The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances

If you enjoy reading about horrible people, you're going to like this one!


The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances
Bad People Doing Bad Things Fiction 
Released May 2018, 464 pages
Amazon ♦ Goodreads
The addictive Number One bestselling thriller, perfect for fans of Into the Water.

A girl. A boy. His mother. And the lie she'll wish she'd never told.

The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances is a gripping and chilling debut psychological thriller, based on the fall-out following an unforgiveable lie. It looks at the potentially charged relationship between girlfriend, boyfriend and his mother, which most women can identify with, and locates it in an extreme but believable setting.

Laura has it all. A successful career, a long marriage to a rich husband, and a twenty-three year-old son, Daniel, who is kind, handsome, and talented. Then Daniel meets Cherry. Cherry is young, beautiful and smart but she hasn't had the same opportunities as Daniel. And she wants Laura's life.

Cherry comes to the family wide-eyed and wants to be welcomed with open arms, but Laura suspects she's not all that she seems. 

When tragedy strikes, an unforgiveable lie is told. It is an act of desperation, but the fall-out will change their lives forever.

My Thoughts:

This book promises a “gripping and chilling debut psychological thriller”. It is gripping but it isn’t any of the other things. If you know that going in and you love reading about horrible people as much as I do, you’ll likely enjoy it much more. I requested it so long ago that I didn’t remember a thing about the blurb until I just went back and read it now and I’m glad of that!

Laura’s life is one of wealth and privilege but her marriage is devoid of warmth and love. She’s focused all of her love on her grown son Daniel. He loves his mom and seems to be a decent son, despite her smothering, but when a new girlfriend enters the picture Laura quickly decides that Cherry is nothing but a pretty, little gold-digger and she does not like her.

The first half or so of this book is an intense character study of Cherry and Laura. We get to know them, their motives, their desires, their vicious inner thoughts and their incredible flaws. You can see a true mess in the making and it so much fun to read. As things progress, you realize just how far these two women will go to have things go their way. They are both deviously awful humans. One is smothering, selfish, mean-spirited, and more than a little evil. The other is shallow, materialistic, vindictive, and totally evil. Horrid, terrible people and I loved reading about them.

Even though there are really no true surprises here and not a lot happens in the first half, the book is incredibly infectious. Once I started reading I just had to keep going to find out what nasty thing was going to be said and done next. When a whopper of a lie is told by one of the women, the book spirals into a pit of doom and from that point thereafter I read it straight through until the end.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley but it was only the first 13 chapters. Why would they do that to anyone?! I ended up getting my copy from my local library but had to wait a few months before my number was called.

Comments

  1. I couldn't read this...you know what I'm like with horrible MCs!

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  2. I think I'd hate to get into the book and find out I didn't have it all. WTH??? Glad you could get it from the library. It doesn't sound bad, but I've got so much else to read right now. Maybe I'll see if my library has it too.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, it so aggravating when they do that. I guess they want you to go out and buy it after reviewing the excerpt. No thanks :(

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  3. Glad your library had a copy so you could actually finish the book! And it sounds like Cherry and Laura kind of deserve each other.

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    Replies
    1. They definitely brought out the worst in each other!

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  4. The first 13 chapters? Did they specify that when you looked at it on NetGalley? I would be pissed.

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    Replies
    1. Nope, and it's happened to me twice. Nothing like wasting a readers time, grrrrr!

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