AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “I absolutely loved Invisible Girl—Lisa Jewell has a way of combining furiously twisty, utterly gripping plots with wonderfully rich characterization—she has such compassion for her characters, and we feel we know them utterly… A triumph!” —Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with … bestselling author
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with an intricate thriller about a young woman’s disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.
Young Saffyre Maddox spent three years under the care of renowned child psychologist Roan Fours. When Dr. Fours decides their sessions should end, Saffyre feels abandoned. She begins looking for ways to connect with him, from waiting outside his office to walking through his neighborhood late at night. She soon learns more than she ever wanted to about Roan and his deceptively perfect family life. On a chilly Valentine’s night, Saffyre will disappear, taking any secrets she has learned with her.
Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct—accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.
Owen lives across the street from the Fours family. The Fours have a bad feeling about their neighbor; Owen is a bit creepy and suspect and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night. Could Owen be responsible? What happened to the beautiful missing Saffyre, and does her disappearance truly connect them all?
Evocative, vivid, and unputdownable, Lisa Jewell’s latest thriller is another “haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author).
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Well I really enjoyed this one. After disliking The Family Upstairs I thought that this one was more like the Lisa Jewel that I enjoy.
One of our main protagonists is Saffyre, a troubled teen. She was left without parents but fortunately had a loving uncle who tried to be there for her. She had a traumatic event in childhood which she never divulged to anyone, not even her psychiatrist, Roan Four, who worked with her for 3 years and then dismissed her as cured?? She goes to school, gets good grades but is very unhappy. “My superpower was invisibility. There in the playground at school, or in the sixth-form common room, all eyes were on me, but at night I did not exist. I was the Invisible Girl, invisibility was my favorite state of existence”. I loved her spunk and how she faced her nightmares and had the courage to help not only herself but others.
The Fours live in an upscale neighborhood. Roan Four is a child psychologist, he spends most of his time working, doesn’t interact with his own family much and his wife is left to constantly wonder if he still loves her. Cate and Roan have two teenagers living at home who may have their own secrets.
Across the street from the Fours lives a single 30 something, Owen Pick. He has lived for quite a while in his aunt’s flat. He is only allowed to use the kitchen, bathroom and his bedroom. He is an awkward man who has never quite figured out how to deal with people. He is intelligent and educated and works as a teacher at a local high school. He has recently had some allegations charged against him for inappropriate behavior towards some of the young women.
The story takes off when there are multiple sexual assaults against women in the neighborhood. Everyone is quickly suspicious of Owen because he is creepy right? He doesn’t fit in, he doesn’t look quite right.
Things get tense quickly when Saffyre goes missing. Not even her best friend or uncle know where she is.
The characters are interesting, flawed but believable and I enjoyed the story. How often is a person judged by their appearance, their awkward social skills, just because they aren’t like the people we are used to interacting with? We should all know by now that crimes are sometimes committed by people hiding in plain sight.
This novel definitely kept me turning the pages as I wanted to know how it would all play out. There is more than one mystery to unravel here fans!!
I can highly recommend this novel to lovers of thrillers with well developed, unique characters.
This was a buddy read with my good friend Mary Beth, we both enjoyed it.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.
This novel is set to publish on August 6, 2020
Thanks Atria for the ARC copy and thanks to Lisa Jewell for writing another thrilling book!! Loved it!!
My Review of
INVISIBLE GIRL
By Lisa Jewell
Published by Atria Books
Lisa Jewell does it again with a suspense thriller leaving you guessing until the very end. While this may not be my most favorite book of hers, it was definitely brilliantly written interweaving three POV’s of the main protagonists. I was flipping pages so fast I was afraid I might start a fire. It was a can’t stop once you start read and I enjoyed it. As always, Jewell’s stories are so original and well thought out, there is never a book that comes close.
The three stories are told from three POV’s; Saffyre, Cate and Owen. All strangers, their lives will eventually all intermingle as the story of each person and their lives unfold. Someone will be missing and one will be suspect for their disappearance and possible murder. No one will be the same.
Saffyre Maddox, 17 years old, lives with her Uncle who along with her Grandfather raised her until her Grandfather passed. Saffyre has known tragedy losing her grandmother & mother along with serious trauma from sexual abuse at the age of 10. She seeks comfort in self harm which leads her to being treated by a therapist, Roan Fours. He releases her from treatment thinking she is successfully healed but Saffyre isn’t in agreement. She develops an infatuation with Roan and begins following him and learns secrets about him and his family.
Cate Fours, is the wife of Roan and mother to their two children Georgia and Josh. She is struggling with her 30 year marriage after past suspicion of infidelity on Roan’s part. She is very involved with her children and more so of Josh who is very protective and loving to his mother. Lately, Roan and her have again been challenged with him choosing to spend so much time away from the home. Things don’t seem right especially when a Valentine’s Day card arrives addressed to Roan. Is Roan cheating? Georgia their daughter’s friend is sexually assaulted right outside there home. Is there a serial attacker on the loose? Is it possibly the weird neighbor that lives across the street?
Owen the neighbor who lives across the street from the Fours. He is a 33 year old College Coding Teacher that lives in a room in his Aunt’s house. And he is still a virgin. But not voluntary, considered an “incel” he does desire a sexual partner and relationship but he even feels he’s odd and he remains single and celibate. He’s not bad looking and dresses nice, he can’t figure out what the problem is. He is accused of misconduct by female students in his College class and his job hangs in the air. All the while, when the neighborhood attacks occur, he is questioned, then when someone goes missing…he’s a prime suspect. Raised by divorced parents, his dad not seeing him since 18, then his mom dying suddenly in the kitchen at the table; all leave for a profound mark to be left on Owen. But is it enough to make him a killer?
All of these lives will be played out in intriguing stories that pull you in and how their stories overlap is genius. This was very entertaining reading although I feel the incel story was way overplayed.
Lisa Jewell has been on a bit of a roll lately with her compulsively readable thrillers, and her latest release, Invisible Girl, will undoubtedly appeal to her growing fan base. The action in this novel swirls around one pivotal Valentine’s evening in which a young woman disappears. Told from three different viewpoints, the reader is given perspectives from those connected to the events. Cate, matriarch of a family who is temporarily housed in the neighborhood, emerges as a central figure. It is through her thoughts that details are processed and theories begin to coalesce. She is unsure why her husband and son seem so closely tied to what is occurring in the neighborhood—and she even though she dreads what she might discover, she is compelled to investigate. A second voice is that of a young professor recently suspended for misconduct, and now accused of being responsible for the missing girl and other sexual assaults in the area. Bitter and resentful about his treatment by women and with a hazy recollection of his actions, he is a likely suspect. Owen’s awkwardness and alienation serve to bolster the case against him, and his imprudent actions only draw him deeper into suspicion. Saffyre is a first-person narrator, the missing teen whose recollections round out the story by providing background information and important clues about the converging connections between the characters in the novel. The author does a good job with pacing and the painstaking release of details, maintaining a consistent and steady build in tension. She does a particularly good job with the character of Owen, a man that manages to be both pitiful and pitiable. Jewell’s book addresses themes of accusation and assumption, of deceptive appearances and evil hiding in plain sight. Her female characters carry scars both literal and figurative from toxic interactions with men, whether intentional or not. Invisible Girl is a quick and engrossing read, a nice example of an author still hitting her stride.
Thanks to the author, Atria (Simon & Schuster) and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
I loved Invisible Girl. It’s a captivating thriller, where a reader’s instincts are vital to uncover the real suspects. It deals with sinister themes and some of the darkest pits of human nature. With a final bone-chilling revelation, it’s best not to lay bets on one person. Everyone is a suspect because everyone has something to hide.
Set in north London, Saffyre Maddox is seventeen and still carrying the scars of an assault that occurred seven years prior, and at an age too innocent to comprehend the damage done to her. The therapist she once used lives nearby and through her interior monologue we see secrets in his life and a brewing deceit which Saffyre feels she must unravel. Camping out in the wasteland near his home at night, she watches him and is well-attuned to his comings and goings. As women continue to be attacked and sexual assault crimes are on the rise, someone in Saffyre’s street must be guilty of these crimes, especially after Saffyre disappears.
Cate is married to Roan, the therapist who once treated Saffyre. Cate appears to have the perfect life, but her striking child psychologist husband won’t forgive her for an incident a year ago, and yet here he is with secrets of his own. Cate’s paranoia over Roan’s life is well drawn, and there were times when I wondered if I were being led down a rabbit hole with more surprises at the end of the trail. Suspense is maintained throughout this novel and it’s hard to tear yourself away even for a moment.
I have to say one of my favourite characters was Owen Pick, who is in his thirties and lives with his aunt. His relationship with his father is tainted by memories of what happened between him and his mother many years ago. But with the incel culture at its heart, he is flung into an online friendship which delves into the haves and the have-nots, beauty and not so beautiful, and the dangerous manner in which they protect their genes from dying out altogether. Although a reader can resonate with many of the qualities, exclusions and rejections of this type, the subject matter is so dark, it’s frightening. Owen Pick is subjected to such intrusive scrutiny, you wonder if he will ever recover. If reporters can report whatever they like, we know the target of their articles is permanently blacklisted.
Other favourite characters: The fox, whose hunger and curiousness is scattered throughout the narrative, and Josh for understanding Saffyre’s homelessness and pain. Descriptions of urban nature are ones to savour. It was a solid five-star read for me from one of the best writers in this genre.
INVISIBLE GIRL by Lisa Jewell is classified as a domestic thriller, and told from the point of view of three characters. It has three timeline parts: Before, After and Now. The main characters are Saffyre Maddox, Cate Fours, and Owen Pick. Saffyre is a teenager living with her guardian uncle. When she was ten years old, something happened to her that started her to self-harm. She has therapy with Roan Fours for three years, but never revealed the source of her trauma. Cate is Roan’s wife, mother of their two children, and a part-time physiotherapist. The Fours family has moved to a flat while their house is being renovated. Across the street from them lives Owen. He’s a 33-year-old teacher, who is friendless, lives with an Aunt, and is thought of as creepy by others. On top of this, there are women being sexually assaulted in the area and Saffyre goes missing. It is amazing how lives become entangled. Who is responsible? Will the right culprit be held accountable?
The characters are extremely well-defined in this novel with plenty of depth, flaws, and virtues. The secondary characters enhance the story rather than overwhelming it. The internal and external conflicts are well-defined, believable, and arise out of characterization and circumstance rather than feeling forced. The prose is well-written, fast-paced and engrossing. The plot is clever, shocking, intense, and absorbing. There are several plot twists and turns. Themes include self-harm, sexual assault, treatment of women, secrets, judging others without knowing them, poor judgement; infidelity and much more.
Overall, this was an insightful, thought-provoking, well-crafted drama with a convincing conclusion. This is the second book I have read by Jewell and I look forward to reading more of her novels. They keep getting better and better. I recommend this to those that enjoy mysteries as well as domestic and psychological dramas.
Many thanks to Atria Books, Ariele Fredman, Lisa Jewell and Net Galley for a complimentary digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.