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  • If You Tell

  • A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood
  • By: Gregg Olsen
  • Narrated by: Karen Peakes
  • Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (679 ratings)
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If You Tell cover art

If You Tell

By: Gregg Olsen
Narrated by: Karen Peakes
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Summary

2021 Audie Award Nominee for Best Nonfiction Audiobook

A #1 Wall Street Journal, Amazon Charts, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen’s shocking and empowering true-crime story of three sisters determined to survive their mother’s house of horrors.

After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now.

For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mother’s dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders.

Harrowing and heartrending, If You Tell is a survivor’s story of absolute evil - and the freedom and justice that Nikki, Sami, and Tori risked their lives to fight for. Sisters forever, victims no more, they found a light in the darkness that made them the resilient women they are today - loving, loved, and moving on.

©2019 Gregg Olsen. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Peakes's performance sucks the listener into the scenes of abuse, torture, sadism, and, eventually, murder committed by Shelly.... Peakes's narration is compelling." --AudioFile Magazine

"This riveting account will leave readers questioning every odd relative they’ve known." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Olsen presents the story chronologically and in a simple, straightforward style, which works well: it is chilling enough as is." --Booklist

What listeners say about If You Tell

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Extremely disturbing/upsetting

In a way I wish I'd never listened to this- I should have read the other reviews more carefully! What goes on in this book is so darkly disturbing and far beyond what any "normal" person would imagine a Mother is capable of doing. There is extreme torture here- mental and physical- and after listening to the whole thing I feel tortured aswell, I know I'll be haunted by this for a while. The book deserves a good rating as it's so well written and the narrator does a brilliant job- all the voices come off as genuine. But I can't really say I'd reccommend this- how can you reccommend real life hell to anyone?!

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64 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Brutal to hear

Narrated beautifully karma and very difficult to hear nearly 40 chapters of horrible child abuse. Worth it, well written but very difficult to absorb the level of pain.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Difficult to read but fantastic and inspiring.

This was a very hard book to read, I enjoyed it but the abuce that was afflicted on the three sisters and the others in the father and mothers web was horrible. While the mother was the main culprit in my opinion the father was just as bad for not standing up to her knowing it was wrong. I won't say any more on this book as a lot of it was very distressing to read.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Tale of Truth

This is a good book & a story that shocked me. I did have to take my time listening as it is a dark story of truth and heavy at times. You just never know what goes on behind closed doors

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Robot voice

Looking forward to listening but it’s a ROBOT talking ... disappointing as really good story tho

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Could barely finish it

Long-winded, repetitive and boring. What took 9 hours to listen to could have been reduced by half. It's a shame, I've listen to other Gregg Olsen audiobooks and have found them enthralling - this one, not so much.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Sjhocking

First class narration of a true horror story which tells us how evil life can be.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not very good investigative job

The author writes in a very much 80s like style. Shelly's different husbands abundoned their kids because they did not have much choice having such a violent wife. Its all a woman's responsibility to look after her kids after all. Also, he writes as if Shelly was born pure evil, not as a result of a little girl being horribly abused by her own mother. Mr. Olsen, this was a very poor investigative job.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Tough subject

i enjoyed this book, i liked the narration and would seeknout other books narrated by her. My first Grehg Olsen book, would listen another.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

loved it

great book always like this writer and with this new story he does not disappoint

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4 people found this helpful