The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
Psychological suspense is a genre that needs to be handled with kid gloves. Too much reality—or too much foolishness—and the pact made with the reader to believe in the unbelievable is broken. Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen seem to have mastered the formula in An Anonymous Girl, a creepy-crawly tale about putting your trust in a stranger; specifically, in a strange psychologist…The authors know exactly how to play on their characters' love of danger to bring them to the brink of disaster—and dare them to jump off.
From the Publisher
Praise for An Anonymous Girl:
One of:
People Magazine's Book of the Week
InStyle's "7 Books That You Should Resolve to Read This January"
HelloGiggles' "The 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2019"
Marie Claire's "The Best Women’s Fiction of 2019 (So Far)"
Good Morning America's "Great Gifts for the Holidays" round-up
Bookish's "Must-Read Books of Winter"
PopSugar's "Best Books of Winter"
Hypable's "Winter Releases You Can’t Afford to Miss"
Cosmopolitan's "2019 Books to Bring to Your Book Club"
Bookbub's "Biggest Books of Winter"
Refinery 29's "Best Books of January 2019"
Bustle's Fiction Books Hitting Shelves in January 2019
Crime Reads' "January's Best Psychological Thrillers"
USA Today's"5 New Books Not to Miss"
"Slickly twisty [with] gasp-worthy final twists...major league suspense." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Masterfully escalates the suspense...keep[s] the reader guessing until the end. A great follow-up." —Booklist (starred review)
“Psychological suspense is a genre that needs to be handled with kid gloves...Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen seem to have mastered the formula...a creepy-crawly tale.” —New York Times Book Review
"For those who relished the creepy stalking in Hendricks and Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us, this unnerving tale will have them rethinking what secrets are safe to share and if moral and ethics really matter when protecting the ones you love." —Library Journal (starred review)
DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
Those who love suspense won’t be able to stop listening to this audiobook as a young woman in New York City is drawn ever deeper into a web of lies and deceit woven by the mysterious psychologist Dr. Shields. Jessica Farris, in need of money, agrees to participate in a study of morals and ethics, but things get very personal very quickly. Narrators Barrie Kreinik and Julia Whelan work seamlessly together as they alternate between the two women. Jess’s voice starts out confident but becomes increasingly nervous as her paranoia, then outright fear, grows in intensity. Dr. Shields remains clinical and authoritative as she methodically describes her plans for Jess. The doctor’s husband, Thomas, is portrayed in slightly huskier tones. Could you tell a lie without feeling guilty? J.E.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-09-18
A Manhattan makeup artist signs up for a study about morality and ethics that takes her deep into the danger zone.
Using the addictive split narration gambit deployed in their debut, Hendricks and Pekkanen (The Wife Between Us, 2018) tell another tense tale of two female characters. Jessica is struggling to get by in New York City with a job doing makeup sessions in clients' homes. When she overhears that some ditzy college girls she's working on have signed up to take a psychological survey for $500, she breaks into their voicemail while they're out of the room to get the information, then pretends to be one of them when she arrives at the appointment. (Why she didn't just ask them about it we'll never know.) Ironically, the survey contains questions like "Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt?" and "Describe a time in your life when you cheated." Turn the page, and now we're watching Jessica from the other side, from the perspective of the immediately rather creepy researcher, Dr. Lydia Shields, who is already aware of her subject's deception. "This test can free you, Subject 52," she is thinking. "Surrender to it." We quickly learn the survey is just a front for recruiting a susceptible young woman to act as bait in some nefarious schemes Dr. Shields has planned...schemes which may have already led to the death of a woman known as Subject 5. Almost nothing about this story or its characters is believable or makes much sense, from Jessica's naiveté to Lydia's sociopathic tendencies to the awful and life-changing bit of personal history they share. Leave that aside, though, and you can still have a bit of fun watching their game of cat and mouse play out.
A harmless page-turner.
