What a unique, dark, and fast-paced thriller! Please See Us is distinctive in that although it is about the victims of a serial killer in Atlantic City, these victims and their stories seem to take a back seat to the stories of Lily and Clara.

Lily and Clara are two young women whose paths wouldn’t normally cross. However, Lily has returned to Atlantic City after a dramatic break up in an attempt to reset her life, and Clara comes into the salon where Lily works, attempting to find new clients. Lily believes in Clara’s psychic visions, and together, they work to decipher what Clara’s visions are showing her. Young women that they both know seemingly go missing, Clara’s dark visions are increasing, and Clara’s living situation continues to decline. This story shows the underbelly of gambling and prostitution, and how easy it is to get sucked into some deplorable situations with a few poor choices. 

Most of the book alternates between Lily and Clara’s points of view, but accounts of the murder victims are interspersed. The author ratchets up the tension by increasing the frequency of the victim accounts towards the end of the novel. Please See Us is a nail biter that will keep you up late, reading to find out who survives and who is lost to either the serial killer or to their own decisions. 

Thank you to Gallery Books and Simon and Schuster for the advance copy of Please See Us!!

Oh gosh, this book was too DEPRESSING for me. All the women seem to be doom and gloom in Atlantic City. Nowhere to run or survive. All women had to become some type of prostitute to make a living. Very sad characters indeed.

Please See Us narrates the story of a serial killer who is disposing of the bodies of his victims in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel during a summer in Atlantic City.

The "Janes" want to be found. They are all together, all alone without a voice and no one is trying to find their bodies until Clara, a psychic teenager starts having visions about the women. She begins a friendship with Lily, a Casino spa receptionist. With her help, Clara believes she can put together the visions the women are sending her.

Clara's life has not been easy. Her mother left her with her aunt, Des. Des has no scruples. She has made Clara a thief and a con artist. Soon she begins manipulating Clara into agreeing to prostitute herself.

Lily is from Atlantic City but she was living in New York City. She has an eye for art and was dating Matthew, a sculptor until he betrays her in the worse kind of way affecting her work. Lily runs back home to lick her wounds and to create a new her after losing everything.

One more important character is Luis, a janitor who's deaf and blind. Luis has his own demons. He's constantly made fun of and attacked on a regular basis. The police can see it happening but they don't do anything to help him.

Like I said earlier, Please See Us was too depressing to enjoy. It also left me with too many unanswered questions. I know I'm in the minority since so many of my book friends love it. It was just not for me.

A word of advice for readers, this book has many scenes and forms of abuse towards women.

Cliffhanger: No

2/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Gallery Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Please See Us tells the story of a serial killer in Atlantic City preying on vulnerable women.   Lily is one of these women.  She strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young boardwalk psychic, Clara, and they attempt to figure out who is responsible for the killings before it is too late.  

Please See Us was a great read.  It was not a typical fast paced thriller, but rather took its time to build up and intensify.  I liked the portrayal of the friendship between Lily and Clara and also appreciated the supernatural undertone.  I would definitely recommend this book!

Essentially this is the story of an unlikely friendship, a serial killer, and many vulnerable women.

Clara was taken in by her Aunt Des when her mother took off to California.  Due to the financial down slope of Atlantic City’s tourism, Des has forced Clara to do many nefarious things (and sadly she has adapted to this) – conning people as a psychic, stealing, and working as an escort.
   
Lily was living the good life in New York, a great SOHO job and a boyfriend who is an accomplish sculptor.  Needless to say, she was blind-sided by their break-up.  Now back in her home town of Atlantic City, she finds a temporary job at a casino spa. 
 
Currently two “Janes” lay in a marsh on the edge of Atlantic City, put there by a serial killer who’s needing to add to the collection. These Janes (and the ones to come) tell us their story and what brought them to this wet, smelly, and bug infested place.

Clara's life and focus changes when she starts to see and hear things.  She soon realizes that everything she is sensing is actually coming from the missing women.  She teams up with an unlike person to find the missing women, all the while trying to avoid being next on the serial killers list.

I have to say, I quite enjoyed this book.  I was fascinated by Clara’s character, and I really think it was her story that kept me reading through.  For some reason when I imagine Clara, I see a young Natalie Portman from the movie The Professional.  Everyone has a back story of what brought them to Atlantic City and this novel is even more richer for it.  Not all settings are meant to be written in glitz and glamour, some are written for dark shady places where you do what you need to do, a place where darkness hides in every corner.  In this instance, it takes two brave women to expose the person lurking in the shadows.

The debut novel Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen was a good book. It did not grab me and demand my undivided attention and I am not sure why. It was dark, scary, twisted and all of those things you think about when you think of psychological suspense. The ending made the whole book worthwhile and I loved how the author brought it all together. 

Her writing style was spot on. It was a book with many characters but she made it easy to keep up with who they all were. I didn't forget who they were, their back stories and how they wound up in Atlantic City. 

If you like psychological suspense, you will like Please See Us!

Please see us by Caitlin Mullen didn’t hook me from the start but gave me something that made me want to continue. I am so glad that I did. The unease that this book gave me was great but wrapped itself up with a light at the end of the tunnel ending was great.

I thought the sex work throughout this book was done okay, but it was a bit cliche. I can’t decide exactly how I feel about this as far as if it was tasteful or not. I plan to sit with this for a bit...
Overall I think it’s a good book and I would definitely read Mullen in the future.

Thank you to Gallery, Pocket Books via Netgalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen is a dark, gritty suspense about women who often go unseen. 

Clara, a young psychic, is struggling to stay afloat in the quickly dilapidating town of Atlantic City. Now that the casinos are closing and the bright lights are fading, Clara is struggling to pay rent and knows that if she doesn’t leave soon the town will swallow her up. Clara begins to have dark, disturbing visions that she believes are connected to the women who have gone missing in town.  When Clara makes an unlikely friend, Lily, the two work together to try to find out what happened to the missing girls while still battling their own demons. Will they be able to find answers before the next victim is claimed, or will Atlantic City swallow them up?! 

This was a slow-burning suspense that gripped me from the very first page. Please See Us was a hauntingly tragic and gut wrenching story about addiction, violence, and power. What I loved most about this dark tale, was that the author chose to give every single woman a voice in this story. Often times these female victims get zero coverage in the media, a sick and disturbing fact in itself. So, I was incredibly grateful that the author took the time to share the stories of these victims. My heart completely shattered for each new victim we came across. I rallied around the main characters, wanting them to crack the mystery before another woman met her cruel fate. If you’re looking for a powerful, suspenseful read that sheds light on deeper issues in today’s society, I would highly recommend this read. 

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Gallery for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"The women call to her, the shush of the wind through the grass like a whisper. Look, they try to say. Look. Look. Please see."⁣
⁣
Clara works as a psychic in Atlantic City. When she meets Lily she believes that Lily may be able to help her with the visions she has been having. These visions may be related to the disappearances of local women. Can these visions help solve the disappearances? Can these two girls protect the women of Atlantic City?⁣
⁣
This novel is told from several different points of views. These points of view just create more and more twists. This was a quick read and I was able to attach to the characters. I like how all the different scenes came together.

'Please See Us' is a debut novel from this American author.  This is a dark story set in a broken down Atlantic City, where a serial killer has been preying on women. It is part thriller, has a supernatural element, and is not shy about the revealing the seedy parts of society.  Clara is a teenager who lives with her aunt and works as a psychic.  Lily was an art agent in NYC, but has fled there and now works as a receptionist at a spa. The two become friends and Clara shares her dark visions.  The story reminded me a little of the work of Heather O'Neill and might be a good recommendation her fans.

Rich, fascinating and suspenseful! I flipped pages continuously until the stunning ending.  I look forward to more of this author’s work. 
Many thanks to Gallery Pocket Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I thought this book was good! Caitlin Mullen wrote a very atmospheric read. I liked the unlikely friendship that happens between Clara and Lily. This is definitely a slow burn, I would not consider this to be a fast paced thriller but still a solid read. At times it was a tad confusing because of all the characters. 

I would recommend this book to others and read more by this author in the future!

Please See Us – Caitlyn Mullen

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective review. 
This novel opens as we meet a young Clara, who struggles to make enough money to live by giving Tarot readings in a seedy storefront in a downtrodden area of Atlantic City. Abandoned by her mother and cared for (the term is used loosely) by a drug addicted aunt, Clara’s life is anything but idyllic.  She has just received a customer who is despondent over his niece, who has been missing without a trace for three months. He hands Clara a handkerchief that his niece used to wear for luck, in hopes of finding any kind of clue as to her whereabouts. Shortly thereafter, Clara begins to have visions of bodies in the marsh. 

We then meet Lily, who, after being humiliated by a man she loved, runs home to Atlantic City, and secures a job in a spa, with the hopes of making enough money to return to NY City on her own terms. The two girls become unlikely friends and Clara eventually shares her visions of the girls with Lily. 

We meet the Jane Doe’s, all 6 of them, who have left their real lives to end up in the brackish marshes of the Atlantic City shoreline, victims of an unknown killer. As they tell us their stories of pain and loss from beyond the grave, their disappearances are noticed by Lily & Clara who look for answers, , but also by Luis, a young deaf mute who parlays the information he is unable to speak of into other medium, unbeknownst to anyone. 

This novel is a painful, but sadly realistic view into the lives of those individuals that we don’t see in our own lives, and rarely think about - the kids that leave home only to fall victim to drug use, sexual abuse, prostitution, hopelessness, and worse. Told in meticulous detail, you’ll think about this novel and its characters for a long time after the final page is turned, all while realizing that often, stories do not have a happy ending, even when the last page is turned. A haunting, gritty, exceptionally well written read. I cannot wait to read more from this new author!

Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen is a mystery thriller about a bunch of girls in Atlantic City, New Jersey who have been murdered by a serial killer and left to rot in a marsh until someone finds them.  The book centers around a few main girls especially Clara and Lily.  Clara is a psychic who is getting visions about these missing girls and Lily is enlisted to to help figure out how to put these visions together and find them.  The story also centers around a deaf/mute male who may or may not be a suspect in the case.  Overall, I thought it was a great, hard to put down read. There was so much action and I loved how the story kept changing perspectives so you were able to develop a relationship with each of the characters.  I also found this story relatable because I am from New Jersey and know about a lot of the places which were brought up throughout the story.  I think Caitlin Mullen did a great job with this one! Although I liked the ending, my only complaint is you never really find out exactly who committed the crimes and why.

A sophisticated and beautifully rendered complex look at violence against women with fantastic character development, excellent and confident plotting and assured and elegant prose

I had very high hopes for this one, maybe a little too high if I’m honest and while this wasn’t a bad book by any means, it didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s very slow paced and while I was initially interested in how things would play out, I also found it to be slightly disjointed. It switches between a few viewpoints and while I appreciate multiple narrators, it felt choppy for me.

One thing that really kept me reading despite my issues was the authors gorgeous writing, she’s really talented and her sense of place was amazing. This one is bleak y’all, and not just in terms of the plot, it’s atmospheric and incredibly well written with a strong sense of despondency throughout every component. If you’re going to give this one a try I recommend taking your time with it, definitely not one to race through, and be prepared for a more subtle style of suspense.

I confess I was not really into this book in the beginning. But I persisted and it got better. So better that that about halfway through it I couldn’t put it down anymore. This is a pretty interesting story that takes place in Atlantic City, involving two girls that met each other even though they belong to two complete different universes - and their loved cross each other in so many ways afterwards. Ava and Lily. But it is also a story about other women - Jane Does - that are desperate to be seen. I love how the book is constructed with each chapter with a different perspective. The beginning may seem disconnected - but bear with it that it will get better, trust me.

Well written but depressing story

This is a tale of tawdry, down on its luck Atlantic City and some of the women that live there over one summer. It is told from many points of view including that of some women that have been killed (not really a spoiler since they are mentioned in the synopsis of the book).

Lily left her art gallery job in New York City and fled back to her hometown of Atlantic City after a major humiliating episode in NYC. She now works in a spa as a receptionist until she can figure out what she wants to do next.

Clara is a very young girl working as a psychic on the Boardwalk with her aunt in a town that has very few tourists any more. She and Lily become friends - an unusual pairing.

This story was slow moving, building up to a good finish. For me, it was pretty darn depressing even though well written. Might just be the winter blues and maybe I should have read it in the summer.

It did a great job with character development and a great job of describing the downturn in fortunes of Atlantic City.

I received this book from Gallery Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

3.5 stars
This was a promising idea of a young psychic who is trapped living a life dictated by a drug-addicted, prostitute aunt. They live at a downtrodden motel...something we have all seen. The type of place we drive by and never wish to check-in.   
The other main character is a highly educated woman who has had her own unwelcomed twists in her life. She has had a very public ugly break up and now is wanting to hide in the new position at the New Jersey spa.

These two cross paths and somehow become friends and then share a need to find out what is happening with two Jane Does who are found next together. Our psychic is now having real dark visions and needs help finding concrete proof so others will not be killed. 

A very interesting idea and this is not fast-paced but is compelling.

Young women keep disappearing in Atlantic City, but no one seems to be looking for them. They all struggled to find a better life for themselves, but were unable to make that happen. When you're poor, in a dead-end job, and need money, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to. Sometimes those things are dangerous. Sometimes, they get you killed.

Readers should be aware that this is a dark and disturbing novel. There is much physical abuse contained within these pages. If that's a trigger for you, don't read this book.

The story is told from the points of view of Clara, a teen-aged psychic; Lily, who works in a spa after relocating to escape a toxic relationship; Luis, a deaf-mute who is the janitor at the spa; and the Janes, the women killed/missing. Clara and Lily, unlikely companions who come to care about each other, are trying to make sense of Clara's dark, vivid and violent visions of young women in danger. Can they find these women to warn them, or is it already too late? Can they gather evidence to support Clara's visions so they can go to the police before they become targets themselves?

Please See Us is an impressive debut for Caitlin Mullen. Her writing is clean and concise, her female characters complex, wonderfully drawn and flawed. She builds suspense at a steady pace that keeps the reader engaged and wanting more. This is an author I've put on my authors to watch list. If you like suspense and/or crime genres, you will find Please See Us a very satisfying read. Four well-earned stars from me.

My thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Please See Us was a powerful, disturbing, suspenseful, honest and unusual novel. A story about the current day run-down and devastated Atlantic City, with its desperate habitants. A serial killer is murdering "Janes" whom engaged in prostitutions, then staging them in a hidden location. An unlikely friendship is formed between a young psychic and an artist, which try to help each other and the "Janes", as well as hope for a better future for each other. Very well written and built up! Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the early reader edition for my review. All opinions are my own.