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by Megan Abbott
The audacious new novel about family and ambition from "one of the best living mystery writers" (Grantland) and bestselling, award-winning author of The Fever.
How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits - until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.
As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers - about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself - forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay to achieve Devon's dream.
From a writer with "exceptional gifts for making nerves jangle and skin crawl" (Janet Maslin), You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition.
"Starred Review. Abbott keenly examines the pressures put on girls' bodies and the fierce, often misguided love parents have for their children." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Abbott proves herself a master of fingernails-digging-into-your-palms suspense." - Kirkus
"Abbott has a knack for dissecting the dark, beating heart of the most all-American activity ... It's vivid, troubling, and powerful - and Abbott totally sticks the landing." - Booklist
"In true Abbott style, nothing is predictable here; the plot consistently confounds expectations with its clever twists and turns. Admirers of Patricia Highsmith, Laura Lippman, and Kimberly Pauley are in for a treat." - Library Journal
"Almost unbearably tense, chilling and addictive, You Will Know Me deftly transports the reader to the hyper-competitive arena of gymnastics where the dreams and aspirations of not just families but entire communities rest on the slender shoulders of one teenage girl. Exceptional." - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
"You Will Know Me hits that rarefied sweet spot between unnerving psychological suspense and a family drama with heart, inducing equal parts dread and unease, empathy and warmth. The pages couldn't turn fast enough...Luscious writing, a timely and unique premise, and an ending that will haunt you all summer long." - Jessica Knoll, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive
"This story of an ordinary family with an extraordinary child is gorgeously written, psychologically astute, a page-turner that forces you to slow down and savor every word. And yes - please forgive me - she totally sticks the landing." - Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Hush Hush
"Megan Abbott's latest thriller plunges readers into the shockingly realistic life of young, female gymnasts whose severely regulated lives come with unthinkable consequences. Gritty, graphic, and yet beautiful and dreamlike in the way the story unfolds, You Will Know Me comes barreling at you with all the power and urgency of a high-speed train, as Abbott asserts herself as one of the greatest crime writers of our time." - Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl
"You Will Know Me takes you into the dark heart of family, a journey that feels more menacing with every page. Abbott cranks the tension up in this disturbing tale of exactly what we are prepared to do for our children - I was reading compulsively into the night. A beautifully written, gripping read that feels unshakably real." - Kate Hamer, The Girl in the Red Coat
"Like stepping into a world with slightly too little oxygen. Dark and compelling, this is a 2 a.m. novel." - Lucie Whitehouse, author of Before We Met
"You Will Know Me is powerful and unsettling, a portrait of a family where tenderness can mean pain as well as love. Megan Abbott is exceptionally good at teasing out telling moments to reveal deeply buried truths." - Jane Casey, author of The Missing
"Chillingly believable, beautifully written...You Will Know Me is Megan Abbott's best novel to date. A triumph." - Paula Daly, author of The Mistake I Made
"Megan Abbott writes like a dream and grips like a vice. Weeks later, I still can't stop thinking about You Will Know Me." - Erin Kelly, author of The Poison Tree
"The tension starts in the second paragraph of page one and insinuates itself brilliantly throughout, unsettling and wrong footing me. I read it, holding my breath like Devon before the big leap. Loved every minute." - Fiona Barton, author of The Widow
"Look out for the gloriously talented Megan Abbott. She's ruthlessly acute, funny, heartbreaking, lyrical, brilliant...I've loved every one of her novels, but none as much as You Will Know Me. Three weeks after finishing it, I still pick it up again, to re-experience the delicious pleasure I felt, devouring it." - Joyce Maynard, New York Times bestselling author of Under the Influence
This information about You Will Know Me was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Megan Abbott is the Edgar award-winning author of eleven crime novels, including You Will Know Me, Give Me Your Hand and the New York Times bestseller The Turnout, the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Paris Review and the Wall Street Journal. Dare Me, the series she adapted from her own novel, now streaming on Netflix.
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