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Book Summary and Reviews of Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Into the Water

A Novel

by Paula Hawkins

  • Critics' Consensus (1):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • May 2017, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

An addictive new novel of psychological suspense from the author of #1 New York Times bestseller and global phenomenon The Girl on the Train

"Hawkins is at the forefront of a group of female authors—think Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott—who have reinvigorated the literary suspense novel by tapping a rich vein of psychological menace and social unease… there's a certain solace to a dark escape, in the promise of submerged truths coming to light." —Vogue

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return.

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.

Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Hawkins may be juggling a few too many story lines for comfort, but the payoff packs a satisfying punch." - Publishers Weekly

"The spunkiest voice belongs to a somewhat tangential policewoman who probably should have been the narrator. 'Seriously," she comments, "how is anyone supposed to keep track of all the bodies around here? It's like Midsomer Murders, only with accidents and suicides and grotesque historical misogynistic drownings instead of people falling into the slurry or bashing each other over the head.' Let's call it sophomore slump and hope for better things." - Kirkus

"Starred Review. Hawkins returns to the rotating-narration style of her breakout debut, giving voice to an even broader cast this time… Order by the ton." - Booklist

"Succulent new mystery... Hawkins, influenced by Hitchcock, has a cinematic eye and an ear for eerie, evocative language... So do dive in. The payoff is a socko ending. And a noirish beach read that might make you think twice about dipping a toe in those dark, chilly waters." - USA Today

"Highly suspenseful... all these intrigues are teased out with impressive skill by Ms. Hawkins, who tells a complex narrative...in a chronicle whose final pages yield startling revelations." - Wall Street Journal

"If you prefer your page-turners with a heart of darkness, then consider Paula Hawkins's follow-up to her much-lauded Girl on the Train... Hawkins constructs a bracing, knotty ride in which the ghosts of the past come back to haunt those living in the present." - W Magazine

"There's no denying that when it comes to tension you could cut with a knife, no one does it better than Hawkins." - New York Post

This information about Into the Water was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cathryn Conroy

A Scary and Intriguing Literary Thriller! And Quite the Mind-Challenge to Figure Out the Mystery
Written by "The Girl on the Train" author Paula Hawkins, this is part psychological thriller and part who-done-it, and it's one of those books you won't be able to put down once you start reading it.

Taking place in Beckford, a small river town in England, the story focuses on Katie, a 15-year-old girl, and Nel, a middle-age woman and mother, who recently committed suicide by jumping off a cliff into the raging waters of the river below—the river that snakes through their town and has been the site of multiple deaths of troublesome women over the centuries. But did Katie and Nel really jump? Or were they pushed? And in either case: WHY?

Each chapter is written from the point of view of one of the 10 main characters, which makes it a bit confounding in the beginning of the book simply because there are so many people to keep track of. (The Kindle X-ray feature is quite useful for remembering who is who.) That said, it really doesn't take that long to become familiar with this large cast, and then the book just soars.

This literary thriller is both scary and intriguing. While the book gave me the shivers, it was also a mind-challenge to try to figure out the mystery. Even the very last page gave me a jolt—so no peeking!

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Author Information

Paula Hawkins Author Biography

Photo: Kate Neil

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. She lives in London. The Girl on the Train is her first thriller. It is being published all over the world and has been optioned by Dreamworks

Link to Paula Hawkins's Website

Other books by Paula Hawkins at BookBrowse
  • The Girl on the Train jacket
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