The Next Girl – Pip Drysdale

When Billie wakes up in a stranger’s bed, she can’t help but struggle to remember what happened the night before. She sees the time and makes a quick exit to make it to work in time to clean herself up and face the day ahead of her. As the previous day comes back to her, she knows that whatever is waiting for her at work, isn’t going to be good.

Because of the Samuel Grange case, Billie is now jobless. Not only did she lose her job because of him, but there is no justice for Jane Delaney and somehow, they made it look like Billie was to blame. The anger she feels for this man festers and she can’t help herself.

Billie slips into her old ways, desperately needing to expose him for the truth. But when Samuel is found dead, and Billie’s DNA is found, among other things, Billie knows someone is on to her, and she must find them before they ruin her life.

I went into this one blind, not really expecting a murder mystery type book, but I’m so glad it was. This book was quite different from any other’s that I have read. And when I was finished, I noticed the comparison to Promising Young Woman and I would have to agree with it. If you liked one, you’ll like the other. If you’re looking for a super easy read, where you’ll be rooting for the main character to kick butt, this is the one! ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5!
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

The Next Girl was a fast-paced, twisty read reminiscent of the film, Promising Young Women. The story follows Billie, an early-career paralegal, who is blamed by her law firm for losing an important case. In the fallout, we learn that Billie is a strong, fearless, and certainly tech-savvy heroine who is more than she appears and has her fair share of secrets! The narration style was unique (much like Billie was talking directly to the reader), and secrets were revealed in a way that had me furiously flipping through the pages to get to the next chapter.

The beginning of the novel started out strong, but became a bit far fetched towards the end. There were some events in Billie’s past (which I won’t reveal to keep this review spoiler free!) that I felt were underdeveloped and would have helped to provide a greater understanding of her motivations. Overall, I devoured this book and will be sure to check out more of Pip Drysdale’s work! 4 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Very intriguing & fast paced. Every chapter left me wanting more, I loved the thrill! I’ve never read a book about a paralegal before & I really enjoyed it.
I really liked Billie & the way she stuck her nose into every situation to help save people, even if it was illegal. There wasn’t a dull moment. I never read a Pip Drysdale novel but hopefully won’t be my last!

I’d Definitely check out trigger warnings if there’s something that may trigger you!

Dark, tight, and complex!

The Next Girl is an intense, edgy thriller that takes you into the life of Billie Spencer-Tate, a young paralegal with a knack for losing her day job, who after losing her mother to suicide due to an online troll, spends the majority of her time and effort using her high-tech knowledge and social media skills to hunt down, identify, select, and hand out her own style of justice to those men who abuse, prey, and gaslight women, with her latest target being the arrogant, despicable, dangerous Dr. Samuel Grange who she is determined to expose.

The prose is taut and gritty. The characters are consumed, unpredictable, and secretive. And the plot builds quickly as it twists, turns, shocks, surprises, and unravels all the personalities, behaviours, relationships, and motivations within it.

Overall, The Next Girl, at its core, is a novel about secrets, manipulation, friendship, coercion, obsession, control, cunning behaviour, tragedy, violence, and vengeance. It’s a highly suspenseful, exceptionally clever tale by Drysdale that highlights everything is not always as it appears and is definitely one of the most gripping page-turners I’ve been lucky enough to read this year.

This is my first exposure to this author and I was not disappointed. The author has delivered a fast paced and deliciously wicked tale. The characters are well rounded and come across as believable, whether you love them or hate them. This provocative, somewhat dark and twisted story grabs you from the first page and keeps you guessing until the very end!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Shuster Canada who provided me with a copy of this book. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

The Next Girl is suspenseful, sit on the edge of your seat, exhilarating and anxiety inducing thriller. Pip Drysdale really knows how to throw a girl off the trail in the strategic way she tossed in twists and turns, it was awesome. The entire book my heart was pumping, and I was waiting for the gut punch I knew was coming. This book was crazy good! I loved the mentions of her vinyl collection and the song references and that she’s a paralegal. I’m a licensed paralegal and I don’t really find that profession in a lot of books. Overall, I really enjoyed it, it was pretty entertaining.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for this ARC.

Hits bookstores on May 2, 2023!

“A bad day at work. A drunken night. A rogue Instagram follow. That’s all it takes to ruin a life...but whose life will be ruined?”

Relatable 🤣. But seriously, this was my first @ book and I loved it!!!! The Next Girl was such a fun thriller from beginning to end, I think mainly because Billie was such a hot mess of a delightful character. This was a fast paced revenge/vigilante thriller that just hit me in all the right places. My thriller reading has taken a back seat lately, mainly because they all just started to blend together for me, but this one was pleasant surprise. Would definitely recommend! And don’t worry too much about the plot, just go in blind and enjoy 😉. 4.5⭐️

This is my first book by this author, and having read many suspense books lately that didn't thrill, I was skeptical going into this one. But "The Next Girl" won me over!

It took me a bit to get into this one, but once I was hooked, it became unputdownable! I was reeled right in by Billie's mysterious character and couldn't wait to see what happened. This book was really fast paced and suspenseful, tension filled and actually stressful at times (LOL!). I'm so glad I got to read it.

I don't want to say too much about the plot that isn't in the book description, it's best to read this one for yourself and be surprised at all the twists and turns. But I will say there is a LOT you won't see coming! I usually pride myself on being able to predict plot twists, but this one absolutely did surprise me.

As always, I recommend checking out the content warnings prior to picking up a book, this one was no exception.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A dark and twisty thriller you can’t put down! I loved the plot and the setting of the story. The pieces slowly coming together for the final twist was enjoyable. Don’t miss this one!

4.5 stars. Really loved this novel! I was hooked right from the beginning and didn't know which way the story was going next. Each chapter was short and in first-person, with an unreliable narrator, which is quite the storytelling. Don't want to say too much about the plot, but Billie IS a hot mess.

She's a paralegal that gets fired because her firm believes she tried to get a witness to lie in court about being assaulted by a prominent doctor. She wants to prove her innocence, then wakes up in a stranger's bed with no memory of the previous night and thus the story begins.

This book had me hooked from the beginning and I had no idea where it was going to take me next. It was one of those books that made me think ‘how on earth did she come up with that?’. I loved the super short chapters and how it was written as if Billie was talking directly to the reader.

Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada for the advanced copy of this book!

The Next Girl only made me want to read Pip Drysdale’s next book, and the one after that. This author certainly knows how to write a thriller that will keep your suspicions on high alert and keep you on the edge of your seat.

Now, I promise that I am going to tread lightly in this review so that I don’t give any piece of information away. Trust me, you will want to go on this twisty journey and witness it all unfold.

Billie has found herself in a terrible situation: out of a job, half-naked in a stranger’s bed, and with a guilty conscience about losing a case that may have put a dangerous man back out on the street to commit the same crimes again.

Billie is an interesting character. She’s been through her share of difficult times. She’s flawed (who isn’t?), but she is a good person who really only wants to do right by people. She wants to see that the bad people get what’s coming to them and the victims get their justice. Seems pretty normal, right? Well, it isn’t quite that simple. Nothing is simple in a book by this author, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about that!

I liked Billie. While I wanted her to do “her thing,” I was also apprehensive, sitting on pins and needles, and just hoping that she might take her life in a different, safer direction. That’s always the fun part of this genre of book, though. It’s the fear of the unknown, the chase, the feel of your heart pounding in your chest.

The Next Girl was just what I was looking for. I read The Sunday Girl a couple of years ago, and it was one of my all-time favorite thrillers. I’ve been looking forward to reading more by this author, and she certainly did not disappoint.

*5 Stars

I enjoyed The Next Girl by Pip Drysdale. It was a fast paced thriller. The book is told in first person, I liked the protagonist and was happy for the opportunity to get to know her better. The main character, Billie, keeps getting herself into trouble of one kind or another, and the harder she tries to fix it, the worse it becomes. The story follows a linear timeline and it is clear in it's delivery, with a couple of twists. For people who have been abused or assaulted, there could be some emotional triggers in the story. In fact, there were quite a few dark and sensitive issues addressed in this novel, most were handled well. There were also a bunch of musical references through the novel, as the protagonist thinks of her life through song lyrics, most of this was lost on me as I was not familiar with the songs. I would like to thank Net Galley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Love, love, loved it! Couldn’t put it down.
Billie’s law firm lost a big case: Samuel Grange v Jane Delaney and she knows that Grange was guilty. Billie becomes a vigilante using social media to prevent Grange from victimizing another young beautiful woman by becoming the next girl herself.
With all the risks Billie takes, will she get caught? As you read we get glimpses into Billie’s past and learn what drives her compulsion for revealing the truth. ‘Uh-oh’ her she goes again!
Quite a few characters coming in and out the novel due to alternating story lines. Buttons the cat was an excellent character and played a unique role in the story.
A big thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC of this book. Highly recommend The Next Girl.

I loved this book! Not enough to give it five stars, but it was very addictive.
I couldn't put it down, that's how involved I was in the storyline.
The author has a way of making you want to know more, and you need to keep reading to find out what the MC is going to get into next. Loved Billie and her reckless ways, and I was rooting for her the whole time. Her character was brave yet vulnerable, and she always tried, but didn't always succeed in doing the right thing.
If you never read a book by the author, just like me, I definitely recommend this one. It's a fast, easy read that will keep you on your toes until the very end!

The Next Girl was such an unexpected surprise.  I wasn’t familiar with Pip Drysdale at all and this turned out to be one of my favourite recent thrillers.

Billie is a paralegal who is fired because her firm believes she tried to get a witness to lie in court about being assaulted by a prominent doctor, Samuel Grange. Billie is determined to prove her innocence, and to make Samuel Grange pay.

The next day, she wakes up in a stranger’s bed with no memory of the previous night.  What happened to her, and was it intentional or is someone manipulating the truth?

Billie’s definitely one of my favourite new thriller heroines.  She pieces out revelations throughout the book without falling into the cliche unreliable female narrator mode that has been so popular in thrillers lately.  She’s a mess but she’s fascinating.

I loved the detail behind Billie’s spying and searching, in real life and through social media.  It was so much fun, and I loved the contrast between how clearly intelligent she is, and how obsessive she could get, making poor choices that had me cringing in the best way.

The side characters were interesting and the plot was twisty and kept me guessing.  I sped through this book and had so much fun reading it.  

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for my review copy of this book.

I thought this was an engaging read and a cut above the usual for this genre. I could not stop reading - and what made it so rich was the detail with which Drysdale outlines the moves on social media and technology. A wonderfully flawed narrator, plus twists and turns throughout, kept this reader guessing to the very end. A 4.5 rating!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Billie is a hot mess of emotions and dramatic to her core 🤣 which always leads for a good protagonist… unreliable and her own vigilante.

She wakes up in a strange bed after losing a big case (she’s a legal assistant) and realizes she’s about to be fired and her days are about to stretch out in front of her. Unless she tries to exact
Revenge on Dr Granges since he did get off scot-free…. Or did he?! Billie doesn’t play by the rules and clearly doesn’t mind doing illegal methods to trap a predator. Even if you find yourself questioning if she’s even on the right path

A quick read. I liked how the book was laid out in time stamps. Not my fav recent thriller but it was still good.

The Next Girl
By Pip Drysdale
Pub. date: May 2/23
Format: eARC

He was guilty. They were all guilty and they kept getting away with it. But she was tired of it and wants to make them pay, and Billie, a paralegal, has the skills, abilities, and the will, to do it.

Billie lost her mom quite a long time ago. She was wronged by online hatred leaving her young daughter to live with that loss. Billie is passionate, has a strong desire to avenge wrongdoing, and wants to find love. But what is she willing to do to get these?

The Next Girl is a clever mystery. In the beginning I found the story a bit disjointed and when the main character speaks to the reader I did not care for it. Thankfully it turns around and becomes engaging, suspenseful, and gripping. The reader wonders how Billie will get out of this alive. I am even wondering if there will be a sequel,

Many thanks to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Canada, and the author, for the opportunity to read and review this arc for my honest review.

This was SUCH a wild ride in the absolute best way possible. It has been a while since I have actually yelled at a book and wow. I was on edge nearly the entire time screaming at Billie and her decision making. There is a lot of mentioning of musical titles and lyrics throughout the whole book which is a fun way of how her brain processes information that I really enjoyed. Set in New York City which can sometimes feel old and done but it really contributed to the storyline in an important way. I will for sure be reading more books by Pip Drysdale. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster CA for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review.