Greenwich Park starts out as the story of Helen, a lonely woman who had to stop working and rest for the remainder of her pregnancy in a house undergoing a major renovation. She meets an erratic young woman named Rachel at her first prenatal appointment who jumps into Helen’s life. Helen’s not sure if she wants someone like Rachel intruding in her life but isn’t as lonely as she had felt before.

Faulkner uses multiple narrators to show us the perspective of worrisome Helen, her headstrong pregnant sister-in-law Serena, and their journalist friend Katie. The high-profile rape case Katie was covering has ended, giving her the chance to reconnect. We also meet the three men who complete this tight group. Katie used to date Charlie, Helen’s partying druggie younger brother. Helen’s older brother Rory is married to Serena and runs the family architecture business. Rory is professionally partnered with Helen’s husband, Daniel.

Rachel’s intentions and actions are questioned as she further entwines herself into the group. Is she planning to harm Helen? Why does Rachel keep popping up in their social lives? What secrets are being protected, and what is going on in Helen’s house? These questions are answered in a series of wild twists and turns.

What makes Greenwich Park such a fascinating read is that it’s impossible to guess what’s happening next. By the end of the book, Faulkner unravels a complicated web of secrets that take the story in unexpected directions. The story is filled with uncomfortable nuggets that aren’t completely explained as the story is being told. As we find out more about the characters and their secrets are revealed, those nuggets fit. The book is loaded with ‘aha’ moments where actions and motivations are exposed. And just when it looks like the story’s been resolved, there are still more twists. Faulkner doesn’t use these twists as gimmicks but as finishing touches for a tight thriller.

What a wonderful debut novel! Faulkner’s plot and characterization combine for a delightfully twisted, jam-packed thriller.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing me an Advance Review Copy of this wonderful book.

This thriller grabs your attention right from the beginning with a mysterious letter from a prisoner of Her Majesty’s Prison Bowood. The convict wants to try and explain themselves to Helen, make sense of what happened. But who is it? What happened that cause Helen’s life to be upturned? Only by reading will you find out!

I did not finish this book but i get through a large chunk and i am highly impressed with this book! The creepy vibes are off the charts and throughout the entire books there are one liners that you have to catch that makes it so creepy. Overall i really enjoy this book and will definitely recommend to others

Thanks so much to the publisher for gifting me an advanced ecopy of Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner. I can't believe it was a debut novel from the author as it was so well done! I loved the setting in what seems like is a little neighborhood of London, Greenwich Park. It had that community-within-a-big-city-feel.

Helen is the MAIN character of the group of people who narrate this book. Helen starts in the late-middle of her first successful pregnancy after many miscarriages. Her husband, brother, and also-pregnant sister-in-law are supposed to be meeting her at a pre-natal birth-prep class, but for various reasons, they all stand her up. Rachel is another woman in the class who is alone. Rachel sort of forces Helen into hanging with her in the class, and thereafter seems to show up wherever Helen is. (Side note: For some reason, I pictured Rachel as the actress Juno Temple, from Ted Lasso and nothing could sway me from that notion the whole novel.) Keeping in mind that it is never clear why people don't seem to gravitate to Helen, she is rather lonely with her husband working overtime to help keep the famous, family architecture firm he and Helen's brother run together successful through a huge and controversial new development. The brother who works with her husband stays busy with work as well. Serena, her sister-in-law, seems generally annoyed or put-off by Helen, though Helen, rather endearingly, doesn't seem to notice or be too self-conscious about it. While she is on early maternity leave due to her risky pregnancy, her work friends are still busy with work and don't have time with her. Add to her loneliness that her husband has taken on a huge renovation project of the home they live in, the same home Helen and her brothers were raised in and she inherited upon her father's death.

As Rachel becomes increasingly clingy, Helen, who is extremely passive, somehow gets steamrolled into letting Rachel live in her under-renovation home with Helen and Daniel while she looks for a new place to live. Rachel becomes more aggressive in her behavior. The extra stress her presence has on Helen's marriage means Helen's husband is gone even more than ever. This uncomfortable situation culminates when after a party (that Helen being as passive as she is, AGAIN, gets manipulated into having) she finally loses her temper with Rachel and tells her off and kicks her out. The next morning, there is no sign of Rachel in the house anymore and soon the police are coming around to question about Rachel's whereabouts.

The mystery of what happened to Rachel is compelling and propulsive. The chapter titles being named after how many weeks pregnant Helen is add to the tension. There are a lot of red herrings and even if a reader can peg a twist or two ahead of time, the book does a great job of keeping the mysteries coming to where I never felt let down. The single flaw in the book that caused it to not quite reach the full 5 stars from me was simply that I couldn't believe how many times Helen allowed herself to be in situations that were not good for her or her baby. Helen was a flawed character, that honestly, I just really liked. While none of the other characters had much development, the plot moved so quickly and so well, the book was exactly what I look for in my thrillers.

A wonderful debut. It twists and turns in all the right places. A vulnerable young mother who seemingly has everything has her future put in jeopardy by a past indiscretion that has come back in the form of a seeming innocent friendship.

WOW. I loved this book. I was unsure of how much I would love it because the main character could be frustrating at times but the ending was so good. It checked a lot of boxes for me that I look for in a thriller. It had short chapters, flashbacks, multiple perspectives, fast paced and of course, a twist. The ending was really great for me, just when you thought all the loose ends were wrapped up, there was more!
I definitely recommend this thriller!

CW: rape, miscarriage

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this novel. It was perfect for a snowstorm. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. The characters intrigued me. The plot moved fast enough that it was never predictable and the ending was fantastic. The only disappointment is that Katherine Faulkner doesn't have other books to read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the e ARC copy of Greenwich Park, a debut novel by Katherine Faulkner. I thought it was an engaging story with interesting character development. I gave the book 3.5 stars because of the slow pace and the somewhat obvious twists and turns. I think the story provides many clues to figure out the ending, which I did at about 75% into the story. I struggled with the character Helen and her gullibility and trustful nature throughout the story. I understand that she was desperate for a friendship, but there were many times that I really wanted to shake her and scream, "Open your Eyes!!!" If that was the reaction the author was going for, she nailed it with me! But I found it be a distraction throughout the novel. I would also recommend that more editing be done - I think the story got bogged down with lots of random details. But the ending- that was a winner! Short and sweet and bring out the handcuffs! #NetGalley

Excellent mystery with many twists and turns. Helen, who has suffered 4 miscarriages is now ready to have a baby. She attends an prenatal class and meets Rachel. They become fast friends. Helen lives in her parents house and her husband works with her brother. Younger brother Charles is also featured .
Things begin to go wrong when she gets calls to remortgage which she thinks is a scam. Rachel become more involved in Helens life
The reader will find the many twists and turns hard to keep up with.
This is a first novel for this British writer. Excellent read

This book is irritating, but in like a good way?? You just feel so bad for our protagonist who is 7 months pregnant, neglected by her whole support network, and basically being stalked by a young woman who is brushing it off as friendship. The interactions between these two women is a frenzy! It’s depressing! And while the stalker theme comes across rather overtly, there is sooo much more that you realize is going on within this friend group. You are let in early that our main narrator is not in her right mind and is becoming obsessed with a number of details while slowly losing grip on reality.

And so knowing this, it’s just a pit in your stomach as events play out the way they do. I wouldn’t consider that a plot twist, more a plot line. Don’t get me wrong; there are plot twists! I thought the final twist was well done. The characters were developed enough that it did have some good shock value. Bottom line: don’t trust a friendly face.

This book gave me feelings of watching a parasite or a leech attack a host and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But let me just say, absolutely nothing is how it seems. How this novel slowly revealed itself to you when you think you know everything was definitely well executed.

If you are a fan of the uptown life drama, unhealthy female relationships, and an English setting, this would be a book for you.

#greenwichpark #katherinefaulkner #gallerybooks #netgalleyarc Helen and her brother Rory both have met the loves of their lives in college. When Helen starts a prenatal class she meets a woman by the name of Rachel who will unknowingly to Helen turn all of their lives upside down. We have multiple point of views in the one. And. There is #triggerwarnings #rape but not in detail. I found this one just fascinating. I could not have imagined where this was going or how it ended 🤯 definitely one up want to grab and read on these #snowydays #bookstagram #netgalleyreads #readersofinstagram #bookrecommendations #readingaddict #netgalleyreview #instalikes

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Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner

Thank you @netgalley and @gallerybooks for this ARC that published on 1/25! What a wild ride!

Helen is 24 weeks pregnant when she meets a new friend, Rachel, at a birthing class. Helen is lonely and cautious, but eager to have a new friend at a time when her friends and family have not been there for her. Helen has an idyllic life from the outside and we quickly learn the layers of dysfunction and mistrust within her circle- her husband Daniel, brother, Rory, sister in law, Serena, and others. As the story progresses, Rachel is clearly not just looking for an innocent new friendship and things take a dangerous turn.

I enjoyed the fast paced ending and the twist I didn’t see coming. This was a creative premise I haven’t seen in a thriller before, especially for a debut novel! There are some heavy trigger warnings- pregnancy loss, sexual assault, and depression, that were a bit hard to read at times. I did find many of the main characters very grating- I’m sure that was intentional by the author! Reasoning becomes more clear at the very end, which does make it feel more worth it. Pick this book up for a quick fast paced thriller (but maybe not if you’re currently pregnant 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️).

Review of Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner

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I overall really enjoyed this debut thriller! I felt it was a bit slow at times and I did not enjoy the “Greenwich park chapters”. They were short but I didn’t understand them all together. I think they were added for suspense but that particular part fell flat for me. However, overall I thought the story was really good with a few great twists and a solid ending. I absolutely will read more by this author in the future without a doubt.

Quick synopsis: Helen finally seems to have it all. She is expecting a long awaited baby with her husband she adores and loves living in her childhood home. They are close with her brother and his wife as they all went to college together and have a shared history. But her husband works a bit and one night when alone at birthing classes she meets a young mom to be named Rachel. Suddenly Rachel is everywhere. She is forcing a friendship even. It turns out that things are never as good as they seem because Rachel comes from a past that many of them want to keep hidden. Especially a major secret.

A big thank you to @netgalley and @gallerybooks for my advanced digital copy. This one just came out! I can’t wait for the buddy read discussion with my fave people at #theyearofnetgalley

Two couples who dated in college and later married find their lives turned upside down when a secret two of them have kept throughout the years suddenly explodes into their normal, everyday lives. Rory and Serena, Daniel and Helen find that the past that two of them shared has returned to their lives today and it will cost them everything they've worked so hard for over the intervening years. How to handle the situation; let the information they have become public and take the risk of going to court and possibly jail or handle the situation themselves and make a contingency plan? But even the most carefully laid out plans have faults when dealing with a third party who won't play by the rules.
Faulkner keeps the reader engaged with the day to day lives of her characters, their work, home lives and plans for their futures while treating us to an undercurrent of suspicion and doubt. The twists in the plot keep readers on their toes; just when you think you've figured the mystery out, she tosses yet another bit of information into the story which easily demolishes your theory. The pages keep turning until the very end, when the final plot twist is revealed. Outstanding!

One of my favorite subgenres within Thrillers is domestic suspense. Greenwich Park has all the hallmarks of a great domestic thriller - secrets, lies, and buried history. As with most domestic suspense, the story unravels slowly, adding a bit of character development along the way. Told with three female POVs, the dangerous and tangled web of lies unfold. Some I didn't see coming, others I guessed right away. Either way, I didn’t mind because they were all deviously unsettling. The scene descriptions are quite detailed. I enjoyed envisioning Greenwich Park, Helen’s house, the bonfire where the secrets start to unfold.

Faulkner's storytelling reminds me a bit of Sally Hepworth. So I think fans of Sally’s domestic suspense will enjoy Katherine Faulkner’s debut book. I can’t wait to read Faulkner’s sophomore thriller - I’m confident it’ll be even more of a page-turner!

Award-winning journalist Katherine Faulkner combines a ripped-from-the-headlines plot with a searing commentary on motherhood in GREENWICH PARK, a tautly plotted domestic thriller.

After a series of devastating unsuccessful pregnancies, Helen Thorpe finally thinks she is on the way to motherhood. Betrayed by her own body one too many times, Helen becomes obsessed with preparation for pregnancy, birth and parenthood, reading all the how-to books, watching all the docuseries and, of course, attending prenatal classes. Although she is embarking on one of the most natural, universal journeys a woman can undertake, she finds (like so many mothers-to-be before her) that pregnancy can be an incredibly isolating experience.

Dismissed from work because of her high-risk status, Helen spends long days alone, waiting for her husband, Daniel, to come home from work and share in her excitement. A promising architect, Daniel works with Helen’s brother, Rory, in the family business started by their famous father. But while Rory carries the name, Daniel is the one with the real talent, and he is often forced to work late to compensate for Rory’s fecklessness. Beyond that, Daniel seems shell-shocked by their previous losses, and unable to draw up the excitement and eager preparedness that Helen needs him to reciprocate.

Lucky for Helen, her brother and his wife, Serena, are also expecting; Serena’s due date is only a few weeks out from hers. Helen feels certain that they will be mom-friends, but her anxiety can prickle at carefree Serena, who trusts that her body will know what to do when. This is how Helen finds herself alone at her first prenatal class, where she meets Rachel, a purple nail polish-wearing, gold backpack-carrying rebel. Rachel immediately latches on to Helen, encouraging her to have a glass of wine or indulge in a decadent meat and cheese plate --- which every expectant mother knows to be off-limits. A rule-follower, Helen is turned off by Rachel’s flippancy, but with no one else in her corner, she finds herself confiding in Rachel more and more.

But there are some things about Rachel that are just off: she has an uncanny ability to show up wherever Helen is; she never cares to shop for baby clothes or supplies; she never mentions her baby’s father; and she always seems to know things that Helen is sure she has not shared with her. Writing these coincidences off as “pregnancy brain,” she goes along with Rachel’s strangeness. After all, she has a lot on her mind already: pregnancy, Daniel and the couple’s costly home renovations, which have resulted in strange men stomping through their home day and night and near-constant hammering and crashing.

In alternating chapters, we meet Helen’s good friend Katie, a childhood neighbor who once dated Helen and Rory’s younger brother, Charlie. Katie is a reporter covering a traumatic rape trial that is eerily reminiscent of another case that occurred 10 years earlier. Shifting perspectives among Helen, Katie and Serena, Faulkner pens a simmering, slowburn domestic thriller in which nothing is as it seems. As Rachel forcibly inserts herself into Helen’s life, the tone turns threatening, with Faulkner expertly pulling the strings to make readers second-guess nearly every character and his or her motivations. With strange items and memories rising to the surface, Helen, already plagued by anxiety, turns downright fearful. It’s clear that Rachel wants something from Helen, Daniel, Rory and Serena. But what?

I love a good thriller with an emotionally resonant theme, and GREENWICH PARK, with its intimate look at pregnancy and motherhood, perfectly fits the bill. Faulkner makes Helen an instantly relatable character by fully immersing readers into her anxiety and sense of isolation. Without her job and her husband, Helen becomes obsessed with the rules of pregnancy, and while there is of course a need for these guidelines, it is easy to see that Helen often does more harm to her mental state than good. In this way, Rachel, who “seems to believe the babies only exist in abstract, that adhering to the health guidelines is entirely a matter of personal taste,” is almost refreshing, even when she’s so totally outlandish that your jaw drops. Helen walks a fine line with Rachel, drawing comfort from her companionship while also feeling the hairs of her neck rise whenever Rachel mentions a detail that there is no way she could have known.

Of course, no thriller can draw its strengths from a poignant theme alone, and Faulkner clearly draws on her career as a journalist to infuse every chapter of this tense thriller with a creeping sense of unease. Whether she is writing about Helen’s creepy friendship with Rachel, Daniel’s bizarre late nights or Katie’s sexual assault coverage, Faulkner keeps the twists and turns perfectly paced and almost always surprising. Those who frequently read thrillers may be able to guess some plot points, but the journey getting there is no less enjoyable, page-turning or gripping. Even the sharpest readers will be shocked by some of the big reveals, which continue through the very last chapter.

Perfect for readers of Kaira Rouda, B.A. Paris and Sarah Vaughan, GREENWICH PARK announces the arrival of a strong, compelling new voice in domestic suspense.

I wasn’t sure about this at first. The beginning dragged a little for me but I was so curious to figure out the character Rachel who I couldn’t stand. The plot twist was ok, though I did see it coming. I thought it was an ok read, nothing remarkable.

After years of trying to conceive, Helen and her husband are finally expecting. Her husband is a no show at Helen’s first prenatal class. It’s here she meets an unexpected friend Rachel who little by little will turn her life upside down.

Rachel is pregnant too and has a very carefree attitude. She smokes, she drinks. It’s like she could care less about being a mother. Rachel worms her way into all aspects of Helen’s idyllic life. She becomes unpredictable, erratic, it’s like riding an emotional rollercoaster.

Helen’s friends and family have all observed the same behaviors and share Helen’s concerns. Rachel is a ticking time-bomb poses a bigger threat to Helen than we think. She has information about her that could ruin her life as well as those at around her.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

A dark and twisty story about trust and lies. Helen's story is one full of complications. This was so twisty as it jumped from character to character and in time. I enjoyed the mystery of it all and was sucked in from the start. I kept finding myself thinking I had things figured out and then everything got turned around again. A great debut and a story psychological thriller.

What a fun thriller that kept me up way too late. I enjoyed this story, although sometimes the pacing was not perfect. It felt like it could have been a shorter book and accomplished the same thing.
I love the style of the story, with a timeline based on weeks of pregnancy and flashbacks to events of years ago. You know that these timelines will overlap and I enjoyed that back and forth. I liked the fact that you could guess who was up to no good early on, but the actual twists kept coming until the end. Hard to believe that this is a debut. Well done!
Definitely recommend.
#GreenwichPark ##Netgalley #GalleryBooks

This book started off really slow for me but it picked up by the end. The two couples in the book were not really friends in my opinion. Helen had this sick fascination with her brother's wife, Serena. Helen was clueless and a people pleaser. Helen and Serena were both pregnant. This was critical to the story.

Serena flaked out on Helena for the prenatal classes. What a shocker. While at the classes Helen meets the very strange Rachel. This young girl works her way into Helen's life and house. From there the twists and turns ensue.

Helen never got a clue after all was revealed. It's worth pushing through to get to the ending. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.