Unfortunately, I was left feeling underwhelmed by this story. The characters that we switched between weren't interesting and only two I felt really had any investment to learning about what happened Ruth. From the start I knew that George was bad news, he seemed controlling and chauvinistic. There seemed to be something off about the other males in the story.

I was surprised to find this had multiple perspectives. The synopsis tells me no such thing. I was expecting the story to wrap around Alice finding out what horrible things her husband did, but was then introduced to two other women linked to Ruth.

The twist ending was, well boring. I was underwhelmed. The open ending left me thinking "ok so what was the point?". Because of the ambitious ending, it make me feel like there was no point to the story as a whole. Nothing felt resolved and characters made decisions before the big reveal that, you would have though, would be the reasoning behind some of their decision - and I'd not, then why are they involved?

Overall, I had high Hope's for this and it let me down.

*thank you to Netgalley, Nicola Rayner and HarperCollins Publishers Australia for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review*


3 stars.

I was eager to start this as I read that it's along similar lines to Girl on the Train and yes it was, especially at the beginning. But what I discovered with this was the story was a bit too slow for me. It was still good but I'd rather have had it been more fast paced as I found my attention drifted quite a few times. It read more like a drama/woman's fiction than the psychological thriller that I'd been hoping for.

I received a copy of this in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.


I honestly had high hopes for this book, but there was jsut something.. missing i guess. It wasn't poorly written, but it didn't hold my interest as long as I had hoped. I finished the book, but I wish it wasn't as slow.

This was slow to start but eventually I got into it enough to keep reading. The ending was a bit over the top - forced and unrealistic. This one was just okay in my opinion.

This was such an amazing read that I couldn’t put it down. It went everywhere with me. To the doctors office, the dentist, the eye doctor. IT WENT ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE. I was so sad when it ended that I immediately went and bought more books from this author!

I received a free copy of The Girl Before You from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately I couldn't finish this book.
It was too slow for me with too many characters and unnecessary details.

The plot was good and the story could have been something, but the writing just wasn't what I expected it to be.

DNF at 36% the best thing I can say about The Girl Before You is that it has a nice cover. The story itself did nothing for me and I thought it was not very well written.

With the blurb if you enjoyed the Lovely Wife you will enjoy this was right on the money. This suspenseful book follows Alice who seems to always be troubled by her charismatic husbands past lovers. But does she have reason to or is she just overreacting? Find out in this fast paced book that’s a great read for a rainy day

I had a hard time following this book as there were a lot of characters. Not as a domestic thriller as I was hoping that it was going to be .D

Thank you Netgalley, the author and it’s publisher for the arc in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own and are completely unbiased.

I’m sorry to say this was not one of my favourite reads, I actually had a hard time getting into it and had to take many breaks. I won’t say it wasn’t good, as everyone has their own preference.. I found it to be a bit bland and overdone.
Sorry but I have to give it a 3.

"If you liked My Lovely Wife, you’ll love this."

Can we stop with these comparisons? These books are nothing alike. Not at all.

Alice is married to George who is a politician turned television personality. Charming and confident he seems to always attract the attention of women. He was known as quite the ladies man during his university days but he doesn't really like to discuss his past with his wife which leads her to believe that he's keeping secrets. Now that Alice finds herself pregnant she begins to wonder if the man she married is the man she thinks he is. She has always wondered about a young woman, Ruth, that went missing in their university days together. Now she's obsessed with finding out if her husband had a role in Ruth's disappearance.

We have multiple points of view that go back and forth in time that slowly reveal what happened on that terrible night.

One thing I find that I'm growing tired of are woman that can't seem to survive without a man. Even while at university Alice secretly wondered about George and his, let's say, extra-curricular activities and yet she went on to marry him and have his child. Why, oh, why would you do this?

Another character, Kat, who was Ruth's best friend back in the day is still hung up on her lost love from then. Like, really? Fifteen years later and you still haven't gotten over him?

This book is so hard for me to rate. On the one hand I did find the mystery of Ruth's disappearance strangely compelling and I wanted to know the who and the why. Yet at the same time the slow pace made this one easy to put down even though I wanted answers.

It's certainly a relevant topic with the #METOO movement in full stride and the writing was well done. Not bad for a debut novel. 3.5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Aurstralia for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Aside from the number of characters and stories within stories, there was a lot of time hoping with no clear reason jumping around in time was necessary.

The ending was disappointing; no one’s story was ever really finished. The reader does not really find out if Ruth is alive or not – the outcome is implied. The reader does not find out what happened with Alice and her sketchy ass husband either which I guess is the main point of the book.

If this is how all psychological thrillers are supposed to go – then I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys such books. But in good conscience, I can not recommend this book to anyone.

This book was incredibly creepy, but I loved every minute of it. I believe anyone who enjoys thrillers will enjoy this book. The style of writing reminds me of Ruth Ware, the author of The Women in Cabin 10. I don't want to give away the plot or any key details, so I'll refrain from summarizing the book. However, this book is worth the read, it's not predictable, and it will leave you wanting to read a sequel. Cannot wait to read more from Nicola Rayner!

Ohhh how I love a good thriller filled with some juicy plots and a fresh writing style. Nicole Rayner succeeded in giving me all this in her The Girl Before You. The change of narrators intrigued me and sat well with me. I would recommend this to anyone in the mood for a thriller.

Unfortunately I wasn't smitten with this book. A very slow burner with lots of unlikeable characters. I really struggled to connect with the book.

I really wanted to like this book. A college girl goes missing and years later a woman with a minimal connection to her thinks she sees her on a train? Sounds like it's up my alley. However, it fell a bit flat for me. For one thing, jumping perspectives can be interesting sometimes. But when you switch so many times the reader just gets confused, you lose the whole purpose behind multiple narrators. And the blurb plays on the "relationship" between George and the missing girl, when in reality they were "friends with benefits" for a short amount of time, and she wasn't the only person that George had ever been with. Frankly I feel like she should have been glad her husband didn't have a dead girl in his wake, just a missing one, considering the amount of girls he and his friend "slept with". And the mystery? I called it halfway into the book. All in all, it wasn't a bad book, just not one that I would pick up again.

I would not call this a thriller because it's not thrilling at all and barely a mystery. It reminds me of the equally slow-paced The French Girl by Lexie Elliott but with less beautiful prose.

Firstly, there were too many character names (note that I didn't say 'characters'). Because the story wasn't gripping or engaging to keep me turning the pages, I kept losing track of who's who and who's with who e.g. Teddy and Dan, Richard and George, Kat and Alice and Naomi, Christie and Carla etc. For some reason, all the names just seemed similar to me. I couldn't care less about any of them.

Three female POVs is also three too many for this book because they were all extremely dull and boring. Ruth was definitely the most colourful, vibrant and interesting character but of course we don't hear from her.

Not much actually happens in the whole book, with the only interesting bits being the flashbacks to college days. Despite being a thriller, there is close to zero tension and absolutely no action at all. The mystery of Ruth's disappearance was the only thing that kept me ploughing on but unfortunately, the reveal was disappointing too. Everything pretty much falls in place only in the second last chapter.

I did like the ending and what it hinted at, however, so this wasn't a total waste of my time. But thrillers fans who are seeking shock and suspense, twists and turns, and a solid mystery should look elsewhere.

This was a decent enough thriller I just felt like it was something I had already read a bunch before. It still had some fun twists and turns that kept me reading but not my favorite. Thanks NetGalley.

At university, Ruth was someone everyone knew. From her red hair to her infectious personality, she was known throughout campus. Years later, when Alice spots someone who resembles Ruth on a train in London, Alice becomes confused. Ruth disappeared years ago and it was presumed that she drowned. Alice leads us on a wild goose chase to find the answers everyone has been looking for, and the secrets everyone has been keeping. Told through multiple perspectives, all the people I. Ruth’s life come forward with the secrets they kept, and still keep, that maybe contributed to Ruth’s disappearance.

The Girl Before You is the debut novel of Nicola Rayner. Told in 3 voices (Alice, Kat and Naomi) the story takes place in fictional St. Anthony’s College in Scotland and centers around missing student Ruth. Events lead up to the ‘incident’ and then fast forward to 17 years later. There is a lot of back and forth, which leads to the suspense, but can be confusing at times.

The story moved very slowly for me, it seems it took forever for the story to pick up. The characters never really developed, and were more annoying than anything. Even though the time was 17 years...it felt like the characters never grew up. It took me forever to get thru this book, at times forcing myself to sit and read. They story just never got into a rhythm for me. Many situations in this book were never answered fully.

I loved the idea of the story line and would probably give the author another chance.