A Slow Fire Burning
A Novel
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3.8 • 2.1K Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The scorching new thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train.
“A Slow Fire Burning twists and turns like a great thriller should, but it's also deep, intelligent and intensely human.” – Lee Child
“Only a clairvoyant could anticipate the book’s ending” – New York Times
With the same propulsion that captivated millions of readers worldwide in The Girl on the Train and Into the Water, Paula Hawkins unfurls a gripping, twisting story of deceit, murder, and revenge.
When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim’s home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are – for different reasons – simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?
Look what you started.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Put your phone in airplane mode and clear your daily calendar, because Paula Hawkins is back. Daniel Sutherland has been found dead in his houseboat on the Thames by a nosy neighbor. We learn about this troubled young man’s life from the women who were a part of it, including his bitter mother, Angela; her ostentatiously grief-stricken sister, Carla; and Laura, a damaged young woman who was the last person seen leaving the houseboat. Author Paula Hawkins leaps back and forth in time between these characters as their guilty secrets, intertwined tragedies, and shocking revelations get more and more tangled and sordid. (There’s even a novel within the novel, but to say more about it would spoil the fun!) Plus, there’s a genuinely shocking, jaw-dropping conclusion. If you thought Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train was the last word in devious, deliciously complex domestic thrillers, you haven’t seen anything yet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The stabbing murder of 23-year-old Daniel Sutherland on his houseboat in London's Regent's Canal drives this twist-laden if unremarkable page-turner from bestseller Hawkins (The Girl on the Train). Miriam Lewis, who lives in the neighboring vessel, finds the body and removes a bloody key from the scene before notifying the police. Decades earlier, Miriam survived a horrific attack, wrote an unpublished memoir about it, and shared the manuscript with Theo Myerson, who used it, without attribution, as the basis for a novel, The One Who Got Away. Theo, it turns out, is Daniel's uncle by marriage, and his toddler son died from a fall at Daniel's mother's home. Another suspect is Laura Kilbride, who slept with Daniel on the night of his death; as a child, she suffered a skull fracture that affected her ability to self-regulate and has trouble functioning as an adult. Sections from The One Who Got Away and flashbacks add to the challenge of putting the puzzle pieces together. The result is a satisfying whodunit, but its overreliance on coincidence makes it fall short of the high standard of Hawkins's previous work.
Customer Reviews
See AllBe Patient
It takes awhile to figure this one out. Characters spinning around like gears, and no character coming out in front to be the hero-until the very end. A good read.
Clever twists and a sad family story
Good read, interesting and suspenseful.
A good thriller
Very well written, good characterizations and not obvious in “who did it”. A story of long held grief, love and ultimately, a need for cleansing.