The Girlfriend

September 15, 2017

Londoner Abe is living in a converted church when he falls from the top landing and ends up in a coma. Jody, his starry-eyed and troubled girlfriend, is hopelessly devoted. She whimpers by his side and initially claims that the fall was a botched suicide attempt. But Mags--Abe's estranged sister--is skeptical. Something doesn't add up. Eventually, Mags, a high-powered and unlikable lawyer, pieces together the ruins of a deeply tragic life. The story, told in short chapters from alternating perspectives and time lines, also features Mira, Abe's neighbor, who may know more than she lets on. Each chapter serves as a puzzle piece as readers gradually come to understand the full picture. VERDICT Costa Award-nominated children's author Naughton (The Hanged Man Rises) makes her adult fiction debut with this well-crafted, adequately paced psychological thriller published in the UK as Tattletale. However, this story isn't for the faint of heart. Gratuitous scenes of child abuse and rape are difficult to read, and astute audiences may not be surprised by the novel's many twists. Still, the plot moves quickly with skilled prose.--Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 22, 2018
In this stirring but unwieldy novel, Naughton (Tattletale) introduces two women intent on avoiding and covering up traumatic moments from their pasts. Mags takes time off from her corporate job in Las Vegas to visit her long-estranged brother, Abe, in London. When she arrives, she learns that Abe is in a coma after a fall down stairs. Immediately, she begins to suspect that the fall was not suicidal (as the police believe) but that his girlfriend, Jody, may be to blame. Naughton alternates chapters between Jody, Mags, and Mira, a neighbor of Abe’s. While readers will delight in Mags’s nuanced struggle with her emotions regarding her brother and her suspicions of Jody, many sections are clichéd, such as those from the perspective of Mira, who knows more than she’s saying. Sections told in third person are scattered throughout the book, amplifying the cat-and-mouse feel of Mags’ investigations and muddying the water of what really happened by creating an undercurrent of unreliability. Although the investigation into Abe’s fall drives the narrative, the nature of Mags and Abe’s past falling-out is a subject of intrigue. Naughton’s narrative asks intriguing questions about overcoming past traumas and the desire for revenge, but the twists that come with the answers never quite satisfy.

January 1, 2018
Other than the fact that both she and her estranged brother, Abe, hate their parents, Mags can't understand why Abe would have listed her as next of kin. Sure, she's a fancy Las Vegas attorney, but what good will that do her as she stands at her brother's bedside in London, looking at his comatose body, broken by a 40-foot fall. Abe's girlfriend, Jody, would be much better suited to make the decisions that must be made. But there's something about Jody that doesn't feel quite right. Anonymous notes slipped under Mags' door and a conversation with Jody's former foster mother make Mags even more suspicious. Naughton parcels out a revealing backstory eventually, but she is less successful than, say, Ruth Ware or Paula Hawkins at keeping readers on edge as they wait for answers. Still, there are plenty of satisfying twists here to help scratch the itch for impatient suspense readers. Naughton, primarily known as a children's author, shows promise in the ever-expanding field of women-centered suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)