This was a deep read. A very relatable read. A. very heart felt read. I was spinning from page one. A woman that is a mother... a true mother at that has a heart for her children and others that may seem lost or hurt. Bridget is suffering from the effects of postpartum depression. She witnesses a kidnapping from a moving commuter train, but no one believes her. This just made the ride even harder to read as I could feel her anxiety.

This was a really good read but if it is too close to home delay it until you are healed.

Thank you NetGalley as well as the author Bryony Pearce and the publisher.

I read The Girl on the Platform by Bryony Pearce in one sitting on a rainy afternoon. I am rating this 3.5 stars (marking as 4).. There was good potential for this to be 5 stars as the idea was great. This psychological thriller had a great beginning and an intense well-done ending. In my opinion, the middle of the book needs lots of work. There was too much repetition for me:the meds, sickness…....A good editor would help. I did figure out the big twist almost at the beginning. I think Pearce has a lot of potential. My thanks to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

A compelling story about Bridget a working Mum who endured a daily commute while her husband stayed home to look after their baby. She is worn down and tired. One fateful day she witnesses the kidnapping of a child. The story intensifies as this apparent crime is not reported by anyone other than Bridget. As nobody seems to believe her she is forced to face demons from her past. The outcome is totally unexpected.

eBook Format

I received a free copy from the publisher.. This is my honest review.

As a fan of psychological thrillers, I find it increasingly difficult to find a new book that grabs me with twists that satisfy,. This is a well-written novel, and the twists and turns were intriguing and interesting. I enjoyed this book and will be recommending it to others.

This is a gripping psychological thriller.
On the train going home after a long day at work, Bridget sees a young girl being kidnapped and bundled into a van. She calls the Police but when they look into it, there are no reports about the missing girl.
No one believes her, not the Police or her husband, and no one else on the train saw the kidnapping so Bridget feels very frustrated. She’s worrying so much about the little girl that she soon becomes obsessed.
This is a bit of a slow burner but as the story develops there’s some real shocks in store.
A great psychological thriller that I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I made a video review of this book 🌻

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLqrvObKihQ&ab_channel=MyTop5

Well this book hit the ground running and never let up until the end. It had me spinning about chasing my tail as I tried to figure out what was going on. Who was good, who was bad, who to believe... and all these questions served up around a twisty turny plot that kept me on my toes throughout.
So... Bridget is on her way home, on a crowded train. She is a new mum and sleep is evasive so she is nodding off and on as the train travels. She wakes at a small station only to see a young girl being snatched from the platform by two men and bundled into a van. She looks round to see if anyone else saw it but to no avail. How could no one else have seen it? She raises the alarm and the police get involved, but she isn't really convinced they believe her. She can not name the station, no one else saw anything, no young girls have been reported missing. But she knows what she saw and it becomes an obsession, so much that it takes over her life, but little does she think what the repercussions will be to her own life...
Oh my, this is an intense read that basically held me captive throughout my time reading it. Oh how I felt for Bridget and what she was going / put herself through. I was also quite impressed with some of the things she did and how she did them to try and get to the truth.. and what a truth.. but shhh. I did have a bit of an inkling but it wasn't until the final reveal that the whole, shocking truth of what really happened hit me... and breathe...
It's brutal and shocking and, well darned right emotional. And all kinds of wonderful. If this doesn't end up in my top 5 books of the year.. well...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

It reads as a mix of The Girl on the Train and Sharp Objects, and was frustrating at first -- either Bridget is yet another example of the unhinged and unreliable female protagonist, or she's being seriously gaslighted. But it was so worth it.

Synopsis: Bridget, a new working mom, is dozing on a commuter train home when she sees a young girl abducted from a train station. But no one else sees the kidnapping and no one has reported a child missing. Bridget is certain of what she saw, even if no one believes her.

This started off feeling somewhat redundant to common thriller tropes, but OH MAN the ENDING. Once I got about halfway in, I flew through the of the book, finishing it in two days. The ending was so exciting, and disturbing, and actually ended up being surprisingly touching. I completely loved the ending and how everything came together.

If you enjoy thrillers, this is worth the read! Thanks to #netgalley and #avonbooks for an early copy of this.

I loved this book, a tense thriller, it was just my cup of tea and every page kept me wanting to read more. It kept me guessing right to the end, just brilliant.

There's not much to say about this thriller besides it was really obvious what was going on from the first couple of chapters, and I didn't like the character of Bridget. I guess with the ending you can get why she acts the way she does, but it was hard to take since it seemed most of the time she was crying and shaking and obsessing over missing children. There were way too many twists (that made zero sense by the way) for me to even find this book believable. I think at one point I realized that this would have been right up my alley years ago if it appeared on a random Sunday Night Made for TV movie. Thankfully my tastes have evolved.

"The Girl on the Platform" follows Bridget who is drowsing a bit on a train when she wakes up and suddenly sees a girl on a platform she's passing being taken by two men and dragged off into a van. Bridget manages to call the police and the train is held for a couple of hours while the police try to figure out what stop Bridget saw the abduction. Unfortunately the police don't find anything, and Bridget returns home and barely manages to hold it together. Readers then find out that Bridget is back at work and her husband, Tom, is staying at home writing a screenplay (I think, honestly I kept forgetting what he was supposedly doing) while also caring for their 8 month old daughter, Grace. We find out that Bridget is dealing with post-partum depression and feels resentful of not being there for her daughter like Tom is. The book though jumps back and forth between Bridget investigating the disappearance of the girl that was taken (after the police push back on her account) while also dealing with her troubled personal life with her husband and mother.

Bridget was just a lot to deal with while reading. Since she's the main character and the one we follow, I just find myself getting tired of her "investigation" and lying to her husband about what she was up to. I just never really got a handle on her as a character, not even when I got to the end of the book.

Bridget's husband was a saint. Honestly. Because when you read the whole book and get to the ending one wonders why he's with her. I saw no real reason why anyone would want to date or marry Bridget. Her mother was a lot and way too into her life and though we hear tales on how fun she used to be and how she was always racing to do things, it just felt like a whole other character we were never formally introduced to.

The flow of the book is really slow.

The ending was when things really came apart for me. I saw the twists coming (except for two things), but it was just so over the top and surreal I felt like I stumbled upon a student production of a really bad play. It just didn't seem grounded in reality at all. I often wonder how authors write their books, do they think of the ending first and work backwards, or do they start off with a rough outline. This book had an interesting idea (slightly) but think it went off the rails to the point that it wasn't a realistic thriller.

Being a first time mom isn’t easy. It seems particularly hard for Bridgette who is dealing with postpartum depression, trying to be a good mom to Grace and a good wife to Tom while working full time. On a train ride home late one night she sees a little girl being kidnapped by two men. What follows is a psychological thriller that is well written with a nail biting ending !! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Yes!! (Fistbump) I called this 1!

What a brilliant story! I absolutely loved this book from the beginning to the end. At times it felt like I was getting heart palpitations in frustration with nobody believing poor Bridget! On her way home, she sees a young girl being abducted from a train station but nobody else on the train sees this. The police cannot find any proof that a girl has gone missing. Did she imagine or dream these events? Soon her life spirals out of control. Will her obsession to find the truth destroy her marriage? Some people might think it is better to let dead dogs lie.......

The characters were very well portrayed and I felt like poisoning a few!! (Cough in fist whispering MOTHER)

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon books UK for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
A LITTLE GIRL HAS BEEN ABDUCTED!!!
But no one believes Bridget Carlson - our totally unreliable narrator. Bridget is suffering from post-partum depression and is severely sleep deprived. She has recurring, vivid dreams of a little girl who is being kept in a room by a mean woman. Bridget starts to fixate on other unsolved abductions and slowly starts to form a conspiracy theory: there seems to be a pattern to all of these abductions. By the end of the second chapter, even I had my very serious doubts about Bridget's sanity.

But this is a thriller, so I try to remain open to the idea that there was in fact an abduction. Bridget's investigations into past abductions brings up a 20 year old cold case. Young Frances Dobson went missing at a train station while her mother was chatting with a friend.. People reported seeing a white van at the time. So, the question now is: did Bridget witness this abduction at an earlier point in her life, or is there something more sinister afoot?

I didn't find it hard to guess what really happened: plenty of clues left out in the open. (But no spoilers here.)
I found the summing up a bit hard to swallow. It took quite a few people, colluding for twenty years, to pull this one off. Didn't ring true for me, but this was a decent read, the writing was very good and there was certainly plenty of sustained suspense. I can see why other reviewers liked it, but so many things didn't click together for me. I'm rating this mystery/thriller a 3.3 out of 5

Bridget is suffering from post natal depression and low self esteem. On her train commute back after a long day at work Bridget see a young girl being kidnapped from a platform and bundled into a van, However there are no reports in the news about the missing girl, No one believes her, not the police, not her husband, not her mother and no one else on the train saw the kidnapping. She knows that she is the only one who can save the little girl and to her own detriment she becomes obsessed.

This was a chilling psychological thriller which I raced through, I had to know what happened. The are lots of twists, a definite must read.

When new mother Bridget catches her train home from London, she witnesses something terrible,: a young girl is taken from the platform, right before her eyes. But no one is reported missing and with Bridget the only witness, she's written off as attention seeker. But Bridget knows what she saw, and becomes consumed with finding the little girl.

This is a dark, chilling and very addictive book. The plotline has been cleverly crafted. Bridget knows what she saw, but no one believes her, not even her husband. Bridget is determined to find out the truth, no matter what the cost is. The pace is slow to begin with but then it slowly builds to the end. WE are drip fed little pieces of information which made me realise where the story was going relatively early. That didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book. I will be looking out for more from the author in future.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #AvonBooksUk and the author #BryonyPearce for my ARC of #TheGirlOnThePlatform in exchange for an honest review.

New mum Bridget is on her way home from work on the train when she witnesses something horrific – a young girl being abducted from a passing station. With none of the other passengers claiming to have seen anything and the police reluctant to believe her, Bridget feels that it is up to her to find the girl. As she begins to uncover the truth, she must make the decision as to whether it is worth putting her own life in danger for a child that nobody else seems to care about.

I love a story with an unreliable witness and in Bridget we definitely have this! With a lifetime of metal health problems and suffering from post-natal depression, there is no doubt that she is a troubled woman. Teamed with the fact that she feels that she is not spending enough time with her baby, we have a main protagonist who made me constantly change my mind as to whether to believe her or not.

At the beginning of the book, there was a definite The Girl on the Train feel, with Bridget determined to find the truth even though others are reluctant to believe her. In my opinion, however, The Girl on the Platform is even better than the aforementioned novel, grabbing my interest right from the start and sustaining it until the very last page. I had been suffering from a bit of a reading slump and this was the book that dragged me out of it, not wanting to put it down for a second!

There is a good range of supporting characters although we see the plot from the perspective of two people – Bridget and the girl on the platform. The chapters featuring the young girl were chilling, and made me desperate for Bridget to be believed and for her to be returned back to her family. At the back of my mind, though, was the nagging doubt that maybe this was all being imagined by Bridget due to the medication she was on. I was pleased that she received support from her husband who always seemed to have her best interests at heart and provided her with love, even if she couldn’t always see it.

At one point in the story, I did start to have an inkling as to where the plot was going to go but I was still genuinely taken aback by the explosive ending. If you are looking for a book to become totally engrossed in, then I cannot recommend The Girl on the Platform enough. This is shaping up to be one of my books of the year.

Complicated and complex story. A struggling new mum who sees a girl being abducted from a station,or does she. The story gradually unfolds with many twists.

When new mother Bridget sees a young girl being abducted from a train platform she panics. Alerting fellow passengers, all of whom say they saw nothing, she starts wondering if she did imagine it. Then when at home she tries to tell her husband Tom, who also believes Bridget, who is suffering from severe post-partum depression, imagined the kidnapping, she begins to question reality.
This novel takes the reader on a series of unexpected twists and turns, never revealing the truth of the incident, you have a few clues that are so well placed it is very easy to miss them. This book held my interest after the first chapter or two, which I found a bit of a slow start. But after a few chapters the storyline takes off and doesn't let up until the devastating end.
I would recommend this for all fans of thrillers and mysteries. It has an edgy feel, and keeps you guessing. Is Bridget just a mother who cannot cope, suffering from depression? Or is their a more sinister element at play? I do not like giving spoilers, so I must leave this for the reader to discover. It is well worth the read, if you find the first chapter or two slow, keep going, I promise you won't be disappointed.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Harper-Collins UL for the free advanced reader e-copy of this novel, in return I am giving my honest review.

You might think you know what's happening but let me assure you, you don't. Bridget is tired, post partum, and a bit off when she sees- she swears she sees- a young girl being taken from a train platform by two men who put her in a van. No one believes her- not the police, not her husband Tom, not anyone. But she's so convinced that she investigates on her own, which takes her down a dark path. She's an unreliable narrator in her way but there's something in her background - no spoilers! This feels familiar in the beginning and it's a little slow to start but then the twists! She's an interesting and sympathetic character. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A page turner that keeping you guessing.

I originally thought this was a war story probably from the title but when I read the synopsis I was already drawn to it. It's nothing to do with any war.

On reading the beginning, it does have the familiarity of The Girl on the Train but the more you settle into it - it isn't!!!

I really began to enjoy it about half way when things really began to kick off. I couldn't decide which way the book would go - DIY investigation on the witnessed kidnapping from the train OR look more into the main character's Bridget) family life. I'm glad it went the way it did. All the better for it, me thinks.

A brilliant debut from Bryony Pearce. If you see it, grab it - but in a nice, calm, dignified way. DON'T MISS OUT !!

I'll be watching and waiting patiently for another book from this author. Hurry up!!