the longer I listened to the story the more I was able to keep up. It took me awhile to get into this book. I picked it p a few times and keep putting it down. I started listening in between other books so took me a bit longer to get through. The characters were all so different with making the cast themselves more interesting. To me because they are all so different that is what made the story. I've read other reviews and I'm in agreement that Queenie was the worst. She did some shady stuff just because she was jealous. With friends like that who needs enemies. I was rooting for Joy but, she got a dealt the short end of the stick. She tried her best to stay positive throughout the story but ultimately it just became to much for her. I really was rooting for her. Terry was the MVP just wanted the best for everyone even though he was going through it. Charles I think were supposed to like him but I honestly didn't care for him. And the bad guy? You know me I don't give out many details on Thrill type books. That's a big part of the story is the villain. At least for me.
Overall I enjoyed this story. I didn't love it and the 1st half drug on for me. I love Thrillers I can sit down and read in one day and not want to put down. But it took awhile to picked up for me. and throughout it had some slow moments. I think this is a good read and it just came out. So go grad your audio copy. I always enjoy a Audio with multiple narrations and this one had 2. But the main thing to take away is The Villain I wanted to know what was going to happen next. WHAT was he going to do or pretend to be.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this Arc Audio in exchange for my honest review.