Turning on its head the woman-as-victim motif, Megan Abbott crafts a clever thriller that dodges and weaves its way through a plot that perpetually keeps a reader on their toes. Brilliantly evoking a world of cut-throat competition and personal rivalry, that thrives by pitting individuals against each other, Abbott pulls at the threads that bind the complexities of friendship and the darkest limits of ambition.
Waterstones Thriller Book of the Month for February 2019
You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.
Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her.
But now someone else is standing in her way - Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret - the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine - and it blew their friendship apart.
Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for.
How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn't she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: it's in the blood...
Give Me Your Hand is a blistering thriller from Megan Abbott.
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9781509855698
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 285 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 24 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Beautifully written and unbearably tense, this is a standout study of ambition, rivalry and fear. - Guardian
Megan Abbott is one of the smartest storytellers around and her thought-provoking ideas lift her books to another level. - Daily Mail
[A] searing, fierce novel of female friendship and ambition. - Observer
[Give Me Your Hand] should cement [Abbott's] position as one of the most intelligent and daring novelists working in the crime genre today. - Ruth Ware, New York Times Book Review
Megan Abbott at her very best. Cool, crisp, chilling. - Paula Hawkins
SO. GOOD. A tense, pitch-perfect thriller about ambition and female friendship and a forensic examination of what it takes for women to rise through male-dominated spaces. It felt in places like a dark inversion of The Secret History. - Erin Kelly, author of He Said/She Said
Give Me Your Hand is sublime. - Laura Lippman, author of Life Sentences
What THESE black shadows under my eyes? Why they're courtesy of Give Me Your Hand. SO UNBEARABLY TENSE. - Tammy Cohen, author of When She Was Bad
A psychological thriller about women in science, twisted female relationships and toxic secrets, Give Me Your Hand is just irresistible. I devoured it with escalating discomfort. Abbott’s writing is elegant, her themes expansive and her research utterly convincing. An addictive, unsettling and distinctive read - I loved it! - Lucy Atkins, author of The Other Child
Dark, daring and smart, this psychological thriller is ragingly good. - Psychologies
Give Me Your Hand is dark, unsettling, brilliantly tense, and I raced through it without pausing for breath. - Paula Daly, author of The Mistake I Made
Megan's writing is masterful, suspenseful and believable . . . The suspense does not let up – I was gripped from the first page. - Debbie Howells
Give Me Your Hand is dark, smart, twisty, and thoroughly addictive. - Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children
While Megan Abbott's magnetic new novel mines themes of ambition, competition, excellence, and friendship, what perhaps struck me the most was its exploration of the long, undeterrable reach of memory. Give Me Your Hand is darkly effective, uneasy-making, and beautifully, absorbingly written. - Meg Wolitzer, author of The Interestings
I adore Megan Abbott and devoured this new one in one sitting! - Bookriot.com
Abbot writes female characters who are smart and complex and capable of very bad things . . . I read it with my shoulders scrunched . . . genuinely awestruck by every twist and turn . . . It’s bloody horrifying and absorbing and so very good. - Marie Claire
I loved this book-for its cleverness and fast pacing. I was compelled to read quickly, the plot construction was brilliant, the characters sharply drawn. - Jane Shemilt, author of Daughter
Abbott deliciously draws out tension . . . a baroque thriller. - Washington Post
Megan Abbott proves she’s still the queen of uncovering the dark complexity of the female psyche . . . It uses all the strengths she’s known for and gives them more room to develop. - Los Angeles Review of Books
[A] fiery new novel . . . Even if you have committed no crimes and harbor no weighty secrets, this book will leave you nauseous with the memories of your own manic, pulsing teenage nature, the emotions you barely kept in check and the ones that overflowed. - Slate
Abbott is expert at the twists and turns of a good thrillers, and a long the way she's brilliant at examining complex mindsets, the subconscious drives of her main characters . . . Sublime stuff. - Big Issue
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“Inspired by a true story!”
Thank you to the publishers for this review copy!
I was intrigued to read this, I had heard so many good reviews of this book.
So ambition, friendship and a PAST!
This makes for a twisty and gripping read which you...
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“A Fresh Take on The Thriller Genre”
Give Me Your Hand is a fresh take on the thriller genre, which positions two female protagonists, Kit & Diane, locked in a pact of silence.
The story is well written and pacy, and though there was the potential...
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“artificial, cliche.”
Thrilling at times, but mostly melodramatic. I found the characters to be underdeveloped and lacking dimension and the storyline so cliche; 'tortured, blood-driven angel-demon femme fatale' but this cliche... More
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