Beware the Woman
The twisty, unputdownable new thriller about family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author
Published on 7. May 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-349-01252-0 (ISBN)
Description
From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott, a chilling and compulsive novel about a family holiday that takes a terrifying turn.
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
'Splendidly tense and atmospheric - a contemporary Rebecca' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A novel of almost unbearable tension' IRISH TIMES
'Stunningly twisty' ASHLEY AUDRAIN, author of The Push
*******************************************************************
Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy has everything she ever wanted. When she and her husband, Jed, go to visit his father in his remote cottage, Jacy feels bathed in love by Dr. Ash, if less so by his housekeeper, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt.
Then Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, all eyes are on Jacy's condition, and whispers about Jed's long-dead mother seem to be intruding upon the present. As the days pass, Jacy feels trapped in the cottage, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded or is this -as is suggested to her-a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions to protect her unborn child? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?
'Abbott ratchets up the menace towards an unexpected ending in a claustrophobic chiller about how men deny women agency' GUARDIAN
'Sultry, subversive, shades of Rebecca ... I loved it' HARRIET TYCE, author of It Ends at Midnight
'Feverish, razor sharp, and pulsing with dread' RILEY SAGER, author of The House Across the Lake
'Spectacular. Her best yet. Kind of Rosemary's Baby meets Rebecca. Nobody, but nobody does creeping dread like she does' SAM BAKER
The Turnout by Megan Abbott was a New York Times bestseller in August 2021
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
'Splendidly tense and atmospheric - a contemporary Rebecca' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A novel of almost unbearable tension' IRISH TIMES
'Stunningly twisty' ASHLEY AUDRAIN, author of The Push
*******************************************************************
Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy has everything she ever wanted. When she and her husband, Jed, go to visit his father in his remote cottage, Jacy feels bathed in love by Dr. Ash, if less so by his housekeeper, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt.
Then Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, all eyes are on Jacy's condition, and whispers about Jed's long-dead mother seem to be intruding upon the present. As the days pass, Jacy feels trapped in the cottage, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded or is this -as is suggested to her-a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions to protect her unborn child? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?
'Abbott ratchets up the menace towards an unexpected ending in a claustrophobic chiller about how men deny women agency' GUARDIAN
'Sultry, subversive, shades of Rebecca ... I loved it' HARRIET TYCE, author of It Ends at Midnight
'Feverish, razor sharp, and pulsing with dread' RILEY SAGER, author of The House Across the Lake
'Spectacular. Her best yet. Kind of Rosemary's Baby meets Rebecca. Nobody, but nobody does creeping dread like she does' SAM BAKER
The Turnout by Megan Abbott was a New York Times bestseller in August 2021
Reviews / Votes
A haunted, woozy, suspenseful Midwest Gothic Noir ... A slow-burning novel of almost unbearable tension ... Megan Abbott is always essential reading * Declan Hughes, Irish Times * A splendidly tense and atmospheric homage to the Gothic tradition - a contemporary Rebeccaamid the Great Lakes * John Williams, Mail on Sunday * Abbott ratchets up the menace towards an unexpected ending in a claustrophobic chiller about how men deny women agency * Guardian, Books of the Month - Crime & Thrillers * A feminist fable as well as a psychological thriller with horror hints ... What initially looks set to be a
reworking of Rebecca becomes instead an incisive parable of today's America, where superficially nice men are reasserting their former control over women's reproductive choices * Sunday Times * Megan Abbott is quite rightly considered to be psycho thriller royalty ... Abbott's writing is as intense and
energetic ... Every page is laced with quiet menace * Daily Mail * Megan Abbott is a masterful builder of mood, her voluptuous prose heavy with sex and weather * New York Times Book Review * Timely and terrifying * People * Imagine Get Out but with feminist themes . . . Dripping with tense confrontations, curiously dead wives, and the gendered expectations that accompany both. It's a suspenseful page-turner * Vulture * With this bewitchingly creepy tale, thriller queen Megan Abbott keeps readers questioning whether this family getaway is the stuff of anxiety dreams or Bluebeard nightmares * Oprah Daily * Do not read this brilliant (but dark) book with the lights off * The Sun * Scintillating and chilling from start to finish * Doug Johnstone, Big Issue * Terrific at finding dread around every corner, at making you see the grotesque and frightening in something previously mundane...Beware the Woman is a master class in suspense * Seattle Times * A cabin-fever suspense novel laced with menacing Rosemary's Baby-ish undertones * Philadelphia Enquirer * Extraordinary. Rosemary's Baby midwifed by Mrs Danvers. Megan Abbott is a genius. has that feeling of being a book that will be read 100 years from now and marvelled over. A true classic * Sarah Hilary, author of THORN * Sultry, subversive, shades of Rebecca in a menacing, Gothic exploration of threats to female bodily autonomy, which may be current but have been sadly ever so. I loved it * Harriet Tyce, author of It Ends at Midnight * Abbott is a superstar of the suspense genre. . . . Beware the Woman is Rebecca wedded to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Along with the feverish psychological twists and turns that Abbott's novels are celebrated for, Beware the Woman explores the timely topic of women's autonomy over their own bodies * NPR * Megan Abbott can do no wrong. Stunningly twisty, Beware the Woman so deftly holds some of the most pressing feminist issues of our time in an eerie, ominous grip. Bodily autonomy, reproduction, patriarchal power-this thriller feels terrifyingly of the moment, and perhaps that's where the truest horror lies * Ashley Audrain, author of The Push * Beware the Woman proves yet again why Megan Abbott is a literary rock star. Feverish, razor sharp, and pulsing with dread, it's a tale both timeless and terrifyingly of-the-moment * Riley Sager, author of The House Across the Lake * Is there anyone like Megan Abbott? BEWARE THE WOMAN is the work of a fearless cartographer of the darkest, seediest, most gloriously haunted landscapes of the human heart and psyche * Kelly Link * Beware the Woman is Megan Abbott at her best, which is about as good as it gets. A modern-day Gothic, it is chilling and creepy, feverish and surreal, and compulsively readable * Laura Lippman, author of Prom Mom * Spectacular. Her best yet. Kind of Rosemary's Baby meets Rebecca. Nobody, but nobody does creeping dread like Megan Abbott does * Sam Baker * Spine-tingling . . . Manipulating the sense of menace like a virtuoso violinist, Abbott expertly foreshadows the wrenching family secrets that are exposed in a ferocious finale. Sinewy prose and note-perfect pacing make this a masterful and provocative deep dive into desire, love, and gender politics. Readers will be left breathless * Publishers Weekly, starred review * Megan Abbott masterfully uses the pretext of a pregnant woman's heightened senses...to build a claustrophobic atmosphere of mistrust and insecurity reminiscent of GET OUT. You're sure to get chills. An unsettling, nightmare-inducing morsel from a master of suspense * Kirkus Reviews * An absolutely brilliant novel: I now want to read the entire Megan Abbott oeuvre -- A.N. Wilson * Tablet *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
244 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-01252-0 (9780349012520)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Megan Abbott
Beware the Woman
The twisty, unputdownable new thriller about family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author
E-Book
05/2023
Virago Press Ltd
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Megan Abbott is the award-winning author of eleven novels, including New York Times bestseller The Turnout, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Give Me Your Hand, You Will Know Me, The Fever, Dare Me, and The End of Everything. She received her PhD in literature from New York University. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Guardian, and The Believer. She's the cocreator and executive producer of USA's adaptation of Dare Me, now on Netflix, and was a staff writer on HBO's David Simon show The Deuce. Abbott lives in New York City.