Beware the Woman
The twisty, unputdownable new thriller about family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott, a chilling and compulsive novel about a family holiday that takes a terrifying turn.
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
'Splendidly tense and atmospheric - a contemporary Rebecca' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A novel of almost unbearable tension' IRISH TIMES
'Stunningly twisty' ASHLEY AUDRAIN, author of The Push
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Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy has everything she ever wanted. When she and her husband, Jed, go to visit his father in his remote cottage, Jacy feels bathed in love by Dr. Ash, if less so by his housekeeper, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt.
Then Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, all eyes are on Jacy's condition, and whispers about Jed's long-dead mother seem to be intruding upon the present. As the days pass, Jacy feels trapped in the cottage, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded or is this -as is suggested to her-a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions to protect her unborn child? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?
'Abbott ratchets up the menace towards an unexpected ending in a claustrophobic chiller about how men deny women agency' GUARDIAN
'Sultry, subversive, shades of Rebecca . . . I loved it' HARRIET TYCE, author of It Ends at Midnight
'Feverish, razor sharp, and pulsing with dread' RILEY SAGER, author of The House Across the Lake
'Spectacular. Her best yet. Kind of Rosemary's Baby meets Rebecca. Nobody, but nobody does creeping dread like she does' SAM BAKER
The Turnout by Megan Abbott was a New York Times bestseller in August 2021
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this spine-tingling suspense yarn from Edgar Award winner Abbott (The Turnout), pregnant second grade teacher Jacy learns there's plenty she still doesn't know about her taciturn artist husband Jed or the family he rarely mentions—maybe a dangerous amount. The action unfolds during the couple's summer road trip from New York City to visit Jed's father, a retired physician, at his cottage on Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula. At first, Jacy feels transported by the surroundings and her father-in-law's near-courtly solicitousness. (His brusque caretaker, Mrs. Brandt, is a different story.) But things shift when Jacy has a miscarriage scare and, in the aftermath, Jed aligns with his father's alarmingly old-school notions about women and pregnancy. Rightly or wrongly, Jacy starts to feel like a prisoner. Manipulating the sense of menace like a virtuoso violinist, Abbott expertly foreshadows the wrenching family secrets that are exposed in a ferocious finale. Sinewy prose and note-perfect pacing make this a masterful and provocative deep dive into desire, love, and gender politics. Readers will be left breathless.
