Phenomenal novel. The characters are great, the plot great and the ending is bloody brilliant. Highly recommended

I was sent an eArc of this book by NetGalley in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I really didn't like this book. It tried way too hard to be like The Girl On The Train. I didn't really understand why half of the stuff that happened in the book, happened at all. Like the scene where Alice realizes her husband has been sleeping with her best friend. I don't understand why we had Kat's perspective when it didn't bring anything to the story. Nothing was wrapped up. The ending was rushed. There was no character growth at all. It just really wasn't for me at all.

This book was very well written. Nice and easy to read and flowed well. Had me on the edge of my seat. Wondering which way it was going to go. Great mystery can’t beat it.

Suspenseful and unique! This is a story with strong female characters, whose lives are inextricably linked after one of them goes missing back in their university days. These women are not "perfect" characters. They're real. They make some good choices and some awful ones, as most women do in college. Some of their choices are minor, but some having last consequences. During the course of the book, you become deeply committed to these characters and knowing what happens to them. You become equally committed to wanting justice for Ruth's disappearance. It's broody and haunting. I couldn't put it down.

This was a great suspense filled book, I was hooked from the first page. It kept me invested from the beginning to the end and I had to question what just happened in a good way.

This book was so cleverly written. I really enjoyed this.

It is perfect for fans of Girl on a Train, I think.

The plot was great and the storytelling was perfect.

It had me hooked and the characters were so convincing.

I read this in two sittings, it was such a great book.

I look forward to reading more by the same author.

The Girl Before You by Nicola Rayner offers an interesting premise- what if you were haunted by someone in your husband’s past? What if this person died, but then you saw her? You might become obsessed if you were Alice.

Alice has always been haunted by the women from her husband’s past. As a politician and now a TV personality, George Bell’s reputation as a ladies’ man precedes him. But when Alice falls pregnant, her unease becomes an obsession.

And there’s one ex, in particular, she can’t get out of her head, a beautiful student who went missing before they finished university: Ruth.

When Alice thinks she sees Ruth on a train, she can’t shake the feeling there’s more to the disappearance than George has told her. But does she really want to know what her husband has been up to behind her back all these years?

It starts a little slow but picked up and I was anxious to see how it ended. Was the girl who Alice saw really Ruth? What happened to her?

An enjoyable read!

$2.99 and out now.

Ugh, the ending of this book was seriously the worst. The whole story was a bit all over the place and hard to follow at times. I was hoping it would be redeemed with an awesome ending but only disappointment.

The Girl Before You is one of those psychological thrillers. Don't get me wrong it's a fun and light type of read and perhaps decent for a summer holiday or lounging around but nothing special or original

It is based at a university with all the usual student shenanigans means it should be targeted more at a young adult/teen audience as the sexual liaisons, endless drinking and drug taking started to become annoying to me. This is a domestic thriller that is merely a mediocre read and explores the notion that you can never truly know someone.

It's not the worst book I've ever picked up, but I was almost willing it to be over to engage with something better. The statement on the cover professing that you will be left gasping at the ending couldn't have been further from the truth. Many thanks to Netgalley

thanks for the ARC, i give this a 3.5 stars, it was interesting, the concept a little better than the delivery which was a little slow and long winded at moments. Wish the characters voices were a little different, i kept mixing them up but as i said it was pretty good, just needed a little more bunch and maybe a stronger ending

My favorite domestic noir is the story told with the different POV’s, a couple of weird/wacky women, twists and turns and, of, course, the obligatory turn-it-on-it’s head ending. The Girl Before You has all of these themes and is a good, summer read but not the stunner promised in the blurb. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed though!

The Girl Before You, not to be confused with The Girl Before, was not at all what I expected it to be. At all. Which, to put it bluntly, is a brilliant thing to note. The Girl Before You was highly addictive, if not a little generic and slowly paced in terms of modern thrillers, and I found myself, too, haunted by the story at hand.

Despite its flaws: Nicola Rayner sets a darkened atmosphere beautifully, covering each plotline in the intensity necessary to thrillers and mysteries. At times, it felt a bit stilled in development and as if we were going around in circles via the narration. This could be less to do with the story and Rayner's prose, and more to do with the fact that I read far too many thrillers.

This doesn't make The Girl Before You bad, per se, but at times it makes the story feel all-too-familiar or like you've been circling the same thing for too long. I had some issues, from time to time, where I felt like the story was dragging on and losing a bit of steam. That being said, it's never enough to fully take away from the fact that The Girl Before You is a genuinely good thriller--it just may not be for everyone.

The Girl Before You has a lot going for it--great setting and mystery, characters that feel impossible to look away from or forget and to-the-point thrills and chills via psychological thriller traits and, at the end of the day, will satiate many's desire for a good mystery to breeze through. I can easily see this being portrayed on screen or opening new readers up to the genre.

Absolutely fantastic had me gripped!!! Loved it! Can't wait for more from.this author. Storyline was great, characters were easy to.connect with

Thank you for the advanced copy

This book was excellent! Totally kept my attention and I wanted to find out what would become of the main characters. Highly reccomended.

(2.5 stars)
Although the story was good, it didnt read as a thriller at all. We spent more time following the story of these three women (alice, Naomi, and Kat) than we did trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Ruth. The ending was the most disappointing thing i've read, and honestly killed the whole book for me.

*thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an Arc of this book in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to HarperCollins and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read The Girl Before You.

This book is about a missing woman, how her missing and what happened to her effected all the people around her - then and now.

For me this book was a little slow. There were parts that was great and kept me reading; then other parts I couldn't get through fast enough.

I understood Alice wanting to know about this missing girl and how her husband and friends were part of her life.

This book is about a group of people who went to boarding school at St Anthony's where they have a past that comes back to haunt them. One of the girls, Ruth, disappears after the Memorial Ball near the water and her body is never found. When a memento and postcards appear, the past comes rushing back. Alice's husband George and his friend Dan were not what they seemed back in the day. I like that this story went back in time and had multiple pov's so you get an all encompassing view of the past and present. I definitely loved the voice in this book and would like to read more. Thanks for the ARC, Net Galley.

I really enjoyed this book – the characters, the college life, the mystery of missing Ruth, and Alice's insecurity and turmoil. I understood Alice's need to know and how she measured herself against her husband's past relationships (very 'Rebecca'). The end did not leave me gasping as the cover promised, far from it, but that didn't take away from the pleasure of reading it as the mystery unfolded.

I'd give this a 3.5. Thank you Netgalley & Avon books for sharing a copy. I liked the pace and the narration style that alternated between three of the characters. The plot was familiar, but interesting and I found it to be quite the page turner. Ruth goes missing after the Memorial ball at St. Anthony's and while she is presumed dead, some people in her life, understandably, are still looking for answers and closure. Several years later, Alice thinks she has seen Ruth on the train and this stirs things up once again.

Alice, Naomi and Kat tell us the story, sometimes going back and forth between their time at St. Anthony's and the present day. While I didn't see the twist coming and that's usually a good thing, I was disappointed to discover what happened to Ruth. It somehow didn't make sense to me. Saying anything more about this part might give away too much, so I'll stop at that.

I tried to like this book. The description of the book made it sound amazing and like it had so much potential. The book moved really slow for me and I had a hard time staying focused on it. I read it for awhile then I ended up skimming the second part just to get through it. Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the opportunity to read the book, it just wasn't for me though.