Review: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Blurb

The author of the number-one New York Times best seller and global phenomenon The Girl on the Train returns with Into the Water, her addictive new novel of psychological suspense.

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

Left behind is a lonely 15-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from - a place to which she vowed she'd never return.

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying listen that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.

Beware a calm surface - you never know what lies beneath.

Review

I read The Girl on the Train before reading Into The Water.  I've been on a suspense kick for about a solid two years now, and was so excited to get another book from Paula Hawkins.

She has a similar writing style to Karin Slaughter (I am fairly certain I have read all of her backlist up through Pieces of Her), and the more dark and twisty the story the better.

From what I've heard, I am one of the few who actually preferred this story to The Girl on the Train.  You could see the improvement in Hawkins' writing and storytelling.

While it is your slightly typical suspense/thriller (your basic whodunit), it did have its own unique paths that lead to the big reveal at the end.  I also was not able to guess, which was very refreshing.  I almost always have most things figured out before I'm half way through the book.

I'm excited to read more from Paula Hawkins!