It took me a little bit to get into this book, but once I did, it didn't let me down. The characters all put their flaws on display, leading to a very twisted ending. It caught me by surprise, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think Faulkner does a great job here of weaving different stories and suspense to lead to such a plot twist. It's always such a gift when an author can grip you there are the very end.

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!

A deliciously dark debut thriller.

Author Katherine Faulker's domestic psychological thriller debut—GREENWICH PARK grips you early on with its many twists and turns. The suspense will keep you listening/reading as we are introduced to its mysterious characters with a strong sense of foreboding and tension with a keen sense of urgency to unravel the secrets.

From past — ten years earlier in Cambridge to present with Helen's pregnancy countdown to the finale one year later toward the ending.

Set in a posh London neighborhood near the park, meet Helen, married to Daniel, a good-looking and successful architect. They live in this beautiful victorian home they are renovating in an upscale neighborhood.

However, it is the summer heat, and everything seems array and unsettled. Helen has had many miscarriages, and now she is pregnant again. She is fearful and wants this baby desperately.

Early in the book, Helen receives a letter from someone in prison wanting her to know the truth. You are hooked.

Told from three points of view, we meet Helen and her husband, Serena, her college best friend, married to her brother, Rory. Serena is an artist and very sophisticated, and Helen feels insecure around her. She is also expecting, and they were supposed to all go to prenatal classes together, but it does not turn out as Helen had hoped.

Roy and Daniel are business partners. Kate is another friend and childhood mate, an investigative journalist, and dates Helen's brother Charlie off and on.

Helen hopes this time she will carry full term. With the high-risk pregnancy so has taken a medical leave from her advertising job. She has wanted a baby for so long and had many miscarriages, she does not want anything to happen to this baby, so she is fearful all the time.

Helen wants to be excited about the pregnancy and enjoy her beautiful home and planning for the baby. But Daniel is always too busy, distracted, and not very supportive and often does not show up for the prenatal classes.

However, Helen meets Rachel (another single gal) at the classes, who strikes up a friendship. She is daring, fun, and definitely is not a rule follower. She is not very maternal and acts pretty wild and careless for being pregnant and expecting.

Helen is lonely and quite shy since they are opposites, but Helen soon warms up to her since she is desperate for friendship, which gives her someone to hang with. Rachel is also pregnant, but Helen does not know much about her. She always seems witty and somewhat daring. Her baby daddy appears to be married and not in the picture.

However, Rachel is always everywhere Helen goes. Helen thinks it is strange and does not entirely trust her. Rachel appears to be a master manipulator, and as you listen to the audio, you can feel the sense of desperation in Helen's voice.

Helen is receiving strange phone calls about refinancing a mortgage, clippings, laptop, Daniel seems distant and secretive, and he is not showing up or being supportive of her or the baby. Rachel seems to be getting too involved in Helen's personal space.

Then Rachel shows up at Helen's door, and soon she is moving into their guest room. Daniel is very uncomfortable around her. What is going on?

The journalist, Katie, is covering a case of sexual assault and tells Helen she does not think Rachel is being honest with her. Between everything that is going on around Helen, she is beyond paranoid. Is she being gaslighted or kept in the dark about something? Nothing going on around Helen feels safe and secure. Everything seems unsettling and fearful.

Nothing is as it appears in the London neighborhood, and lies are about to be unraveled. There was a past crime, and someone knows. You must read the book to learn all the juicy details and find your way through the maze of secrets and lies.

The past and present collide as dark secrets abound with a cat and mouse game that will have you bouncing back and forth with multiple narrators to the twisty conclusion. Once you think you are at the end, the author issues a final knife twist. BLOODY GOOD!

A deliciously evil twisty debut. You may think of the book and movie, The Secrets She Keeps by Australian international crime thriller master Michael Robotham (I loved the book/movie and one of my favorite authors).

You suspect something menacing, something dark and sinister that lies below the surface with hidden secrets, but you are unsure how all the pieces and characters are connected. The author controls the narrative and gives you just enough to keep you in the game and wanting more.

Fans of domestic suspense and authors Alice Feeney, Ruth Ware, and Lisa Jewell will enjoy. I look forward to more from this author! You can certainly tell she is an award-winning journalist.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Laura Kirmans for an engaging performance! I loved the front cover, which drew me in immediately.

A special thank you to #NetGalley and #Simon&Schuster Audio for an audio ARC.

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My Rating: 4 /of 5 Stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟

To start this off I listened to the audio version narrated by Laura Kirman. The narration was phenomenal.
This story mostly focuses around a woman named Helen and her husband. They have a seemingly perfect life and after trying for many years they were finally able to conceive. When Helen attends her first prenatal class she meets another expecting mother named Rachel. Even though Rachel is the complete opposite to Helen, she seems to be drawn to her and they develop a friendship. One night Rachel ends up on her doorsteps and looks like she was physically abused so Helen lets her stay with her until she can sort things out. That's when Helen finds out that Rachel isn't really there for the reasons she was told.
I highly enjoyed this story and there were many twists and turns. The ending was extremely satisfying. Perfect!
Although I loved this story I only have one con and that was the stages of pregnancy mentioned in the beginning. She was inaccurate on the progression of pregnancy and how much a baby is developed at which weeks. But the detail is minor and didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story. 4.5 stars.
I received a free arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the outside looking in, Helen seems to have the perfect life. Successful architect husband with a baby on the way, Helen is still extremely close with her college friends Katie, a crime reporter, and Serena, an artist married to Helen's brother and also expecting a little one. One day, Helen meets Rachel, who's a bit of a mess and who pretty much inserts herself into Helen's world. An unlikely friendship develops as Helen's so-called perfect life begins to unravel.

This one has a very slow start and throughout the book nothing truly shocked me, but I enjoyed it! Definitely a solid psychological thriller — I could see this being a really binge worthy Netflix show or something!!!

Really liked the audio narrator! Wished it would have had three narrators for each of the perspectives we got.

I loved this book. It hooked me right away and was full of twists, intriguing characters, and ultimately many surprising plot points. The narrator was excellent, its always fun to listen to a great British accent. I loved how Faulkner used the weeks into pregnancy as the mechanism to move the story forward, very smart and engaging book.

Synopsis:
Helen and Daniel have been struggling to have a child and she’s finally almost to term with a baby. Her sister-in-law is also due right around the same time, but when Helen meets Rachel a loud, raunchy, and slightly odd girl at her pregnancy classes things between the four start to get a little hazy. No one really knows where Rachel came from or what she might be after.

My Thoughts:
Wow, I love the twisty style of mystery/thrillers and this one did not disappoint. The interwoven lives of all the characters really takes a toll on fully understanding why people act the way they do. In the end I didn’t love the book just because overall none of the characters are that redeemable their selfish, mean, and do what’s best for themselves but it kept me engaged the whole time and the ending really did have me reeling!

4.5 Stars rounded go to 5 Stars!

I requested this in audiobook as soon as I saw it available. I had previously seen it advertised elsewhere and added it to my want to read list.
I devoured this audiobook in a day. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a book so good and intriguing that I wanted to do nothing but just listen.

Helen is living a pretty charmed life in Greenwich Park. She is happily married to Daniel and they are expecting a baby and things are going along well after previous failed pregnancies. Her sister in law lives nearby and is also pregnant and they were supposed to attend labor and delivery classes together but Daniel, Selena and her brother Rory don’t make it. She meets Rachel, also alone at the meetings and Rachel is outgoing and brash and inserts herself into Helen’s life. Helen has mixed emotions about this- she is lonely and in need of a friend but Rachel is a tad overbearing. As things progress, it seems Rachel has purposely inserted herself into Helen’s life for a reason but the question is why?

There is actually more to it than the synopsis I gave and the synopsis on the back of the book. The past and present merge to give a clearer picture as to the reason why about midway though the book and Katherine Faulkner does a wonderful job of tying it all together. Her character development is excellent and even though the whole premise of the book isn’t exactly new and exciting, as it seems similar versions of this tale have been told before by others, it was written well enough that I wasn’t bothered by that. The ending definitely helped jump it up a star.

I’m definitely interested in reading what she has planned next and I wouldn’t be upset to have a series with Katie as the main character.

Boring. Slow. Really stunned (not in a good way) where it all turned up and why. I think it was meant to be a clever spin on a played out plot twist.

But it went very poorly.