A gripping story, smartly written and very believable by authors who know how to grab a reader's interest and never let it go.

Karen Perry is the pen name of crime writing duo Paul Perry and Karen Gillece who both live in Ireland. Their latest novel, Girl Unknown is my second novel by this team and it certainly didn't disappoint.

When Zoe Barry walks into Professor David Connolly's office and announces that she is his daughter, he is left reeling. Suddenly his family - imperfect, flawed but working, is trying to find space for someone new. But no one expected where it all would end, her stories don't add up and the whole family struggle to make sense of her.

I really liked the premise of this novel and characters were well drawn and both plot and characters were believable.
An enjoyable and suspenseful read with lots of twists and turns to keep the reader interested. I especially enjoyed the twists and turns.

My thanks to Penguin Books for the opportunity to read this novel in return for an honest review.

( )

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.
( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )