Staff Book Reviews
Andrea K. reviews THE GIRL BEFORE by JP Delaney (Ballantine Books, 2017)
This is the story of two young women, Emma and Jane, who will never meet, but their stories will intertwine in this prickly, eerie story.
Emma and Jane both have experienced some kind of loss in their lives. Emma was robbed and raped while she was home alone, and Jane suffered giving birth to a stillborn baby. Both women know it’s time to start over and so they begin the pursuit of living at One Folgate Street. The building itself is an amazing architectural masterpiece but its designer, Edward Monkford, is an eccentric control freak. In the lease it is mandated there will not be any personal effects, and the renters must relinquish full control to Monkford.
Things get curiouser and curiouser when Emma finds out Edward’s wife and son were buried under Folgate after dying in a freak accident. Later, Jane finds out Emma fell down the glass staircase and sustained massive brain bleeding.
If Edward knows from separate occurrences that One Folgate Street is a deathtrap, why isn’t he changing its architectural structure? Or maybe, because the place is a deathtrap, Edward refuses to change anything?
Readers will be mesmerized by the cunning Edward and will plead with Emma and Jane to get away from him before it’s too late.
Andrea K., Staff