Book: Woman on the Edge
Author: Samantha Bailey
Genre: Thriller
Rating: 8/10
Read if you like: short, fast-paced thrillers, domestic thrillers, thrillers where someone is chasing and stalking the main characters.
Trigger Warnings: SIDS, baby abuse, suicide, postpartum depression
Good morning bookworms! Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Mine was busy but all fun stuff! I finished The Year of the Witching and started Firekeeper’s Daughter too. My Thriller October reading is going quite well so far. I’m very ahead of schedule on my Angie Way plan. I don’t have to start my next book until Friday so I think I’m going to spend the week focusing on FD because it’s a 500 page book.
The Woman on the Edge by Samantha Bailey has a few of my favourite features in a thriller. It was short, under 300 pages, the chapters were short and the pacing was perfect. The plot was also interesting, I can’t imagine being handed a baby, and being told she’s yours now. Umm what? This is Bailey’s debut novel.
Hook – 2/2: The book starts with Morgan heading home from a long day at work, she’s waiting for the subway train when a woman comes up to her with a baby. She asks Morgan to take her baby, Morgan tries to back away but before she knows it, the woman has shoved the baby into her arms and jumped in front of the train. The police then think that Morgan snatched the baby and shoved the woman so an investigation begins.
Writing – 3/3: Bailey writes well, she kept me guessing, kept me intrigued and kept me reading with the short, fast chapters. I loved that the book was only 250 pages as well. I find sometimes with thrillers that there’s a slow section in the middle, that it gets dragged out a bit. Bailey didn’t do this. The pacing was just right to have you thinking well I’m almost done anyways, I’ll just keep reading.
Plot – 2/3: Losing a point here simply because I was getting a little confused between the characters at first. The chapters are set up to tell you who is narrating but the two main women were so similar that I kept getting them confused. Eventually I figured it out, so this may be my own problem and not the plot. There were plenty of twists to this story and I had no idea what was coming at the end. The unpredictability was great. Overall a really unique story.
Characters – 1/2: There are two main women in this story, the one who gets handed the baby and the one who hands over the baby. Nicole, who tries to give up her baby, is going through some serious postpartum depression. And while I appreciate that this topic was discussed in the book, I think it could have been delved into a little more. I really felt for Nicole’s struggle and I think that side of raising tiny humans isn’t discussed enough. I wanted more from Morgan as well, I think her character isn’t dug into because she is supposed to be an unreliable narrator, but she is also struggling with mental health and I wanted to know more about her.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and am very much looking forward to Samantha Bailey’s next book Watch Out For Her which is coming in the spring of 2022.
How is your Thriller October going? I’m feeling very good about finishing 3 thrillers so far!
Happy Reading!
Angie
Read With Angie 