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A review by fictionmajorette
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
https://fictionmajorette.blogspot.com/2022/01/greenwich-park-katherine-faulkner.html
This turned out to be a much more of a psychological thriller than I was expecting.
The characters were really well developed but I think a lot of them fall into the 'unlikable' category which I know some readers don't like. I really loved the amount of history Faulkner was able to insert into these character relationships very easily and they all seemed to get along really well. Which just made it all the more satisfying once the secrets start coming out and those relationships get tested.
The different POVs did not really work for me well in this book despite that being one of my favorite narrative styles for thrillers. I found the POV switching to be, at least in the first half, pretty jarring and it felt really unnecessary. I do like the POV switching in the last third of the book better because when we're getting a bunch of secrets revealed we can see just how those secrets are affecting the various characters. There were some great reveals done with these different POV chapters but it felt like the author had those moments decided on first and then she had to add in other POV chapters earlier so they wouldn't come in as a surprise that late in the narrative.
There was a pretty strong mystery element to this story that really kicks off after the midpoint twist and I did feel like some of the pieces for that mystery were a little too heavy handed. It felt like each character was given one big piece of information/clue revealed about them that really stood out to me. There wasn't really any other, smaller pieces of information given so then when the twists and reveals start happening in the last 75% of the story, it felt so obvious because I was thinking "of course A character did that, they were the only one that was mentioned doing X".
The ending was absolute perfection and honestly kicked up my rating a whole star. I thought the way everything came together was done really well and this is where all the multi-POV chapters really paid off. The tension and pacing was great and I felt like I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. We were neck deep in unreliable narrator mode so there was also this underlying aspect of maybe nothing is as it seems and there's going to be a twist completely out of left field.
Overall, this was a really great domestic/psychological thriller with fantastic characters, tension, and a great ending.
Thanks NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC
Expected publication date is January 25, 2022
This turned out to be a much more of a psychological thriller than I was expecting.
The characters were really well developed but I think a lot of them fall into the 'unlikable' category which I know some readers don't like. I really loved the amount of history Faulkner was able to insert into these character relationships very easily and they all seemed to get along really well. Which just made it all the more satisfying once the secrets start coming out and those relationships get tested.
The different POVs did not really work for me well in this book despite that being one of my favorite narrative styles for thrillers. I found the POV switching to be, at least in the first half, pretty jarring and it felt really unnecessary. I do like the POV switching in the last third of the book better because when we're getting a bunch of secrets revealed we can see just how those secrets are affecting the various characters. There were some great reveals done with these different POV chapters but it felt like the author had those moments decided on first and then she had to add in other POV chapters earlier so they wouldn't come in as a surprise that late in the narrative.
There was a pretty strong mystery element to this story that really kicks off after the midpoint twist and I did feel like some of the pieces for that mystery were a little too heavy handed. It felt like each character was given one big piece of information/clue revealed about them that really stood out to me. There wasn't really any other, smaller pieces of information given so then when the twists and reveals start happening in the last 75% of the story, it felt so obvious because I was thinking "of course A character did that, they were the only one that was mentioned doing X".
The ending was absolute perfection and honestly kicked up my rating a whole star. I thought the way everything came together was done really well and this is where all the multi-POV chapters really paid off. The tension and pacing was great and I felt like I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. We were neck deep in unreliable narrator mode so there was also this underlying aspect of maybe nothing is as it seems and there's going to be a twist completely out of left field.
Overall, this was a really great domestic/psychological thriller with fantastic characters, tension, and a great ending.
Thanks NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC
Expected publication date is January 25, 2022
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Pregnancy
Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, and Miscarriage