Wow what an amazing book ,the best I’ve read in a long time . Very well written with great characters . Lots of twists and turns and all the unanswered questions made clear at the end . Loved the end twist too wasn’t expecting that . I will be reading more from this author in future. Brilliant

Psychological thrillers are my favourite genre and this was one of the best books I've ever read. I haven't been able to stop thinking about the characters or put it down since I started it.
The story is told by three women. The central character, Helen, begins the narrative. She is 28 weeks pregnant and just starting antenatal classes. She has gone alone as her husband is working late and she ends up being thrown together with another single girl, Rachel. Rachel is very different from Helen. She is loud and loves drinking and smoking, despite being pregnant. It is from here the story develops. Helen appears to have everything. A large house, a loving husband and several good friends. Despite this she becomes very lonely. Rachel keeps turning up everywhere so their friendship quickly develops. As this happens you start to feel that something isn't quite right. Why is Rachel always there and what does she want? The tension in the story builds up with every page. Some of the chapters are written by Helen's sister in law, Serena and her younger brother's girlfriend, Katie so you start to learn more about Helen's family. What other sinister events have occurred within this slightly dysfunctional family? How is Rachel linked to it all?
This was such a cleverly written book. There were several great twists and I found it quite hard to predict the second half of the book at all (which I loved!) This is Katherine Faulkners first book and I will definitely be looking out for any future books by this great new author.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for this ARC.

This book had a gripping plot with lots of twists and turns along the way. I enjoyed learning more about each of the characters and in a strange way I actually liked Rachel. The pace was good and I never felt bored or rushed through any of the chapters.

I found Helen frustrating and wanted her to take a stand more, I also think there were some things that hadn’t fully been explained by the end of the book. Additionally I did figure out the majority of twists before the end which detracted slightly for me. I thought there were some details with regards to Helen and Serena which I would have liked tied up.

Overall it’s definitely a read I’d recommend.

This isn't a perfect thriller, but it really is good fun.

When Helen finally falls pregnant after a number of miscarriages, you'd think she'd get support from her husband and family. Instead, she's left to attend antenatal classes on her own, where she meets fellow expectant mum, Rachel. Rachel's attitude towards pregnancy is very different to Helen's - she drinks and smokes and doesn't seem to care much about her unborn child. Despite this huge disparity, the two become friends, so when Rachel needs a place to stay after being attacked, Helen welcomes her in, little knowing that this act of kindness will completely destroy her life.

Like many thrillers, there are holes in the plot, a few things that don't quite add up, edges that could have been smoothed over a little, but in all honest, I didn't really care. It was fast paced and exciting - just what you need from this kind of book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

Wow! What a debut for Katherine Faulkner! I absolutely loved this book! When I read the description I knew this was the type of book I would pick up off the shelf. Once I started reading, I could not put it down! I had to find out what was going on.
This is a story full of mystery, secrets and major twists and turns! I cannot wait to see what Katherine comes up with next! She has an incredible style of writing and a talent for creating a great story.
I loved how each chapter was from the perspective of a different character. This added to the mystery.
If you love a good mystery, thriller then this book is definitely for you!
Thank you to Katherine Faulkner, NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Good debut thriller and mystery which is well written. It is told from different perspectives and the reader is able to glimpse insight into the characters and their secrets. The characters were intriguing but I did not find them very likeable at times.
Unfortunately I struggled with this book. I found it slow paced at the start and felt like giving up however I perservered and it did then pick up after halfway through and was a good read. I would read other books from this author in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was better than I'd anticipated and I already thought that it was going to be good!

Completely unexpected but in the best of ways.

We follow Helen as she embarks on the last trimester of her much wanted pregnancy. It is at NCT classes that she becomes friends with Rachel, but this is also the moment that things seem to spiral. Not just for Helen but for her husband and her closest family members.

As secrets and lies begin to catch up with them all, Rachel goes missing and everything that was already falling apart quickly collapses around them.

What a debut!

I was hooked from the first page.

Katherine has done a fantastic job of creating some interesting characters, some more likeable than others.

Tension builds at a slow and steady pace and just when I thought I had the conundrums surrounding everyone solved, curve balls were thrown in to veer me off course.

And that conclusion, deliciously dark and devious.

Someone got served their just desserts.

Greenwich Park is addictive and I guess brutal at times. There wasn't a single moment where I wanted to put it down and stop reading, if anything I had to make myself slow down so that I didn't miss important (hidden) details.

A successfully written thriller.

Katherine Faulkner is a new name to me and I look forward to following her career. This promising debut is an engrossing read, and very well written. The basic premise is somewhat overused in the genre--a person's life is turned upside down when a stranger enters their life with dramatic effect--but it is done in a refreshing and involving way. The characters are intriguing, the revelations surprising and the denouement surprising. Very enjoyable.

When Helen’s husband fails to turn up to their first NCT ante natal class she is relieved when another partner less mum to be befriends her, however Rachael is a bit full on and seems to turn up wherever Helen is. Helen though, is starting to feel lonely, she has started her maternity leave early so even when alarm bells start to ring she allows Rachael deeper and deeper into her life..

Told from different perspectives the reader is soon drawn deeper into the lives of a Helen and her family but you soon begin to realise that there are secrets waiting to be revealed.

I really don't know whether I enjoyed this book or not, very different to what I was expecting, I found it hard to keep up with all the jumping about and wasn't keen on the characters, especially Helen who absolutely got on my nerves. with the longest pregnancy possible. The most exciting part was the last 25%.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for a FREE ARC of this book.

'I know you asked me not to write to you again. But you need to know the truth, even if, after all this time, your hands are still clamped over your ears.'


From this opening line, we jump backward to when the main character is 24 weeks pregnant and about to attend her first antenatal class, where it all beings to go horribly wrong. The plot and pacing is a bit like the frog in boiling water ... it heats up slowly, slowly, so slowly that you hardly notice ... however, for me, it never really reached full boil.

I found the writing passive in the extreme and unpolished with lots of extraneous words such as 'just' 'starts to' 'seem', and etc. The sentence constructions rely heavily on split infinitives and some lack punctuation entirely. For example: 'I tip the dirty water away put some music on and open the windows to air out the house.' The narrative is written in first person present tense, which once you adapt to it, reads smoothly enough.

However, a couple of lines did stand out as done well: 'The view from the window is blank and featureless, London's landmarks too distant to make out, the city a scribbled line on the horizon.'

'The rain scatters everyone, washes all the people from the streets.'

Furthermore, I guessed who was in trouble and who was blackmailing by about 14% of the way into the book. It took longer to suss out the why, though. All in all, an enjoyable enough read but not gripping or surprising or particularly new. Greenwich Park gets three soft stars from me, which means it was an okay read.

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NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

I really liked Greenwich Park even though I stopped and genuinely asked myself a couple of times if I had actually read the book before - a definite case of reviewer’s deja-vu, I’m afraid.

Apart from that, what’s not to enjoy? It’s a well-written, spine chilling tale of pregnancy angst, class warfare, revenge and dark secrets set amongst a world of privileged young and attractive wealthy folk and it has a brilliantly twisted ending that I, for one, certainly wasn’t expecting. If you’re a fan of this genre you will lap it up and eagerly move on to the next one without disappointment.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing, to Ms Faulkner and to NetGalley for letting me read and review this enjoyable thriller.

⭐️GREENWICH PARK by Katherine Faulkner ⭐️
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‘When you have it all, you have so much more to lose’
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The story is based around Helen, pregnant again after four miscarriages, when she meets Rachel at her antenatal classes, starting a friendship she doesn’t really want. Helen is already happy in her own perfect world, living in her childhood home with her husband, Daniel, close by to his business partner and her brother, Rory, and her brothers wife, Serena, and rekindling her relationships with her oldest friend Katie, a journalist, who is dating her younger brother, Charlie.
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I was hooked within seconds on this book. The writers description of perfection and how it all slowly unravels is wonderful as its pace builds as the mystery reveals itself becomes more bizarre. Every word is a clue in this book, you’ll find yourself going back to sections to reread to double check. The characters themselves I found frustrating, why was Helen so naive, why does Daniel lack a personality, why Serena is so smug, and what on earth is Rachel’s game? But it all comes together and is a perfectly formed thriller with everything you want.
Thank you for letting me review #netgalley #greenwichpark #book #review #bookreview #ravenbooks #bloomsburypublishing

See review also on Instagram rosie_read_a_book

Greenwich Park centres around two women, Helen and Rachel, who meet in an antenatal class. Rachel is immediately full on, attaching herself to Helen and showing up wherever Helen goes. Helen is torn between being glad to have a friend she can share pregnancy with, and the looming sense that something isn't quite right.

This was a interesting mystery that did just about manage to keep me guessing. I was eternally circling the answers the whole time which made it feel slightly less satisfying, but there were enough red herrings that I happily never quite got there.

The atmosphere it created was spot on. Just like Helen, you know something seems off about Rachel but I would also have brushed it aside like she does. The suspicion and the tension are kept at a great level throughout and it's one of those thrillers you'll inhale over a couple of days.

Where it ends up going is a wild ride, but the downside is that it feels like an overly familiar plot. It falls back onto some tropes that aren't quite comfortable which is a shame, and it never totally blindsighted me in the way I wanted.

I really enjoyed this dark and compelling psychological drama. Written mainly from the viewpoint of Helen, who is pregnant again after four miscarriages and forced to start her maternity leave early for health reasons, the story develops as she is befriended by the mysterious Rachel, who she meets at an ante- natal group. The viewpoint switches infrequently to Serena, Helen’s sister-in-law and Katie, a journalist and on-again off-again girlfriend of Helen’s younger brother Charlie, giving us insights into the dysfunctional family and family relationships of this wealthy professional family where nothing is as it seems. The red riding hood references and imagery tells us very early on that at least one of the cast is a disguised wolf, but the identity of the wolf is hidden until the end.

Hmm, I really wanted to like this book but other than the last sentence it was quite predictable..... Sorry.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and independent review.
This was a good thriller with lots of content and an interesting range of characters. Although Helen annoyed me as she seemed to be a bit stupid and gullible, not reading
the signs around her.
I can’t say that I always knew exactly what was going on but I was hooked and intrigued enough to keep reading to find out the truth. The twists and turns continued right to the very end.
A fast paced, exciting debut novel.
4 stars

I struggled at first with this book but I’m so glad I stuck with it. A well written thriller with so many twists and turns, it will keep you guessing

I surprised myself by reading this, as it is about as far from my usual tastes as you can get. But dont let the take away from that mean that I did not enjoy it. Far from it. I loved it. The way it was written was clever, and I liked the small asides giving glimpses into things, but not giving us enough to pin it all together. Before the end, I had a few theories as to what I thought was going on, and none of them were correct. Helen was just so sweet and innocent that the story mainly being from her view does really make it hard t piece it together before the end. So much fun! (especially the last line.)

Really enjoyed this. Found it gripping and fast paced which are the two things I look for most in a thriller. Loved the way the plot developed and the twists and turns along the way.

Thanks for the opportunity to read and review. Will definitely be looking out for more books by Katherine Faulkner in the future.