The Book:

Born to a prominent Chicago judge and his stifled socialite wife, Mia Dennett moves against the grain as a young inner-city art teacher. One night, Mia enters a bar to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when he doesn’t show, she unwisely leaves with an enigmatic stranger. With his smooth moves and modest wit, at first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand. But following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia’s life.

Colin’s job was to abduct Mia as part of a wild extortion plot and deliver her to his employers. But the plan takes an unexpected turn when Colin suddenly decides to hide Mia in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota, evading the police and his deadly superiors. Mia’s mother, Eve, and detective Gabe Hoffman will stop at nothing to find them, but no one could have predicted the emotional entanglements that eventually cause this family’s world to shatter.

An addictively suspenseful and tautly written thriller, The Good Girl is a compulsive debut that reveals how even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems.

 

The Author:

Mary Kubica holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter. THE GOOD GIRL is her first novel.

Find Mary at:   Her Website * Twitter * Facebook * Goodreads

 

The Standout Line:

“I’ve been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I don’t know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she’s scared. But I will.”

 

The Good Stuff:

Hmmm…I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll be brief. THE GOOD GIRL is an excellent debut novel.

This twisty tale revolves around the kidnapping of Mia Dennett, a twenty-something teacher, former rebellious teen, and the younger daughter of an affluent (and a bit of an a-hole) Chicago judge.

The story is told from revolving POVs. It should have been a straight snatch and deliver for Colin Thatcher, but when he decides not to hand Mia over to his underworld boss, things get…complicated. Watching this kidnapping-gone-wrong from his eyes not only humanizes him, but amps up the suspense when we see that even he doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. Mia’s mother, Eve, may be married to a class-A jerk, but with every moment she waits for word on her daughter she struggles with her own parenting failures. The case detective, Gabe, feels kind of like the well-meaning cop in the rumpled suit from one of your favorite primetime dramas. He really wants to find Mia—and he want’s to not only prove his superiors wrong, but wipe the condescending look from the Judge’s face while rescuing all the women he’s neglected over the years. *Note: Judge Dennett is pretty much the only unlikable character in the story. While none of the other characters are golden girls or boys, there’s something about them, even when they’re shady, that makes us feel for them.

As the POVs shift, so do the time frames. We flash between the actual kidnapping, the brutally cold cabin where Colin hides Mia, and Mia’s recovery. So yes, we know early on that she makes it home, but we don’t know how. Or why she was grabbed in the first place. And the kicker—neither does she.

The Recommendation:

Pick this one up. THE GOOD GIRL is getting plenty of well deserved buzz and tons of comparisons to GONE GIRL. It’s not GONE GIRL: the suspense level is not quite as high, but the characters are a hell of a lot more likeable. On my thriller/suspense scale, it’s relatively safe (about the same graphic violence/sex as a TV cop show). And although this story has some dark twists to it, I didn’t want to throw the book at the end. That’s a GOOD thing.

If you enjoy suspense, you should find this to be a quick read. Funny aside: I took THE GOOD GIRL to the gym with me the other day as motivation to get on the treadmill. When I hit my goal 5k, I still had just a little bit left in the book—so I made myself stay on the dang treadmill so I could finish. Even though I felt like I was going to die. The end of the story was enough reward.

Sound good? It should. You can read the EXCERPT HERE ► http://bit.ly/1r2VQDx

The Details:
The Good Girl by Mary Kubica
No. of Pages: 352
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Release Date:  July 29, 2014

I received this book free from Netgalley/HarlequinMIRA. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Links above may be “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers.