The Girls Weekend
A Novel
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
“A brooding meditation on how friendships buckle when we resent other people’s success”—for fans of psychological thrillers by Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley (Washington Post).
A riveting locked-room mystery about five college friends whose reunion takes a dark turn—and unearths even darker secrets and grudges.
Their reunion just became a crime scene . . .
June Moody, a thirty-something English professor, just wants to get away from her recent breakup and reunite with girlfriends over summer break. Her old friend and longtime nemesis, Sadie MacTavish, a mega-successful author, invites June and her college friends to a baby shower at her sprawling estate in the San Juan Islands. June is less than thrilled to spend time with Sadie—and her husband, June's former crush—but agrees to go.
The party gets off to a shaky start when old grudges resurface, but when they wake the next morning, they find something worse: Sadie is missing, the house is in shambles, and bloodstains mar the staircase. None of them has any memory of the night before; they wonder if they were drugged. Everyone's a suspect. Since June had a secret rendezvous with Sadie's husband, she has plenty of reason to suspect herself. Apparently, so do the cops.
A Celtic knot of suspense and surprise, this brooding, atmospheric novel will keep you guessing as each twist reveals a new possibility. It will remind you of friendships hidden in the depths of your own past, and make you wonder how well you really know the people you've loved the longest.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
English professor June Moody, the narrator of this slow-burning psychological thriller from Gehrman (Watch Me), reluctantly decides to attend a weekend baby shower with four college friends Em, Amy, Kimiko, and Sadie MacTavish at Sadie's opulent estate in Washington's San Juan Islands. June is jealous of Sadie's success as the author of a bestselling children's book. Sadie resents that her husband proposed to her only after June turned him down. The first night at the main house, June, Em, Amy, and Kimiko all black out after being drugged. The next morning, they wake up to discover a mess of strewn clothes, scattered jewelry, and half-eaten meals around the house. The four women become distraught when they can't find Sadie, and it becomes clear every one of them has a motive to want her dead. The drawn-out plot builds to a predictable ending. Gehrman does a good job delineating the women's individual characters, but they're basically stereotypes. Even those with a taste for tales about devious educated women may want to take a pass.
