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A pitch-perfect thriller, this book is dark and devious and thoroughly engaging – with enough twists and turns to keep even the best psychological sleuth guessing.
Helen, Serena, Rory and Daniel. College friends at Cambridge, (Rory Haverstock is Helen’s brother) and as the couples pair up and their studies are completed, the men, both architects, take over the well-established and successful Haverstock family architectural business.
Helen, an anxious, feverish soul, who has suffered multiple miscarriages, feels herself to be something of a misfit, struggling to be as stylish, confident, befriended and innately centered as her friend Serena (and indeed, as most everyone else). Pregnant again, and for the first time, as the months stretch on, tentatively hopeful – the initial joy, as Helen finds Serena in a similar position, turns once again to her perceived and inevitable failure to measure up.
With fears for her pregnancy, home renovations, financial concerns, and a whole mess of everyday stressors now creating chaos in her inner life, Helen is ripe and ready to take on a new “friend”, a strange and somewhat alarming young woman, Rachel, who comes crashing into her world when the two are unexpectedly paired up at prenatal classes.
Set in and around a leafy and stately section of London’s finest homes, with Helen’s much-loved home overlooking the gorgeous views of Greenwich Park, as the pages turn, a mood that feels not unlike thick black treacle begins to settle in – seeping across all that is good and stable and wonderful in Helen’s life. As the details begin to pool up, ominous and chilling, leaving Helen now seriously stricken, this reader cannot help but wonder – just who is this Rachel and what is she up to?
Masterfully plotted and deeply unsettling, this atmospheric and claustrophobic read unveils hints of gothic gloom, murkily reminiscent of both Daphne Du Maurier and the creepily Hitchcockian brilliance of Patricia Highsmith.
Highly recommended for fans of moody suspense, I loved this book, tearing through the pages as I managed to puzzle out the significance of only part of this devilishly constructed plot.
A great big thank you to @Netgalley and the publisher @SimonSchusterca for an ARC of this book #GreenwichPark by @KatherineFaulkner. All thoughts presented are my own.
