The Girl I Used to Be takes readers on a thrilling ride filled with the twists and turns of intriguing psychological suspense. Readers are engaged with Gemma as her life falls apart and she battles her demons, searching alongside her for the answers to why she has been targeted by a predator. As the shocking truth unfolds, readers are captivated- unable to stop reading until the whole truth has come out. Torjussen has written a phenomenal, suspenseful, and intelligent novel that leaves readers breathless.

Healthy communication. Every relationship needs it. This book proves that had the main characters been able to talk to one another in a fruitful way, so much could have been avoided. I will be on the lookout for more books from Mary Torjussen. This was a great read!

Grabs you from the start, then gets a little slow, then picks up again with some added twists. I enjoyed the book, but seem to be in the minority of not loving it.

A business owner finds herself being blackmailed by a prospective client. As the threats become more intense, she scrambles to make sense of them and learns that they may not be as random as she first thought. Mary Torjussen returns with another thriller and takes her readers through a refreshing turn of events in the cheer-worthy novel The Girl I Used to Be.

It’s taken Gemma Brogan years to establish her real estate business, but she’s doing it one client and one house at a time. Even in a challenging housing market not far from London, Gemma has found her footing. Her husband, Joe, stays at home with their son, Rory, and she works with people she likes and respects.

Gemma reaps the benefits of owning her own business, but she also works the hardest. The long hours often mean she doesn’t see Rory in the morning or get to put him to bed at night. She envies Joe’s relationship with Rory; when the three of them spend time together, Rory looks to Joe first.

She wants things to change, and when a potential client arrives in her office with a healthy housing budget Gemma thinks she’s received a prime opportunity. A big win on a home sale means she can breathe easy. It doesn’t hurt that the new client, David Sanderson, is tall, handsome, funny, and friendly. They spend the day together, and Gemma feels confident he’ll commit to one of the pricey homes they visited.

Not long after, Gemma runs into David during a work trip and the two spend the evening together over dinner and drinks. Years earlier Gemma experienced a horrible attack that convinced her never to drink to excess again, yet over dinner with David she finds herself loosening up in an effort to sway his decision about one of the properties. She drinks more than she meant to, more than she has in years, and the next morning she wakes up feeling awful.

The hangover doesn’t bother her as much as the complete lack of memories from the previous night. She doesn’t remember entering her room or going to bed. She has no clue when she and David bid one another good night, and she can’t shake the sense of dread that something terrible happened.

Then Gemma begins receiving pictures and videos of that night with David, select snapshots and clips that put her in compromising situations. Gemma is horrified and tries to contact David. Her efforts to find him fail, but she makes a connection with someone else from her past. As Gemma works with this new person to figure out what happened, she’ll find herself facing her worst fear and weaknesses.

Author Mary Torjussen comes back with a strong novel after last year’s Gone Without a Trace. In this new book, she lays down the foundation for what seems at first a typical thriller. In fact, some of the story elements do follow the tropes of the genre. Then, halfway through the story, Torjussen takes an unexpected detour.

Readers will love the twists as they come along. Gemma’s greatest ally starts out as her greatest enemy; even as the two form a relationship, readers may doubt with every step that they have actually become friends. It’s a sign of the genre as well as our current times that makes it difficult to believe two people on opposite sides of an issue can come together to fight the greater evil. Torjussen resists all temptation to take the cliché route and gives readers a protagonist they can root for all the way to the end.

Getting to that point takes a little bit of patience, however, because it comes halfway through the book. Gemma spends a reasonable amount of time questioning the reason for the pictures and videos, but she spends a little too much time wondering what to do. When the first major twist happens in the story, the pace picks up.

Once again Torjussen chooses first person point of view for her characters, but she’s improved the balance between internal dialogue and external events. Even as Gemma sits and thinks about how her life could possibly have reached this point, readers will get the sense that something is about to happen and it usually does. Despite her husband and office colleagues coming across as stock characters, Gemma herself is real and well-rounded.

All in all, I think readers will enjoy The Girl I Used to Be and recommend they Bookmark it!

I wanted to scream at Gemma to wake her up. The night was fading, the alcohol was flowing freely and her limitations were melting, as the man across the table soothed her. I believe everyone who reads this novel will feel that trouble was following Gemma when she attends a training convention out of town, alone. The novel had this vibe to it. It wasn’t like Gemma was out fishing for another man but I feel that she had her pole in the water, waiting just in case something tugged on her pole.

Imagine her surprise when she runs into one of her clients at the hotel that she’s staying at. How likely was it that David would be at this same hotel as her convention (eye rolling)? I hoped that Emma was smart enough to be professional around him. Nope: dinner, lots of wine and great conversation got Emma all loopy and she needed to be escorted up to her room. David was such a nice guy to do that but in reality, he ends up doing more than that. I wanted to help her but the alcohol ended up being her friend and by the morning, Emma will want to turn back time, but it will be too late.

A few months later, Emma has put that event behind her, but when she gets her mail, she receives a reminder in the form of a package. Who sent it and why? A few days later, she receives another reminder, a picture of herself, this picture is one she will not want to show anyone. Every few days, she receives something, sometimes via social media, that makes her relive that night in the hotel. She wants to talk to her husband about everything but she’s not sure of what all took place that evening at the hotel and she’s not sure what these reminders mean. Emma does some investigating of that night and what she discovers makes her angry and fearful.

I liked the anticipation that I felt as I read this novel, there was always this suspense of what might happen next. When Emma realizes what occurred, I enjoyed watching her trying to remedy the situation. I enjoyed watching the events unfold and then seeing someone trying to fix the situation. Sometimes not always the best of plans worked but the thoughts and ideas coming together made them see other avenues to try. I enjoyed the relationships inside this novel, past and present. I thought the author did an excellent job and I loved the twists that they threw in to give the novel a slightly different angle.
I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group in exchange for a honest review.

Que up a married woman who's overcome a secret past. Now a successful businesswoman, she's "taken advantage of" by a shady character who's now sending mysterious messages and demeaning photos. She can't go to the police, nor trust any of her friends to stay mum, because her husband might find out. And if he does, it's for sure he'll immediately stop loving her and take away the young son she loves so much. Instead, she decides to handle everything all by herself - meaning that she must up the ante on her lies until the muck threatens to bury her kneecaps.

Stop me if you've read this one before.

I have - several times. In fact, it's not all that different from the author's first book, "Gone Without a Trace." Although both are well written (which, for the record, is why I'm quite comfortable awarding 4 stars), I can't say I was fond of any of the characters in either book.

Here's how it goes: After moving on from her teenage trauma, Gemma Brogan is married to a stay-at-home husband, has a young son named Rory and owns a real estate firm in England. The real estate industry is slowing, though, and to her growing dismay, Gemma's husband Joe just doesn't seem interested in finding a job to boost their income and allow her to slow down her own work pace. The at-home resentment builds, and then Gemma takes an overnight trip to an industry conference where, by her own admission, she gets thoroughly drunk. She can't recall much of what happened, but she knows it was nothing good when she gets an explicit photo and a few other telling messages. To her credit, she does speak with a policewoman, but the discussion never goes anywhere because, remember, she's terrified that someone might find out.

And that's where I pretty much tuned out. As I emphasized in my review of the author's first book, I've got zero tolerance for whining, paranoid females who, instead of taking charge, keep digging their own holes deeper (and, as my late mother was fond of saying, don't "have the sense God gave a little gosling.") That said, I kept at it, mostly because I'd accepted an advance copy in exchange for an honest review and simply won't go back on my word.

And in the end, honestly, I'm quite sure those who don't share my dislike of wimpy "heroines" will enjoy this book. It hits all the requisite high notes to qualify as a psychological thriller, serves up twists, turns and surprises - at least for those who haven't traveled this road before - and even comes with what I call a Robert Browning ending ("God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world"). For all of you, then, what's not to like? Go for it!

Sales figures for books in the digital age can be tricky. That’s because independently published e-books can sell quite well without making a great deal of money for the author or affecting print sales at all. And that matters because ebook sales continue to decline, which means print sales continue to lead market trends. When it comes to determining what sells most, figures vary. According to Nielsen BookScan, which bases their data on number of sales, the most popular books in 2015 were general adult fiction followed by romance and suspense/thrillers. According to Statistica the most popular genre is thrillers, and according to Publishers Weekly romance is seeing a steady decline while thrillers are seeing a steady uptick. Statistics also tell us that women read more fiction than men and that we are the primary readers for mystery and romance.

All that math is my lead in to an important point: Women drive the fiction market and we love romance and mystery almost equally. Which leads to point number two: Several reviewers last year stated that their romance reading was nowhere near as satisfying in 2017 as their mystery/thriller reading had been. So – just what drives us to seek mystery/thriller stories? The internet is full of articles listing various theories but for me the answer is simple: they make for good reads. I turned to fellow reviewer Shannon, who routinely covers a great deal of mystery and suspense books for our site, to discuss this emerging trend and touch on what it means to us as readers.

MB: I can’t really remember what my very first thriller was. Would Mary Stewart count? I just know I have always read a lot of mystery and a lot of romance and it just varies by year as to what I read more. What about you? Do you remember your first thriller/mystery/suspense novel? Have you always read both genres?

SD: Romantic suspense was my introduction to the world of mysteries and thrillers. I have fond memories of devouring things like Tami Hoag’s Night Sins, Iris Johansen’s Long After Midnight, and Nora Roberts’ Divine Evil. Those books managed to satisfy my need for a happy ending as well as my love for an excellent puzzle. Over the years, I’ve become less enamored of the romantic suspense out there, and I’ve found myself reading more and more straight-up mysteries and/or thrillers.

MB: My favorite authors moving to mystery from romantic suspense forced me to make the move, for which I am very grateful. You’ve reviewed a very impressive fifty-plus books this year so far, almost half of which were mysteries. I’ve reviewed only nine mysteries so far, although I have read twelve. I noticed that you’ve read a mix of male and female authors, where I’ve exclusively read female authors. In fact, I look for that because I’ve found that books by women revolve more around the mystery than the violence. Do you feel there is any difference, or do you have a preference at all?

SD: When I’m choosing my next read, I tend to pay more attention to the plot of the book than to its author. It turns out that I still end up reading more books by women authors, but I’m not sure that’s a purposeful thing. I want the authors I read to tell believable stories filled with relatable characters, and I’ve found both male and female authors that do that very well. Of course, I’ve also run across authors of both genders who do this very poorly, but that’s a topic for another day.

MB: My reading has also skewed British recently. Again, I think it is the issue of focus on the intellectual or emotional aspect of the mystery by British authors against reveling in the more violent aspect of the mystery, which I feel Americans tend to do. For example, Let Me Lie by Clare Mackintosh had some eerie moments in it, but I found the heroine very sympathetic and I didn’t at any point feel overwhelmed by any graphic imagery within the novel. On the other hand, I still get icked out when I think of some of the scenes from Courtney Evan Tates’ Such Dark Things. Nordic mysteries, made popular by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tend to be violently intellectual but unemotional. I don’t mean to say that what happens in British mysteries or Nordic mysteries is any different from what happens in an American one. There are violent acts in all three. It is where the focus of the book lies that I find the difference. What about you? Do you find you have a preference between British, Nordic or American authors or do you enjoy all three?

SD: I’m becoming more and more convinced that no one can write psychological thrillers like the British. There’s something about the atmosphere, the wit, and the focus on the unpredictability of the human psyche that I am really drawn to. Oddly though, I’m not a fan of other types of British mysteries. I adore American-based police procedurals, even though some of them can be pretty violent at times. It’s not that British mysteries aren’t violent, because some of them certainly are, but they don’t tend to focus on every single detail of the violence the way certain American authors do. As for Nordic mysteries, I’m afraid I’m just not a fan. I find them dry and hard to relate to. Of course, if someone can recommend a great one to me, I’m perfectly willing to give it a try.

MB: I totally agree regarding British Psychological thrillers! The emerging dominance of that genre, which many claim began with Gone Girl, has been wonderful for me. Many of my favorite reads recently have been in this subgenre. What attracts me to these books is the subtle sense of being on very shaky ground. We can’t really trust our narrator as it is clear from the start of the story that they may either be mentally ill or the guilty party behind the mess. What are your thoughts about this subgenre?

SD: Psychological thrillers are my catnip, and I tend to agree that they owe their popularity to Gone Girl. There was something so shocking about that particular book, something I hadn’t encountered up to that point, and it sucked me in and refused to let me go. I read that one in less than twenty-four hours, and I haven’t looked back ever since. Authors like Clare Mackintosh and Ruth Ware are among my favorites, and the more unreliable our narrator is, the better I like it.

MB: I love Mackintosh; I will definitely have to check out Ware. My own favorites are Colette McBeth, Sabine Durrant and Lisa Jewel. I’ve reviewed two of McBeth’s books for AAR – Precious Thing and The Life I Left Behind – and I cannot rave about them enough. This year I’ve noticed alcohol or drugs playing a greater part in the mysteries I’ve been reading. In Let Me Lie by Mackintosh, the heroine, whose parents have died, finds bottles of liquor hidden about their home and slowly comes to the realization that one of her parents had a drinking problem she had managed to ignore. Chris Bohjalian used the idea of impairment with chilling efficiency in his book The Flight Attendant. Mary Torjussen also used this trope in her novel The Girl I Used to Be. I’ll admit that I preferred the use of it in Let Me Lie to the use of it in The Girl I Used to Be. Who do you feel used it most effectively?

SD: Drugs and alcohol are tricky for me. I often find it difficult to sympathize with characters who drink too much and let their lives fall apart as a result. I really enjoyed The Flight Attendant, but I did find myself growing frustrated by the heroine’s constant drinking. I found the use of alcohol more tolerable in Let Me Lie, mostly because it wasn’t the main character who had the drinking problem.

MB: I tend to agree. I don’t like when the characters drunkenness, even if it isn’t habitual, is what drives the story. Both Let Me Lie and The Girl I Used to Be utilized another trope effectively which is one I call “cat and mouse”. In both those tales, the villain is playing a game with the heroine, ratcheting up the suspense factor by luring them into a position where the ultimate purpose of their interactions comes to an explosive reveal. A variant of it is used in Lisa Jewel’s Then She Was Gone. How does that trope compare for you with say a straight police procedural approach or a historical/research approach such as the one used by the heroine in The Lost Girls? I’ll admit I like them all but have found myself preferring the cat and mouse trope in this year’s novels.

SD: I love a good cat-and-mouse book, but I’m also kind of picky about them. It’s very common for villains to come off as cartoonish or over the top, and that ruins the book for me. I don’t want to roll my eyes whenever the villain makes a move. I want the menace to feel real to me. Fortunately, a ton of authors are doing this well these days, so I’m in book heaven. Police procedurals are great too, but I’ve definitely gravitated more toward the cat-and-mouse style of mystery.

MB: Let Me Lie, The Girl I Used to Be, Then She Was Gone and The Lost Girls all had strong female protagonists who worked outside law enforcement tackling personal mysteries on their own. In real life I am not sure how I feel about vigilantes but in suspense novels, I tend to love them. I’m not saying I don’t love a good police procedural – I do. But I tend to prefer mysteries (in books) that are solved by civilians. What are your thoughts on that subject?

SD: This is a tough one. I like when civilians are working to untangle mysteries in their personal lives, but they have to be savvy about it. I don’t want to read about clueless people doing foolish things and needlessly putting themselves in danger. I just don’t have the patience for that. I suppose this is why I’m not a fan of cozy mysteries. Police procedurals tend to feel a little more authentic to me, but there is something very appealing about a wife, mother, sister, or best friend searching for some deeply hidden truth.

MB: Oh, I agree. The character needs to have a personal connection to the mysteries. There isn’t much suspense in a crime that can be solved by the local baker! These four novels also dealt with cold cases. I enjoy that because I love the idea of justice triumphing in the end. Do you like cold case novels? What draws you to them?

SD: I do enjoy cold case novels. Then She Was Gone was one of the very best I’d read in a while. I’m drawn to stories about people coming to terms with their pasts, and those pasts often include some kind of crime. If the protagonist has a personal stake in learning the truth, I’m completely on board, but, if it’s something like a detective working on a cold case he or she has no real connection with, I sometimes lose interest. I love books that allow us to come to a better understanding of the human condition, and cold case novels are surprisingly good at doing this. Elisabeth Carpenter’s 99 Red Balloons was remarkable in this way. It’s not one I reviewed for the site, but it’s a British mystery everyone should read.

MB: I bought a copy awhile ago. I will have to move that up on my exceedingly long list of To Be Read books.

I could talk about this for hours and I’m pretty sure you could too, but we’ll leave it her for now. We’ll have to do this again – and then again at the end of the year and tell everyone what our favorites were.

I loved Gemma. I loved that she was a boss at work but struggled to tell her husband what she wanted. I loved that she finally told him how she felt. I did figure out one piece of the puzzle but I wanted to know how the puzzle got completed. This is a great book for fans of psychological thrillers.

A working wife, a stay-at-home dad. The wife goes to a conference, has dinner with a male client, gets drunk and soon after begins receiving incriminating photos of herself doing things she doesn't remember doing -- and is afraid her husband will find out and think the worst.

This was a pretty good psychological thriller, except that both the wife and husband were such annoying characters. I got so tired of the poor me of the wife and really why she didn't just come clean. She treated her husband like sh#@, but he was kind of a selfish, head in the sand jerk too. The last third with the alternating narratives and all the twists came out was good.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer jerjen

emma owns her own real estate company, and needless to say, she is a very busy woman. She has a lot on her plate and sometimes it is not easy for her to handle everything. Having her husband, Joe, be a stay-at-home dad, helps a lot, at least at the beginning. He can take care of their son, Rory, and keep everything in order. But eventually she becomes resentful of Joe’s time with Rory and she feels like her son needs her husband more than her. That is a bitter pill to swallow.

When Gemma goes to a real estate conference, she decides to stay overnight so she can rest and relax a little bit. She should have stayed in and done just that. But instead she has dinner and drinks with a potential client. BIG MISTAKE. When she wakes up in the morning she has a killer hangover and not much memory of the night before. Now her troubles are just beginning.

The characters are well developed and well rounded. Gemma is a strong woman, much stronger than she realizes. She has had a troubled past but she has worked hard to get past it. Now she has to deal with blackmail and stalking, and she does not know how she will get past this.

The author is very talented in creating suspense and tension with just the written. She slowly built up the tension and then just kept it moving throughout the book. She kept throwing in twists and turns and just when I thought I had it all figured out, she threw in another twist. I thought I might get whiplash from reading this book.

The writing style flows smoothly and the book is a quick easy read. And it was made even quicker because the reader will have to keep turning pages or swiping the e-reader to find out what is going to happen next, you will not be able to stop yourself.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well written psychological suspense thriller. This book is as good as any I have read in this genre. Just be sure you start reading this when you have enough time because you will not want to put it down.

"You made me what I am."

That's the thing with deception, the victim relents all the power.

This is my first Mary Torjussen novel, and I have to say, I have no regrets. I will definitely have to check out her other work, and I'm sorry that I haven't done it sooner. I kept seeing awesome reviews for this one popping up from my friends on Goodreads, so I was very intrigued and had entered the giveaway on Goodreads and put in a request on NetGalley only I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I was very surprised and elated when Mary Torjussen herself assisted in getting me a copy of her novel.

The Girl I Used to Be is a psychological thriller that I found to be somewhat of a slow build up, but I wouldn't have it any other way. A slow build up is exactly what is needed here to bring the reader right to the edge. There's some predictability in the storyline, but there is also moments of complete surprise, so in my opinion, this creates a fine balance.

The character development was key in this novel, Mary does an excellent job of creating empathy for our protagonist, Gemma. Given her current predicament of being blackmailed, she's also dealing with the struggles of being the primary source of income for her family, and with this, it certainly creates feelings of resentment, frustration, and jealousy. One might say that our antagonist, David is a bit one-dimensional. However, I believe this is completely intentional. Then of course we have Rachel, which I have to say, the lines are blurred with how the reader is supposed to feel about Rachel. Gemma may have her fair share of baggage, but Rachel isn't exactly packing light, she has a haunting past, and it's a toss up on where your empathy will land as a reader.

This is that type of novel that leaves you wondering, "what would I do?" given the situation. Which always makes for a more interesting read in my opinion, just think of the possibilities. This is a novel driven on jealousy and deceit, two very powerful actions that have devastating consequences, so... with that said, it's no wonder it makes for a compelling read.

I want to thank NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group, and especially Mary Torjussen for allowing me the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for my review.

I was introduced to Mary Torjussen last year when I read GONE WITHOUT A TRACE. While there were a few things that didn’t work for me in that book, I was impressed enough by her writing that when THE GIRL I USED TO BE came up, I was willing to review her latest thriller.

She doesn’t write series books and for that I am thankful. Don’t get me wrong I love series however sometimes it’s nice to have a full story and resolution in just one book. As a reader it helps me get closure and I personally hate when authors or publishers milk a series just for the sake of churning out another book. In a world of series, I like the odd stand alone book from time to time.

THE GIRL I USED TO BE is similar in style to GONE WITHOUT A TRACE….psychological thriller mixed with a little domestic suspense. I really was intrigued once again by the summary and couldn’t say no to something that sounds like every faithful wife’s worst nightmare!

The morning after real estate agent Gemma Brogan has dinner with a prospective client, she’s furious at herself for drinking so much. But there will be more to regret than a nasty hangover.

She starts receiving mementos from that night: A photo of a hallway kiss. A video of her complaining about her husband. And worse…much worse. The problem is she doesn’t remember any of it.

As the blackmailing and menace ramp up, Gemma fears for her already shaky marriage. The paranoia, the feeling that her life is spiraling out of control, will take her back to another night–years ago–that changed everything. And Gemma will realize just how far the shadows from her past can reach (summary from Goodreads).

Like many women, Gemma is trying to do it all. Career. Wife. Mother. Everything. And at times it’s overwhelming and as a woman, letting loose seemed like a luxury. She struggles with working so much because she doesn’t get to see her son and her frustration as the ‘breadwinner’ will easily resonate with a lot of women. Not to mention I was NOT a fan of her husband at all and I could easily sympathize with her situation, struggles, and her frustrations. Gemma seems like the typical modern woman and when a business dinner goes wrong, she’s left with not just shame but a big f-ing problem that went way past just a few drinks too many. Her life has turned upside down into a nightmare.

For me, Gemma was not only believable but so real. I think so many women will relate to her and her situation. Though my husband is the breadwinner, I have been in Gemma’s shoes and sometimes it’s just not as ideal as it sounds so I thought that Torjussen did a great job illustrating that point.

I totally got sucked into the story right away. Unlike her previous book, this one kept me really really engaged. I don’t know if it was the realness of Gemma or the fact that Gemma was the main narrator, but something about this story worked way better for me than her previous novel.

Torjussen does hit the audience with a game changer in part two, it wasn’t like OMG WTF, but it was definitely something that I wasn’t expecting and made me take more notice of the story. I thought she did a great job at ‘gut checking’ readers to make sure she had their attention. I won’t give anything away but just know that something is coming!

The book was interesting and full of a lot of surprises with very real and relatable characters and situations that I think a lot of female readers will enjoy even if they haven’t experienced Gemma’s situations, I still think they are of interest to readers. I know I personally was like make the packages and notes stop!

While I wasn’t completely a fan of Torjussen before, after reading this book cemented my enjoyment of her novels. I liked the book I read previously but I didn’t love it but with this book I was much more invested and found a lot more to interest me and propel me forward to the end. Well done!

Challenge/Book Summary:

Book: The Girl I Used to Be by Mary Torjussen

Paperback, 368 pages
Published April 24th 2018 by Berkley Books
ISBN 0399585036 (ISBN13: 9780399585036)
Review copy provided by: Publisher/Author in exchange for an honest review.
This book counts toward: NA

Hosted by: NA
Books for Challenge Completed: NA
Recommendation: 4 out of 5

Genre: mystery, thriller, suspense

Memorable lines/quotes:

An exciting, fast-paced, page turning thriller that had me gripped until the very last page.

The book mostly follows Gemma Brogan, a hard working real estate agent that is also a mom to a little boy that she hardly get’s to see. Gemma has worked hard for her business and it frustrates her that her husband is refusing to look for work and is instead a stay at home dad – something she wishes she could do.

One night while away on a work trip, Gemma runs into a prospective client, get’s a little too drunk and wakes up regretting a nasty hangover. But now strange letters addressed to her’s keep showing up, and Gemma must find out what happened that night and why it’s happening.

This was a really quick read, it was fast paced and it had me wanting more. I liked the characters, I could sympathize with Gemma when it came to her son, and I found myself frustrated with her husband that just did not seem to get it half the time.

I thought the story and the mystery was kind of exciting and the author’s writing was great. There was never really a dull moment. Thought a bit predictable in a sense, I did not find that it took away from the thrill of the story. There is an opening to the story that has you wondering how this ties into present day, so I found myself trying to put the pieces together through the book.

There seemed to have been a bit of overlooked or abandoned plot that happens with Gemma a couple of weeks after the trip that led me astray or the author decided not to go that route. Hard to explain it without giving much of it away, but if you read it and know what I am talking about, let me know if you felt the same.

Overall, I think so far this is definitely the best thriller I read this year and it hit checks for me as far as what I enjoy in thrillers and I do recommend this.

I suspect this book will hit the spot with many readers who enjoy the suspense of the two timelines - what went so wrong in the past, what will happen next as the scary messages and photos begin to arrive ... but if simply wasn't my cup of tea. Hard to put my finger on why, but it's me and my personal tastes, not the book.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

I was a big fan of Mary Torjussen's debut psychological thriller, Gone Without a Trace, so of course, I jumped at the opportunity to read her next book, The Girl I Used to Be...and what crazy ride it turned out to be! This book is such a good, twisted suspenseful read and really kept me engaged right from the start.

This book excels in building suspense ever so slowly. It pulls you in as it sets the scene and hooks you as you become invested in what is going on with Gemma. But what really happened - this is the real question and what really drives the story. And as a result of this, Gemma is forced to keep secrets from those she loves...secrets she herself is not really even sure about. But secrets she knows might have the potential to ruin her marriage, and even more.

This is such a fast-paced read and really keeps you glued to the pages as you try to figure out just what is going on. It is definitely a good stalker mystery and when the floor drops out with a twist that I just didn't see coming - OMG!!! It certainly shakes things up for sure...making it that much more addicting and thrilling.

I definitely will be adding Mary Torjussen to my list of must-read authors - she really knows how to write that chilling, psychological thriller that keeps you engaged throughout.

In a culture where we snap pictures and videos of even the smallest and mundane parts of our lives, Mary Torjussen took that idea, that societal truth and gave it a creepy, sinister twist. Imagine yourself at a bad, maybe even indelicate moment, you want nothing more than to just forget it ever happened, and just when you start to relax someone taunts you with photographic evidence of your misdeeds. It makes me uneasy just to think about something like this happening to me and that’s basically the feeling I had while reading this.

Torjussen’s writing style has a subtle tension to it but that’s combined with quick pacing and short chapters, a combination that’s always appealing to me. This is the type of book that raises several questions and doesn’t give any solid answers until the end, the best kind in my opinion, I love to be kept on the edge of my seat.

Similar to her last book things gain traction in the last twenty five percent and I was well and truly hooked. There are some clever little plot twists throughout, nothing implausible, which is always an appreciated touch, I’m sick of twists just for the sake of having one and I felt these turns added to the story in a good way.

The Girl I Used to Be in three words: Clever, Chilling and Creepy.

Sigh..... OK, I will not be a b_ _ch about this review, since I kind of sort of enjoyed the book, and especially since I do not think it is fair to blame Ms Torjussen for a storyline and circumstances that have become just... BORING! “Gone Girl.” “Then She Went.” “And She Lied.” “And Not Lied.” Girl Gone, not gone, girl found.., yada yada. What they all have in common - it seems to me, having plowed through quite a few of them - is a young woman and mother, well educated, however, seemingly extraordinarily stupid, considering all the things she repeatedly does to endanger herself and her family (lie to her husband, lie lie to her husband, lie to everyone who could possibly care about her). Anyway, our protagonist here is real estate agent and small business owner (she owns her agency) Gemma Brogan. She has a young child, her husband is an at=home-husband/dad and apparently isn’t interested in changing that situation. Gemma is overworked and overtired. Her decision to have dinner a prospective client changes her life forever. But “there will be more to regret than a nasty hangover.” Yes indeed.

I tried to find information about the author, Mary Torjussen, but found little in addition to the publisher’s site: She grew up “Stoke-on-Trent in England, There was no television in her family home so books have always been her escape - she spent hours reading and writing stories as a child. Mary has an MA in Creative Writing from Liverpool John Moores University, and worked as a teacher in Liverpool before becoming a full-time writer. She has two adult children and lives on the Wirral, where her debut novel, GONE WITHOUT A TRACE, is set.
Stoke-on-Trent, by the way, is “home of the pottery industry in England and is commonly known as the Potteries, with the local residents known as Potters.” Thank you Wikipedia. Considering Ms Torjussen’s last name, I at first thought that she was of Scandinavian ancestry, but of course that may be her husband’s name. Anyway... (I’m sorry, I like to spend too much time, I guess, on author information) - this is not a bad book at all, I would recommend it if I were not so cynical in my view of what seems to be a unique British genre of tales discontented mothers and wives - tales that begin with the aforementioned “Gone Girl,” “Found Girl,” “Lost Girl,” “Girl on the Train” “Girl on a Car.” Et ad infinitum.

Gemma Brogan is struggling.

After moving to a quiet and quaint country town, she thought she’d finally found some peace. Creating her boutique real estate agency was her dream, and she poured every ounce of passion and experience she had into cornering a niche market and providing excellent customer service. The problems she’d left behind in the city were put as far in the past as she could store them, boxed up and shoved into the deepest corners of her mind and forgotten, covered in dust. She needed to forget. She needed to move on.

Being pregnant was the icing on the cake. The cheery rainbow hovering over her happy existence and new life. Every kick and tumble her unborn son made inside of her only elevated her feelings of joy and contentment. Perfect job. Perfect husband. Perfectly painted nursery and baskets full of perfect fairy tale books on the nightstand. Life surely couldn’t get any better, could it?

Perhaps not, but it could get worse.

Modern-day Gemma looks back on her former self with longing more often than she’d like to admit. The optimism she had for her life merely four years ago was palpable, as thick as carefully curated saltwater taffy sold on a pier overlooking the sea. She’d been so eager for motherhood, only to have it snatched away weeks after her son was born. She’d been pushed out. Replaced. Rejected.

Well, dramatics aside, it certainly made financial sense for Joe to be the stay-at-home-parent. He could always go back to work in the IT field, whereas she was her own boss and her presence was crucial to keep the business going. Except, he never did go back to work . . . and while Gemma busts her rear day in and day out, sacrificing bedtimes and breakfasts and playdates with her young son Rory, Joe lives a life of quiet luxury at home. Running clubs and library visits and lemonades shared on the terrace. All without her.

When a handsome man comes into the office asking about a prospective new home in the affluent part of the city, Gemma pounces on the opportunity to bring some much-needed cash into her business. Home sales are down and money is becoming tighter and tighter, despite the long hours Gemma is putting in at work. She’s logged in 7-days a week now, constantly checking her appointments or chasing clients down via email. While Joe lazes in bed with Rory until late morning, Gemma is up with the birds, doing her best to catch the proverbial worm by showing house after house after house in an effort to make ends meet for her business and inject funds into her home accounts. It’s easy to find resentment hiding around every corner – especially if you’re looking – and its easy to feed it when her son calls out to her husband when he needs comfort . . . or when Rory pushes her aside to get to Joe, when she is looked over at story time or when a scrape on the knee draws blood and her name is not the one called out.

But after a full day of catering to the handsome man’s ambiguous designs on a new home, Gemma leaves for her own home feeling defeated. No new sale. Do not pass Go. Do not collect the $200 needed to pay the electric bill.

When the opportunity to take a conference in London comes up, Gemma is anxious for some time to herself. She’s feeling inadequate at the office and unneeded at home. Perhaps a weekend away to sharpen her real estate skills and get away from it all will be rejuvenating. Maybe it will help her see past the problems in her life. Perhaps it will tip the scales from depression to optimism.

Her first mistake : leaving the hotel room.

The lure of sounds of clinking glasses on the patio and the happy murmur of adult chatter is too hard to turn away from. Throwing on her favorite dress and freshening up her makeup, Gemma hikes it down to the hotel bar and buys herself a drink.

Her second mistake : saying yes to the dinner with a client.

When the handsome man she’d spent that entire day showing homes to curiously turns up in the hotel bar, Gemma is at first confused. But as she’s currently facing a real pickle ( an old and rather annoying acquaintance is trying to pull her into a rabbit hole of terrible conversation), Gemma latches on to her client and agrees to his dinner proposition -so long as he lets her pay (she can write it off as a business expense, of course).

Her third mistake : the wine.

She hasn’t been a drinker in years, not sense making the decision to put that part of her life and the horrors it clung to behind her. But when David suggested wine, she found it hard to refuse – especially as she didn’t want to offend him and stall a potential sale. Unsteady on her feet and anxious for her own bed, Gemma allows David to accompany her to her hotel room after he insists that its the gentlemanly thing to do. But as she struggles with the keycard, he catches her off guard, pressing his lips against hers and then . . .

. . . Gemma wakes up in her hotel room bed, barely dressed. She can’t remember what happened. The pieces of the night are slipping in and out of place like melting ice, the fragments of her memory are broken and full of dull edges. She couldn’t have done anything unsavory, could she? She’d never cheat on Joe – it was the one thing that they agreed upon when they married – no infidelities were allowed. And if she did do something and he found out, he could easily take Rory away from her, abandoning her in the country to move back to Ireland and be near his own family.

But as the days turn into weeks and a month goes by, Gemma forgets about that strange night in London. She moves on with her day-to-day job of running a business and continues the never-ending fight to get home in time to tuck Rory into bed. Life goes on. Until the day an envelope with her name handwritten on the top arrives at the office.

The first envelope contained a copy of the receipt from the hotel restaurant, clearly showing two meals were served and two bottles of wine were consumed. The second envelope contains a clear photograph of Gemma and David, locked in what appears to be a steamy embrace – if you didn’t know better. Gemma can remember stumbling with her keycard and his catching her before he planted his lips firmly against hers, but this photo could be seriously misleading if it found its way into the wrong hands.

But where are these items of potential blackmail coming from? And why? Who would have it out for Gemma so badly that they would resort to trying to destroy her marriage and her family life, and by extension, the business she’d fought so hard to build? Who would want to snatch everything out from under her? And why?

The Girl I Used to Be is the newest novel by Mary Torjussen, a British author best known for the thrilling and popular Gone Without A Trace.

I was a little bit confused by this novel, if I’m being honest. It was advertised as a thriller of the psychological persuasion, and that was not the story I ended up reading. Was there a bit of mystery? Sure. Was there some psychological warfare going on? Okay, I’ll give that one as well – if I have to. But it was so predictable that it was almost comedic in nature, and I don’t think that was the author’s intent. I was happy to read this new novel as I’ve heard very good things about the author, and I can say in all genuine fairness that I really enjoyed her style of writing. It was relatable and real, especially the feelings of insecurity and inadequacy that Gemma felt as a mother constantly struggling to find balance with her work and home life while being exhausted and under-appreciated. The portrayal of resentment between husband and wife were chronicled as accurately as it could have been, and I felt a kinship with the main character that I don’t often find in thriller-type books.

But when the “mystery” portion of the plot . . . erm, unraveled, I had already been there for chapters. I knew what was coming and was not surprised in the slightest, which was disappointing obviously, especially as I was so excited to read this book. I found the second part of the novel in complete conflict with the former, especially in the fact that it was unrealistic and jumped all over the place. I guess I can understand the desire to tell the story from a second perspective, but in all actuality it was not needed, and to just begin a second perspective that didn’t really add anything pertinent to the plot seemed odd. The tone of voice for the second point of view was whiny and did not hold any consistency in respect to the emotions the character was feeling and at times was so off-putting and out of place that I was irritated.

All in all, I got through this book in less than two days. I give it a 3 out of 5 star rating, but I won’t count the author out. I enjoyed the first half of the novel and the writing style overall, I just felt the plot lacked thrill and real mystery. Everything was a bit too tidy at the end, wrapping up in a perfect bow that fell together magically. After reading psychological thrillers like The Wife Between Us and Lie With Me, my standards were left too high for this book, perhaps. I do recommend it for those who enjoy the quick “thrilling” read, just not for those who are seeking a bit of a challenge when it comes to real mystery.

I heard a lot of positive things about Gone Without a Trace, the début novel from author Mary Torjussen. The synopsis looked intriguing, so I added it to my enormous list of books to read, but avid readers know how this goes. Newer books came along, and before too long, Gone Without a Trace got buried. So, when Ms. Torjussen's latest novel - The Girl I Used to Be - came up for review, I leapt at the chance to give it a try, and I'm very glad I did.

If you were a casual friend of Gemma Brogan's, you might think she was living the perfect life. She owns a successful real estate firm, lives in a fancy neighborhood, and has a devoted husband and adorable young son. You probably wouldn't guess that Gemma is searching for a way to bring more meaning to what she sees as a life that has lost some of its luster. Sure, her husband Joe stays home with their son while Gemma works and her friends tell her she's the luckiest woman alive to be married to a man who supports her hopes and dreams so completely, but all Gemma can think about is the fact that he rarely does the housework. Plus, she's beginning to feel like a bit of an outsider in four-year-old Rory's life.

A business trip out-of-town seems like the perfect way for Gemma to take some time away from the stresses of her home life and possibly gain some much-needed perspective, but once she arrives at the hotel, she realizes that perhaps time away isn't what she needs after all. She feels incredibly lonely, so she agrees to have dinner with a prospective client in an attempt to get her mind off things. Unfortunately, Gemma drinks too much, and when she wakes up the following morning, she is unable to remember much about the previous evening.

Gemma returns home and tries hard to carry on normally. Work keeps her pretty busy, and there seems to be quite a bit of tension between her and Joe. And then, strange things begin to happen, things that seem to be mementos of the night Gemma spent away from home. A picture of her kissing her dinner companion is mailed to her office, and a video of her complaining about Joe's laziness is emailed to her. Who is behind these things, and what are they trying to accomplish?

As time passes and more odd things occur, Gemma begins to lose her grip on reality. She's no longer sure what is real and what is a figment of her imagination, and she isn't sure how to find out. All she knows is that she must keep Joe from discovering what's going on, but how can she do that when she has no idea who is behind it all?

The Girl I Used to Be is everything I love in a good mystery. The main character is completely unreliable, making it hard to know who to trust. In other genres, this would be off-putting, but it works very well in a strongly-crafted psychological thriller like this one. There are little nuggets of truth mixed in with all Gemma's skewed perceptions, and I had a great time trying to piece them together into something that made sense. Of course, I ended up being wrong about most of it, but that was part of the fun of reading this book.

The story takes a very unexpected turn about halfway through, and I kicked myself for not anticipating it - it was as though the author had laid out all these clues for me that I just hadn't interpreted properly. There's a part of me that wants to reread the book just to see if I pick up on them the second time around; I love it when a book catches me off guard that way. I read a lot of mysteries, and I'm sometimes frustrated by how predictable some of them can be, so I was thrilled that this one was able to surprise me again and again.

Ms. Torjussen does a wonderful job creating the kinds of characters the reader might know in real life. I didn't find any of them to be the least bit two-dimensional. Even the villain ended up having quite a lot of depth, something that doesn't always happen. It's not that I necessarily want to relate to the antagonist, but I want to find him or her believable. I want the bad things they do to make some sort of sense, and Ms. Torjussen delivers in spades.

Now that I read and loved The Girl I Used to Be, I'm going to make a concerted effort to sit down with the author's first novel. If it's even half as good as this one turned out to be, I'll be very pleased.

Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/iBooks/Kobo

Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for a copy of the eARC in exchange for a fair review.


Gemma is successful real estate agent with her own company. She is married with a young son, and is feeling the pangs of the housing market and her husband staying at home to raise their son. She heads off to London for a few days to attend a conference. She is surprised when she runs into David a potential client.


She agrees to meet him for dinner and after too many glasses of wine she is feeling more than a little drunk. But when she wakes up in the morning she can't remember anything past the kiss at her hotel door. She puts it out of her mind and really doesn't think anything of it, until the receipt from the restaurant is mailed to her. Even then it all easy to dismiss until the picture arrives, and the instagram messages.


She hasn't said a word to Joe, but now she afraid of what happened or what she can't remember and all the lies she has told him. She decides to go to the police with what has happened so far especially since she has discovered that David isn't who he says he is. Little does she know that her past is coming back to haunt her.


I always feel like I don't say enough about what is going on in the book, and sometimes I worry I have said too much. It is always a fine line especially with thrillers or mysteries. Because the twists are everything and you can say too much and spoil the book. Initially, I had no idea where it was all going or what the past had to do with any of it.



Mary delivered it all masterfully, some of it became clearer once some things were revealed, but I was on the edge of my seat rooting for her the whole time. I am really becoming a fan of Mary, this is my second book by her and I can safely say that she becoming a go to author for me. I will have to add her to my automatic buy or read list.