Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2018
304 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
"Explores emotional danger with relentless, surgical accuracy." - Tana French, New York Times bestselling author of The Trespasser and Into the Woods
David and Caroline Connolly are swimming successfully through their marriage's middle years - raising two children; overseeing care for David's ailing mother; leaning into their careers, both at David's university teaching job, where he's up for an important promotion, and at the ad agency where Caroline has recently returned to work after years away while the children were little. The recent stresses of home renovation and of a brief romantic betrayal (Caroline's) are behind them. The Connollys know and care for each other deeply.
Then one early fall afternoon, a student of sublime, waiflike beauty appears in David's university office and says, "I think you might be my father." And the fact of a youthful passion that David had tried to forget comes rushing back. In the person of this intriguing young woman, the Connollys may have a chance to expand who they are and how much they can love, or they may be making themselves vulnerable to menace. They face either an opportunity or a threat - but which is which? What happens when their hard-won family happiness meets a hard-luck beautiful girl?
"Starred Review. [Girl Unknown] is must-read literary suspense, with dueling character perspectives and sly twists forming a gut-wrenching exploration of trust, manipulation, and obsession." - Booklist
"Certain plot points also stretch plausibility, particularly in the buildup to the finale. Perry's unwieldy thriller raises more questions than it answers about the underdeveloped Connolly family." - Publishers Weekly
"Though the foreshadowing can feel heavy-handed at times, Perry (The Innocent Sleep) delivers a twist ending that will make readers want to start again from the beginning. " - Library Journal
"[The] novel is too close to films like Single White Female or Cape Fear to feel like it's covering new territory, despite Perry's valiant attempts to pull off some last-minute shocks. A thriller that feels more familiar than frightening" - Kirkus
"Builds to an incredibly tense finale - before delivering an amazing final twist. Riveting stuff." - Sunday Mirror (UK)
"Richly satisfying ... a book that hooks the reader from the first page. The tension is relentlessly dialed up to an almost unbearable level as the story unfolds." - The Irish Independent
"Full of intrigue and incident - keeps us guessing until the very last tragic page." - Liz Nugent, bestselling author of Unraveling Oliver and of Lying in Wait
"Compulsively readable, with surprises until the very last page. ... A chilling tale about a family under threat from one of its own." - Jessica Treadway, author of Lacy Eye and How Will I Know You?
This information about Girl Unknown 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.
Karen Perry is the pen name of Dublin-based authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece. Together they wrote Girl Unkown.
Paul Perry is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books. A recipient of the Hennessy Award for New Irish Writing, he teaches creative writing at University College, Dublin.
Karen Gillece is the author of several critically acclaimed novels. In 2009 she won the European Union Prize for Literature (Ireland).
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