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The Girl Before
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox, Finty Williams, Lise Aagaard Knudsen
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery
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Summary
What if something was too good to be true? In an eerie tale of chilling coincidences, two women who move into the same apartment discover their fates are inexplicably entwined.
The Sunday Times best-seller.
The New York Times best-seller.
The Radio 2 Book Club Choice - February 2017
Enter the world of One Folgate Street and discover perfection...but can you pay the price?
Jane stumbles on the rental opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to live in a beautiful ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, on condition she abides by a long list of exacting rules.
After moving in, she discovers that a previous tenant, Emma, met a mysterious death there - and starts to wonder if her own story will be a re-run of the girl before. As twist after twist catches the reader off guard, Emma's past and Jane's present become inexorably entwined in this tense, page-turning portrayal of psychological obsession.Following in the footsteps of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, The Girl Before is being brought to the big screen. The film is set to be directed by Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard.
Critic reviews
"I was instantly gripped and held captivated by the pace and elegant writing. I devoured it in two straight sittings." ( Peter James)
"A deeply addictive literary thriller that deserves to be one of this year's biggest successes." ( Daily Express)
"Original and entertaining." ( The Times)
"A guaranteed best-seller." ( Red Magazine)
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What listeners say about The Girl Before
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Monkey123
- 03-11-18
Sorry but I'm disappointed
Sorry but I'm just not enjoying this book at all and after reading the reviews I am wondering if I am listening to something different.
For me the story is tedious and the sex scenes are just distracting and are like a dull reference to the 50 shades craze. They also for me add nothing to the suspense. After finishing some recent works which I have rated 4 or 5 stars I am very disappointed.
52 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-11-18
A terrible story
Such rave reviews yet I hated it. The storyline was rather predictable and the characters irritating and unlikeable. The constant underpinning flow of supposed moral and psychological pointers created a superficial and unbelievable book with intensely dislikeable characters. I found myself having to finish it but I'd give it zero stars if I could!
40 people found this helpful
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- Emily
- 06-05-17
Don't bother
This book gave me the rage. It is factually inaccurate (show me a medical professional that would give a pregnant woman a smear test!) and the whole oral rape storyline is disgusting.
And it's POLICE, not plice.
I gave up after a while because it just made me so mad.
67 people found this helpful
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- msmulv
- 30-03-18
Awful rubbish. Complete drivel.
The worst audio book I've listened to. So bad I returned it. Misogynistic trash. Not worth your time or money.
23 people found this helpful
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- J G Lucas
- 08-08-17
A good idea poorly developed
The mystery and suspense were well built in the first half but then begin to flag . The characters are never well drawn .
19 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-05-17
Gripping thriller
The dual time-line for the book was well-crafted, building the past and current characters in real time as each sub-plot progressed. Rather than being confusing (as I initially thought it might be) it served to implant the story firmly without the need to back-track. This makes the book flow really well. The characters were all believable giving validity to the twisting plot line. I had my own theory of who the antagonist might be from the mid-point of the book, but was surprised, but not disappointed to be proved wrong at the end. All loose ends are neatly tied at the conclusion, some of which, I personally would have liked left to flail in my imagination. The narration was excellent, transforming the travel time to Wales and back from tedium to excitement.
50 people found this helpful
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- Claire D.
- 04-06-17
Rubbish
10 hours of my life I won't get back. Awful. As if anyone would want to live in an apartment so restricted by a set of rules set by a landlord. So ridiculous.
45 people found this helpful
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- normally a fan
- 18-03-17
Disjointed
I returned this book. I had bought it on the strength of the good reviews it received. Won't trust these again. I didn't like the characters nor the storyline. And the number of narrators was confusing, especially the women who sounded too much alike.
26 people found this helpful
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- A.Connor
- 11-03-17
had hopes for this but daft formulaic nonsense :(
'the concept was & is fine but the characterisation & dialogue in this squished all potential.The narrator sounds like a(ny) adolescent schoolgirl; couldn't recommend /save your credit/cash.
37 people found this helpful
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- Sararara
- 29-01-17
50 Shades of Girl on a Train
Imagine Hitchcock's Vertigo, sexed up and then described by some very unreliable narrators then you've got The Girl Before.
Not a bad book - in fact it's quite an an addictive page turner - I liked the (somewhat glamourised) architectural context and the deliberate repetitive scenarios, but all too 50 Shades in the sexy alpha male depiction (and husky female narrators).
Talking of which, I found the two female narrators almost impossible to distinguish between which did become confusing - the book is probably clearer.
83 people found this helpful
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- Needles
- 29-04-19
A lot like Belinda Blinked. But serious.
Fans of the ‘ My Dad Wrote A Porno’ podcast will get the reference, except that this is soft core porn masquerading as an actual “sophisticated” novel. Nothing prepared me for what trash it is. Got about 1/3 of the way but just too cringey for words. Returned.
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- Patrycja
- 23-08-18
Amazing, surprising at every moment.
Amazing, surprising at every moment. Finished in 3 days. Just can't stop listening to this.
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- Leanne Hegarty
- 24-07-17
Loved it loved loved it
I was in from the first few sentences. I couldn't put it down. I kept thinking I knew how the story would play out, but I kept being wrong. I highly recommend it, but not for a week long holiday - I finished it in 2 days!!