Karen Perry (1)Reseñas

Girl Unknown A Novel by Karen Perry published by Henry Holt & Company. An arc of this novel was given to me through Netgalley for my honest review thank you to all parties for the opportunity. It is very unique in a number of ways. The first is that Karen Perry is actually a pen name for two writers collaborating on this book. This is the first book, to the best of my knowledge, that I've read penned by two authors and it definitely worked here, you could not tell who wrote which part of the story and it made it easy to read and a real page turner.
I have to be honest when I picked this up I wasn’t sure what to expect. I loved the way the authors split the chapters up between Caroline and David I feel both perspectives help to round out the story giving the reader an insight to what is going on. What I like to call Zoe Barry is a bombshell on a family who was coasting through life happily. Everything is fine until “She” arrives, and while at first, I felt horrible for her, toward the end chapters I was convinced she needed more help than anyone can give her. Is she his daughter, is she a stranger or is she just the killer? As far as books go I found this nicely paced with characters well-crafted and an ending that you will either see coming a mile away or not figure it out until the last page. 4 Unbelievable Unknown Stars from me.

A brilliantly clever psychological thriller set on dual timelines filled full with plenty of twists and suspense to keep you glued throughout.

Three children are bound together by a game that is not end well and haunts them as adults. It raised the question of who we are in ourheart and and th degree to which damage and guilt can shape our natures

This book didn't work out for me. I prefer more mystery to the story, you know is she crazy or nor not? However, knowing right from the start that Amy has a screw loose just made this reading experience pretty boring ESPECIALLY since Cara didn't seem to get the hints about it. The ending, the very last chapters, however, is the best part of the books. If the book had been better, more thrilling and less annoying would I have liked the book so much more.

This book didn't work out for me. I prefer more mystery to the story, you know is she crazy or nor not? However, knowing right from the start that Amy has a screw loose just made this reading experience pretty boring ESPECIALLY since Cara didn't seem to get the hints about it. The ending, the very last chapters, however, is the best part of the books. If the book had been better, more thrilling and less annoying would I have liked the book so much more.

My heart sinks when I open a book and the first line reveals present-tense narrative. I hate it. It's just, oh I don't know, so….narrow.

But, but, but, it soon…very soon…became apparent I jolly well had to get over myself because I was clawed in and gripped like a vice from the get-go.

Perry really knows how to tighten those tension screws after an explosive start, almost quite literally, when the story opens with a terrorist attack in London, and Cara finds herself saved from almost certain death by a stranger (Amy). It's not the near-death experience that then changes Cara's life forever. It's the secrets she shared with her saviour in the hours shielding themselves from the carnage outside. And what happens afterwards when she's home, safe and well...or so she thinks.

The story is narrated in the first person by Cara and Amy, alternately. It's a story of obsession, misunderstanding, deceit and lies, regrets, infidelity. Perry does an excellent job of keep you on the edge of your seat and then just when you think you can relax, pow!

Has this got all the right psychological thriller ingredients? Oh yes, with bells on. It has suspense, a fast pace, darkness, a good plot and, if, like me, you haven't read this author before, a motivation to read more by her. And….only a handful of errors, which, these days, is the best you can hope for.

My heart sinks when I open a book and the first line reveals present-tense narrative. I hate it. It's just, oh I don't know, so….narrow.

But, but, but, it soon…very soon…became apparent I jolly well had to get over myself because I was clawed in and gripped like a vice from the get-go.

Perry really knows how to tighten those tension screws after an explosive start, almost quite literally, when the story opens with a terrorist attack in London, and Cara finds herself saved from almost certain death by a stranger (Amy). It's not the near-death experience that then changes Cara's life forever. It's the secrets she shared with her saviour in the hours shielding themselves from the carnage outside. And what happens afterwards when she's home, safe and well...or so she thinks.

The story is narrated in the first person by Cara and Amy, alternately. It's a story of obsession, misunderstanding, deceit and lies, regrets, infidelity. Perry does an excellent job of keep you on the edge of your seat and then just when you think you can relax, pow!

Has this got all the right psychological thriller ingredients? Oh yes, with bells on. It has suspense, a fast pace, darkness, a good plot and, if, like me, you haven't read this author before, a motivation to read more by her. And….only a handful of errors, which, these days, is the best you can hope for.

A fast moving easy to read book, it reminded me of the recent TV programme Missing

Cara lives with husband Jeff and daughter Mabel. Cara unexpectedly gets caught in a terror attack but is saved by Amy. Cara however shouldn't have been where she was. From that point Amy moves into Cara's life and things aren't what they seem.

I enjoyed this book and it did hold my interest for the majority. The story is told by both Cara and Amy and is a dark tale of obsession and what a person will do to get what they want. My only niggle is that this has been done before in many ways and it just became a little predictable.

The story certainly held my interest and I did want to reach the end to see what was going to happen. I didn't see some of the story coming but the final showdown was predictable. The last few pages does throw in a final twist but again I've read something similar before.

Overall an average thriller which focuses on family life, lies, secrets and obsession with enough to keep the reader invested. Not the best thriller out there but enough for me to read this author again.

Wow! This book was great. It was all twisty and turny, with a teensy bit of a gothic feel about it. I listen to audiobooks when I do chores. Since I couldn't stop listening to this one, the house and yard look good! ;-)

Girl Unknown is the first thriller that I've read this year, and I have to say that it was a nice change of pace. Although this book wasn't everything I wanted it to be, there was a lot to love. Imagine a family that is trying their best to knit their lives back together, when suddenly a bomb is dropped in their midst. A previously unknown person, an unexpected daughter, falls right into the middle of their rocky relationships. That's the premise behind Girl Unknown. How do you deal with someone who might not be exactly who they say they are?

The fact of the matter is that this book is not what I was expecting, because I was expecting more of the thriller aspect and less of the familial drama side of things. That being said, Girl Unknown is going to greatly appeal to any reader who is very into character personalities and drama that you can cut with a knife. Karen Perry uses most of this book to show us the character perspective of what Zoe is to each of them. As the story unfolds, we find out more and more about how Zoe is definitely not what she seems to be, and see why the choices that David and Caroline make are really pushing things towards their climax. If we're talking intense studies on character psyches, this book has that in droves. What it lacks though, because of this, is real forward movement.

See, the book spends so much time dealing with the slow decline of David and Caroline's relationship and Zoe's manipulation of them, that it doesn't have a lot of time to spend on the thriller portion of the story. This felt like a read that was very easy to anticipate. The plot was well formed, but it was also easy to see where Zoe's story was going next. As such, there was never that surprise or shock that usually comes along with books like this. It was interesting, well-written, and had great characters. It just didn't have any oomph to it.

So, that's why I'm on the fence about this book. Technically, it's fairly perfect. It's not a bad read, by any means, and actually flies by pretty quickly. It just didn't catch me up in its web like I expected it to. I wanted more punch, and more pizzazz. If you appreciate thrillers that are more formulaic, and take a deep dive into the the inner thoughts of the characters, you'll definitely love Girl Unknown.

Wer denkt, dass Karen Perry eine Autorin ist, der denkt wie ich – und liegt ebenfalls falsch. Es ist ein Autorenduo und besteht aus Karen Gillece und Paul Perry. „Girl Unknown“ ist ihr drittes gemeinsames Buch, auf das ich mich schon lange gefreut habe, weil ich in den letzten Monaten ein Faible für solche Settings entwickelt habe – weg von den hard boiled Krimis, hin zu den Thrillern, deren Spannung eher psychologischer Natur sind. Ich kannte Gillece und Perry davor nicht, aber mit „Girl Unknown“ haben sie mich überzeugt.

David ist Dozent für Geschichte an der UCD, der University College Dublin, und spätestens jetzt wissen wir auch, wo die Geschichte spielt. David ist Mitte vierzig und mit Caroline verheiratet, mit der er zwei Kinder hat, Holly und Robbie, sie elf, er fünfzehn. David ist mit Leidenschaft Akademiker und hofft, dass er bald einen eigenen Lehrstuhl bekommt. Als er von seiner späten Vaterschaft erfährt, ist er kurz verwirrt, später aber glücklich. Die Mutter kannte er vor einem halben Leben von der Uni in Nordirland, wo er einige Zeit war. Er lässt zwar einen Vaterschaftstest machen, aber eigentlich ist ihm das Ergebnis egal – er hat Zoë sofort ins Herz geschlossen.

Caroline hat das mitnichten – nicht nur weil sie nicht ihre leibliche Mutter ist, sondern weil sie ihr nicht traut. Als sie Zoë auf der Uni konfrontiert, ist das junge Mädchen flapsig und keineswegs unsicher, noch weniger schüchtern. Aber sie kann David gegenüber nichts sagen, weil ihre Ehe nach einer Affäre, die sie vor einem Jahr hatte, noch immer auf tönernen Füßen steht.

Es beginnt mit dem Prolog, in dem man einer Möwe begegnet und der auf den ersten Blick unbedeutend ist. Später kann man ihm jedoch den „Foreshadowing“-Stempel aufdrücken. Dann kommt Kapitel eins und schon werden wir vom Flügel der Möwe in die Geschichte gestoßen – die Möwe fliegt weiter, weil das Fliegen ihre Natur ist. Und der Leser liest weiter, weil – ihr ahnt es – das Lesen eben seine Natur ist. Und so lesen wir und lesen und können nicht mehr aufhören, ergötzen uns an dieser feingliedrigen Konstruktion dieser grandiosen Geschichte. Immer wieder wechseln mit jedem Kapitel die zwei Ich-Erzähler David und Caroline und erzählen uns im Nachhinein, wie sie das Leben mit der plötzlich aufgetauchten Tochter Zoë erlebt haben. Alles dreht sich in der Geschichte um Zoë, diese optisch engelhafte Erscheinung mit ihren blonden Locken und der zarten Figur – eine Harfe in die Hand und sie kann zur Geburt Jesu erscheinen.

Aber sie ist alles andere als engelhaft, oh, ist sie gerissen wie sie alle gegeneinander aufhetzt, Vater, Mutter, Tochter, Sohn. Und genau das ist das Salz in dieser Buchstabensuppe von der man noch und noch einen Nachschlag will. In Zoë steckt Schwarz und Weiß, Yin und Yang, Dr. Jekyll und Mrs. Hyde; und als Leser will man nur noch wissen, wie es endet, also blättert man Seite um Seite weiter, wühlt sich durch diese knisternde Spannung, versucht Zoës Intrigen zu durchschauen und scheitert doch daran.

Das klingt alles sehr einseitig, sehr undifferenziert, aber ich bin noch nicht fertig. Denn eines hat das Lesen anfangs doch etwas verlangsamt: nämlich die von Karen Gillece verfassten Kapitel über Caroline, in der sie uns von ihrem Familienleben und ihrer Affäre erzählt – so zäh diese anfangs im Gegensatz zu Davids Kapitel sind, so wichtig sind sie für den weiteren Verlauf der Geschichte. Und was mir auch gefehlt hat, war eine Erklärung zu Zoës Verhalten - man kann als Leser zwar mutmaßen, aber die Wenigsten von uns werden eine psychologische Ausbildung haben, um die richtigen Schlüsse zu ziehen.

Was soll ich sagen? Das Buch ist einfach verdammt gut. Kudos an Gillece und Perry, die meine Erwartungen mehr als erfüllt haben.

Tl;dr: „Girl Unknown“ von Karen Perry ist ein irrsinnig packender Psychothriller, den man, einmal angefangen, nicht mehr aus der Hand legen will. Mit einer irrsinnig gut konstruierten Geschichte und einem Mädchen, das es faustdick hinter den Ohren hat, die das Salz in der Suppe ist.

3.5 STARS

As I read Girl Unknown I knew there was more to the story. There had to be a catch with Zoe. I had so many guesses and loves trying to follow the clues. Karen Perry threw so many twists and turns into the book that I knew the truth was buried in there somewhere.

My struggle was David and Caroline. Their marriage was troubled before Zoe entered the picture and when she came into their life it became even more troubled. I didn’t like that David didn’t even consider Caroline’s concerns about Zoe. He didn’t put any thought into them, didn’t try to understand where Caroline was coming from, and just brushed her off. I got it, Zoe is his daughter he wants to love and trust her yet the signs were all there that she was trouble.

The ending was the wonderful. When I got to the last few chapters I could not stop reading. The pace picked up, the secrets were shared, people were held accountable for their actions, and the final twist…never saw it coming.

Atmospheric psychological thriller centring round a family country house. Lindsey first visits the home of her school friend in the 1990s & then is invited for a reunion 20 years later when the house is having to be put on the market.

Full of nostalgia & a growing sense of creepy unease, as the story slowly unfolds between the two timelines, and it is unclear how reliable the narrator is...

A novel that because of its structure kept me guessing & predicting.

She shouldn’t have been there in the first place, Shoreditch, the part of London where the attack took place in which Cara was almost killed. It was this young girl, Amy, who saved her by pulling her into a store and then hiding with her for hours. Cara just left her lover when she met the killer, under the pressure of the events, she told Amy about her affair and the lost love of her husband. The events bring them close together and when Cara needs somebody to babysit her daughter, Amy moves in. What seems to be a close friendship, turns out to be something completely different and it won’t take too long until Cara doesn’t recognize her own life anymore and has to realize that she is in real danger.

Karen Perry, the pseudonym of Karen Gillece and Paul Perry, has chosen two quite different main characters for her sixth thriller: on the one hand, the down-to-earth successful radio maker Cara who supports her family and has established herself a picture book life – however, only when looked at from the outside. On the other hand, it is obvious from the beginning that Amy is suffering from hearing voices and that her extreme emotion leads her much more than a rational view of reality. Alternating their points of views gives the reader an advance which does not diminish the suspense.

You know exactly what is going to happen, yet, the question remains how far Amy is ready to go to attain her goal. Would she kill for it? Whom? How destructive is she actually or does she break down before something really bad happens? Something really bad is in the air – and then it happens.

I really liked Karen Perry’s style of writing which keeps you reading on because you want to know how this mess will finally be solved. Nevertheless, I was a bit disappointed by the protagonist Cara. At first, she seems to be quite clever and everything but easy to manipulate. But the more the plot advances, the more naive and even plainly stupid she becomes. This is a bit annoying because at a certain point, it is absolutely apparent who is behind it all, but she remains stubbornly ignorant. All in all, quite some entertaining thriller.

I guess I might call this a good beach read - the pages keep turning, with not a lot of characters or plot points to keep in mind. Although it is written by two authors, a man and a woman, and is framed in alternating chapters, by husband and wife, I didn't find the voices of the latter much different.

The plot is fairly straightforward, quite obvious from the very beginning. There's something wrong with Zoe - what is it and what will happen because of it? The ending comes with a not very satisfying twist, and the lack of depth of character, particularly Zoe, was disappointing in a purported psychological thriller. Not very psychological and not very thrilling.

I received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book.

Tension throughout and a little creepy. David is a professor at university, working hard to get the next promotion. After one of his freshman courses one day, a young woman approaches him and tells him that she is his 19-year-old daughter. Zoe soon weaves her way into the lives of David and his family. The resulting turmoil makes for an un-put-down-able book. Loved it.

Girl Unknown is not one of the better books I’ve read. To begin with it was slow but the pace did pick up as the story of a very dysfunctional family continued. I appreciate LibraryThing allowing me to read this book but I do not recommend it as a good read.

Girl Unknown is written by two authors - Paul Perry and Karen Gillece. I mention this right off the bat as Girl Unknown is told in alternating chapters from a husband and wife and I wonder if each author took on one of the personas writing the book.

David is a university professor. He is stunned when one of his first year students comes to his office professing to be his daughter. When DNA results prove that she is, he wants her to be part of his family, along with his son and daughter. But his wife Caroline, while welcoming Zoe on the surface, has her own doubts about Zoe's motives. And being privy to both David's and Caroline's take on the situation, the reader does as well.

I did not like David at all. Even though he starts out trying to do the right thing, I found him somewhat entitled and smug. Without giving anything away, as the book progresses, his thoughts and actions became increasingly disturbing to me. Caroline has made mistakes in the past and is far from perfect, but she is the character I was on side with the most. Zoe is a manipulator, beguiling David and toying with his wife, children and friends. I wondered what her end game was.

Kudos to Perry and Gillece for creating such strong reactions in this reader. Their depiction of this couple's interactions is really well done. And I liked the back and forth of the chapters, seeing the same events through different eyes. As the cracks in their foundation widen with the addition of Zoe, the reader knows that things are not going to go well. And it was here that I grew saddened (and a little frustrated) with the inability of this couple to actually be honest with and listen to each other and to actually see what is going on in their lives.

Those looking for a fast paced thriller won't find it in Girl Unknown. Instead it is a slow burn, with the tension and the inevitable outcome building with every chapter. But, I was caught unawares by the final turn the ending took. An unsettling, literary family drama.½

I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program. David and Caroline seem to have it all- a wonderful marriage and two kids. When a teenager, Zoe, appears in David’s college office one day with the claim that David might be her father, the family dynamics immediately change. Wanting to believe in his newly found daughter and have the opportunity to get to know her, David makes choices that affect both his wife and kids that give the appearance of prioritizing his new daughter over his current family.
However, as details emerge, Zoe is not the innocent daughter that she is portraying herself as. Karen Perry tells an amazing well thought story with such well developed characters that pull the reader, grab you, and keep you reading frantically until the last stunning chapter and final page!

This is a page turner suspense novel that will keep you turning pages until the end. It's the first book that I've read by this author but definitely won't be the last.

David and Caroline appear to be a successful young family. David is a college professor, Caroline has just gone back to work in advertising and they have two children. When everything changes, the cracks start to develop in their marriage and their family and its unsure whether they will survive. The change is brought about by Zoe, a student in one of David's classes who tells him one day that she thinks she is his daughter - someone he never knew existed. He wants to get to know her better and after a few meetings with his family, he invites her to live with them. His wife is very unsettled by this new addition and doesn't know whether to trust her. As the happy family of 4 becomes a family of 5, will the new addition make them stronger or tear them apart?

The story was intriguing and suspenseful but I really didn't like any of the main characters - especially David and Caroline - they were well written but both very weak people. I can overlook my dislike of them and stay say this this is definitely a book worth reading.

Thanks to librarything for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Girl Unknown is a book about a dysfunctional family and what happens to them after the arrival of a young girl named Zoe. David and Caroline Connolly struggle with the appearance of Zoe who claims to be David's daughter from a relationship before David married.

David has never forgotten his first love and now he becomes excited at the possibility of new beginnings with an unexpected daughter. But all is not what it seems. Zoe is cool and calculating with Caroline. Their other two teenage children are not sure if Zoe can be friend or foe. The family slowly unravels and tension mounts. I enjoyed how each chapter is told by a different family members viewpoint. This story starts off very slowly and gradually builds with suspense. But stay tuned for that twist at the end. I enjoyed reading this one.
I received a complimentary book from Librarything Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review.½

I don't generally read thrillers, but I have read Gone Girl and Girl on a Train, even saw both at the movies. Girl Unknown fits that category as a psychological thriller, although I am not sure I realized that when I requested it from the Early Reviewer program. Regardless, it was a nice change of pace from my usual fare.

The authors, (Karen Perry is a pen name) Karen Gillece and Paul Perry, sure do know how to set a mood. I felt tension from the first words to the very last. The story involves a history professor and his wife and two children in Dublin, Ireland. They have a number of family issues, such as the professor's mother's health, and a brief affair that the mother had that they seemingly had overcome. They also each had some job issues that they are dealing with. This melodramatic saga is told in alternating voices of the husband and wife, giving their own unique perspective about the events and circumstances of their life.

One day a student of the professor tells him she thinks he is her father, from a long ago affair with her mother. He was never informed by the mother and now the mother is dead. Slowly but surely the girl becomes part of the family's life, but not in a good way. Increasingly, she has a negative effect on each member of the family. It escalates in a way that begins tearing the family apart. What bothered me most was that if there was just a bit more communication between family members her effect would have been somewhat minimized. But even more than that the girl's motivation is never made clear. Is she just a sociopath or is there something more than that? I don't know. But it did keep me reading.

Whoa... I love me a great page turner, and this one did the job. Trapped in the house from the recent snow, I took advantage of some reading time. This book caught my attention from the beginning and kept my interest throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is actually still sitting on my nightstand - not ready to put it in the study, as I am debating on passing it on to have someone to discuss it with. Great read! I do like the other cover better.

Even though the story line has been done many times, the writing duo of Paul Perry and Karen Gellece has written a gripping, dark, psychological novel that I found hard to put down. It's about a loving family who already had some problems but when Zoe enters their lives, finds their world turned upside down. Zoe claims to be the daughter of college history professor, David, and he immediately invites her into his family's lives. The story is told in alternating voices of David and his wife, Caroline, and it was interesting to read the different viewpoints of what was going on with Zoe. Caroline who sees through Zoe's conniving, selfish, and mysterious ways, decides to do some investigating on her own. Caroline knows how Zoe is negatively affecting their two children, 11-year-old Holly and teen-age son, Robbie. As Zoe becomes involved in all aspects of the family's lives, their strained marriage becomes more tenuous.

As a college professor, I felt the character of David was portrayed as much too gullible to be immediately taken in by Zoe's claim that he was her father. It was hard to relate to him and I wondered when he would take charge of the situation. This novel is well-plotted and it's a page-turner.

Thanks to the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, via LibraryThing, for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.