What an incredible debut novel! Following the unlikely friendship of two women, both struggling to move forward with their lives while living in a dying Atlantic City. Women are disappearing and Clara and Lily are searching for answers and trying to stay safe. Two women with very different stories yet they both grew up in Atlantic City and want nothing more than to break free of the curse of this fallen city.

As a former Atlantic City vacationer, I was intrigued just reading the title description and it made the read that much more enjoyable as I was able to imagine and remember places mentioned in the book.

A real edge of your seat kind of book - I found myself so invested in these character's stories and I struggled to put it down. Incredibly tragic and sad stories of women who were never able to break free of the shady side of this city and never seemed to have a fighting chance. My heart ached for each of them - broken women and their stories. All held back by something or someone in their lives, just trying to get beyond this crumbling boardwalk. Fabulous book - HIGHLY recommended!!

I so enjoyed this wonderfully written book, even though or maybe because, I found it necessary to put down at times, some parts were just hard to read about.

This "Thriller" is so much more than that label. Its thoughtful, intuitive, both heartwarming and heartbreaking. The characters so fully envisioned.

Highly recommend.

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review..

I really enjoyed this book! Dark psychological thriller told from many POVs. This was the total human experience. It dips in to so many emotions like family love or hate, figuring out who in this world you can trust and trying to trust our own basic instincts.
This book pushes all of the human boundaries.
Highly recommend. Love the author’s writing style.

A thriller and a mystery and a well plotted character study. Please See Us stands out from the world of thrillers. The characters are detailed and interesting. The setting in Atlantic City, which becomes the end of the earth for young women at the end of their fortunes, is richly detailed. I needed to know what happens to these women, even though I well knew the demise of the city around them. Please See Us stands out from the pack of thrillers and was a great read.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

I really enjoyed this book, perfect for biography and auto-biography enthusiasts. This book was generously provided to me through NetGalley. Highly Recommended!

Please See Us is an atmospheric mystery with strong character development. Readers looking for a fast-paced dark mystery will be pleased with this debut novel written by Caitlin Mullen. The writing is excellent making Mullen an author to watch out for in the future.

Suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and the declining tourism industry, Atlantic City is becoming a ghost town with businesses closing every day. Clara, a teenager being raised by her Aunt Des, is a psychic tarot reader struggling to keep their shop open on the boardwalk. After a reading with the uncle of a missing girl, Clara begins to have visions, and as women keep disappearing, the visions become more frequent. Lily is a woman returning home after a bad breakup. She becomes friends with Clara, and together try to find the missing women before even more disappear.
I couldn't believe this was a debut author. The description of a struggling tourist town just added to the menacing atmosphere of the book. The character buildup and the way the chapters jump between characters was great. I look forward to more books by this author.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Probably more 4.5 but I didnt want to just give it 4.
Clara sees things in such detail that I felt I could see them too. The way the girls are weaved together and intertwined was so interesting. I've already recommended this book to a few friends for when it releases. Thanks #netgalley for the free ARC!

I was not a fan of this book. The plot was interesting at first, but the rest of the story seemed to drag on. I personally didn’t find interest in the psychic parts of the book or all of the top-detailed encounters among the prostitutes. I think the plot had potential but overall did not keep my attention. The ending also didn’t wow me.

Please See Us is a debut novel not to be missed! Told through descriptive details, you can almost feel yourself there in the sidelines of Atlantic City, watching as it’s light diminishes from its former glory. The story is told through multiple points of view, which I always enjoy, but this one has a special way of telling the viewpoint of the victims - the Jane Doe’s. As the mystery plays out there is also the story of Clara and Lily and their connection to each other and to the true to life dangers that women face. This is a slow burn novel but it also pulls you in to find out what will happen to these women. I found myself thinking about this story when I wasn’t reading it and couldn’t wait to be able to steal some time away and finish it. Thank you to NetGalley and Galley Books for the ARC!!

This is a dark story about life in the Atlantic City underbelly. Promoted as a fast-paced psychological thriller, I would call it more of a descriptive novel. The descriptions are very well written but nearly bring the narrative to a standstill in this excruciatingly slow placed novel. Told from nine different perspectives (the ninth added two-thirds of the way through the book), it was difficult to follow and I found myself not caring about any of the characters.

If you spent time in Atlantic City during the "boom years"- when casinos were packed with hustlers, seniors, and dreamers looking to hit it big; the boardwalk was lined with salt water taffy, tacky t-shirts, and even tackier souvenirs; the Ferris wheel soared over the ocean crammed with kids on summer vacation-but haven't been there recently-the state of the once bustling gambling mecca will be a shock. Many of the casinos are bankrupt-the ones still open are a shell of their former selves; the boardwalk is empty, the store fronts boarded up and abandoned. The setting of Please See Us is depressing, the plot even more. There's a killer on the loose, but authorities don't want the public to know for fear of scaring away the few remaining tourists. Caitlin Mullen introduces the victims in a sharp but engrossing way-they narrate from beyond the grave with tales of their lives and how they wound up discarded in the marsh that lines the city. The chapters from these anonymous "Janes" are riveting-most are "ladies of the night" or runaways, and their desperation ozzes off the page. Then there's Clara-the teenage tarot card reader living in squalor with her scam artist aunt. Clara sees things- distrubing visions of how the Janes met their fate. And Lily, who cames back to Atlantic City with her tail between her legs after an ugly breakup with her boyfriend. Clara and Lily become tangled in the murderous mess around them, with Clara trying to make sense of her violent premonitions. Please See Us is darkly emotional-you'll feel a real connection to the nameless victims. The pace of Please See Us swings from whiplash fast to a snail's pace, alternating between the past and present in a dizzying way. Please See Us is a story of a town that went from glittering highs to devastating lows-and demolished the lives of a few lost souls along with the buildings.

Clara is a 16 year-old psychic whose mother abandoned her and now lives with her irresponsible aunt, Des. Des works in the casinos and hustles and steals to maintain her pill addiction.

Lily moves back to a dying Atlantic City after a mortifying art show opening where she learned that her boyfriend and potential client were having an affair. Down on her luck and desperate for a fresh start, Lily begins working in an upscale Spa in one of the casinos.

Atlantic City is a place with many lost souls itching for something more - more wealth, more drugs, more anonymity, more sex. It’s a place where a woman is an object and with that state is being comes power and extreme danger.

Clara’s visions begin coming more frequently and out of nowhere. She quickly senses that something is seriously wrong and the visions are providing her with breadcrumbs. When her and Lily cross paths, will they keep each other safe or be led into more danger?

I loved the writing style with the various narratives and mysterious characters. I also really enjoyed the underlying stories that were woven throughout like Lily’s experience in New York, the tragic death of Lily’s father, the mysterious paintings, and Clara’s drive to move to LA to find her mother. The writing was descriptive and really humanized the dangerous and demeaning lives of prostitutes. I did feel the end wrapped up a little quickly and some things were left hanging, though it could be argued that was also for effect.

This was a really difficult book to get into. It took me several tries to make it through the end of the story. While the plot was interesting, it was a bit convoluted and hard to follow because each chapter swapped character perspectives, which made everything feel really disjointed. In addition, I didn't find the ending to be satisfying in the least.

This story sounded like a million other mysteries, but turned out to be so much more. The author does an excellent job of character development, including making the setting feel like one of the characters. Atlantic City is fleshed out on the pages as much as the protagonists, Lily and Clara. This is quite the debut novel. Definitely plan on picking it up when it's released! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC!

Please See Us is a women-in-peril murder mystery written in a haunting, lyrical style.

The book opens with a prologue in the voices of the dead silently calling Please See Us. But no one does. The dead are forgotten women, murdered by a sadist and abandoned in a Jersey City marsh between a dilapidated motel and bridge.

Jersey City is a character…in fact, a metaphor for the deterioration of place and soul. Forces of fate and poverty and lack of resources work against women in this once flourishing city on the shore. Women are forgotten, unseen, easy prey.

Other major characters include the unnamed villain, a bullied deaf man, a disgraced New York art agent, and a sometime psychic. The heart of the story revolves around the blossoming friendship between two young women⁠—the art agent (reduced to working in a day spa) and the psychic (whose reduced circumstances impel her to petty theft). These two unlikely friends band together to search for the missing and murdered women.

Overall, I have to say, this was not the book I was expecting. I was expecting a straight-up, intelligent mystery, maybe along the lines of I’d Know You Anywhere (Goodreads listed Laura Lippman as a comp writer on the Please See Us blurb) or a psychic drama similar to the series Medium. However, Please See Us was far darker than I imagined it would be. In fact, in the middle, I had to take some time off and read…cough, cough…a romance. Maybe even (true confessions, here) more than one romance.

Thus fortified with fluff, I returned to Please See Us, heart pounding, nails a-bitten. The climax was, well, climactic…and also perfect. And the writing is so beautiful and haunting. As is the lingering message about the choices left to women in a city depressed both economically and morally. The title itself, while it refers to the women murdered by a sadistic man, also speaks for the forgotten, live women fighting to survive and even thrive in dismal conditions.

When I finished the book, I went back and re-read the prologue. And I was even more dazzled than I was the first time I read it. Because what I glimpsed the second time around was an homage to Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Just me? In the prologue of Please See Us cars and trucks delivered filet mignon to the casinos just as cars and trucks delivered bootleg and oranges to Gatsby’s home—both juxtaposed beside grim, dying landscapes. And the eyes of the murdered women in Please See Us was so very reminiscent of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg—ever-present eyes in both books seeing all.

I highly recommend Please See Us to readers who enjoy an intelligent (though dark) mystery with that something extra, that something which will remain in your mind after the last page is turned.

I received a copy of Please See Us from the publisher via Netgalley.

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This story is told from multiple view points which gets confusing sometimes. It was hard for me to stay interested in the story. The plot is slow moving. It takes place in Atlantic City where someone is stalking women. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

I tried really hard to get into this. I found it to be slow from the beginning and trying to keep up with the characters was difficult, especially with all the Janes mixed in. I wish there was more about Luis... A deeper understanding. Just felt something was missing.

This book was received as an ARC from Gallery, Pocket Books - Gallery Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I almost collapsed with over excitement at the end of this book and I was left speechless and at first was not expecting the result of this book but the more I think about it, I love that! Please see us tells the story of Summer who ends up in Atlantic City not knowing who she is and what she is doing. Meanwhile there are two girls lying dead in the marshlands with nobody knowing who they are and how they ended up there. Then comes in Clara a up and coming psychiatrist who struggles with clients and then she meets Lilly who is a former art deco soho girl and she uncovers secrets that not even a brave mind like Clara wants to get involved. Everyone has a story and they all connect to the girls one way or another. This book reminded me of the show Blindspot on ABC how Jane Doe ended up in the middle of Time Square with Tattoos painted all over her as a map to solve a murder mystery. Similar feeling of anticipation and I know a lot of our community and book clubs will appreciate this book.

We will consider adding this title to our Mystery collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.