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Beware the Woman

The twisty, unputdownable new thriller about family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author

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Beware the Woman

By: Megan Abbott
Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
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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.

CHOSEN AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, NPR AND THE TABLET

'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 most interesting crime writer in the US today' AN WILSON

The Turnout by Megan Abbott was a New York Times bestseller in August 2021©2023 Megan Abbott
Domestic Thrillers Psychological Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Exciting Suspense

Critic reviews

A haunted, woozy, suspenseful Midwest Gothic Noir ... A slow-burning novel of almost unbearable tension ... Megan Abbott is always essential reading
A splendidly tense and atmospheric homage to the Gothic tradition - a contemporary Rebecca
amid the Great Lakes
Abbott ratchets up the menace towards an unexpected ending in a claustrophobic chiller about how men deny women agency
A feminist fable as well as a psychological thriller with horror hints ... What initially looks set to be a
reworking of Rebecca becomes instead an incisive parable of today's America, where superficially nice men are reasserting their former control over women's reproductive choices
Megan Abbott is quite rightly considered to be psycho thriller royalty ... Abbott's writing is as intense and
energetic ... Every page is laced with quiet menace
Megan Abbott is a masterful builder of mood, her voluptuous prose heavy with sex and weather
Timely and terrifying
Imagine Get Out but with feminist themes . . . Dripping with tense confrontations, curiously dead wives, and the gendered expectations that accompany both. It's a suspenseful page-turner
With this bewitchingly creepy tale, thriller queen Megan Abbott keeps readers questioning whether this family getaway is the stuff of anxiety dreams or Bluebeard nightmares
Do not read this brilliant (but dark) book with the lights off
Scintillating and chilling from start to finish
Terrific at finding dread around every corner, at making you see the grotesque and frightening in something previously mundane...Beware the Woman is a master class in suspense
A cabin-fever suspense novel laced with menacing Rosemary's Baby-ish undertones
Extraordinary. Rosemary's Baby midwifed by Mrs Danvers. Megan Abbott is a genius. has that feeling of being a book that will be read 100 years from now and marvelled over. A true classic
Sultry, subversive, shades of Rebecca in a menacing, Gothic exploration of threats to female bodily autonomy, which may be current but have been sadly ever so. I loved it
Abbott is a superstar of the suspense genre. . . . Beware the Woman is Rebecca wedded to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Along with the feverish psychological twists and turns that Abbott's novels are celebrated for, Beware the Woman explores the timely topic of women's autonomy over their own bodies
Megan Abbott can do no wrong. Stunningly twisty, Beware the Woman so deftly holds some of the most pressing feminist issues of our time in an eerie, ominous grip. Bodily autonomy, reproduction, patriarchal power-this thriller feels terrifyingly of the moment, and perhaps that's where the truest horror lies
All stars
Most relevant
Visceral, grim, claustrophobic, brilliantly titled and narrated and mountain lions!. not for the faint-hearted, Loved it

Not just an easy read

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Such a great story , didn't have a clue what direction it was going in !
Subtly creepy, just loved it !!

Addictive story !

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Waste of time, terrible book. The characters are terrible and not likable in any way

Crap

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