She took a law conversion course after finishing her degree and ended up focusing on technology law. “Certainly, throughout my late 20s, it was very much a 24/7 job. That was one of the reasons I started writing. Coming up to my 30th birthday, I was travelling a lot for work, doing incredibly long hours. I started to miss out on the things that made me happy. Taking three months off was partly to recover – I don’t think I was in a wonderful state – but also just to return to this thing I loved, writing, and see what happened.”

Loved 'Gone Girl'? This New Psychological Thriller Is Tipped To Be 2021's Hottest Read". Marie Claire. 2 February 2021 . Retrieved 10 February 2021. Maryam is the girl taken to Sambisa through whose eyes the ordeal experienced by the abducted girls is articulated by the author. Maryam is the girl who speaks for all abductees. Psychologically astute, written with flair. In the new year battle between first thrillers it's the clear winner' - Sunday TimesEven as they arrived, these cousins and neighbours, I felt a freak. I could read their minds, by their false smiles and their false gush. I could feel their hesitation and worse, their contempt. I knew they were thinking, Jihadi wife, with the Sambisa filth still clinging to her.

Ignorance of the author. There were a few examples but the glaring one I can think of is the fact that a lawyer wouldn’t know what an executor is. I know she was trying to explain it to the reader, but she could have found a more believable way to do so.This is as harrowing and haunting a book I have read since 2009 and Uwem Akpan's short story collection Say You're One of Them, set throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Edna O'Brien's Girl is the nominally fictional horror story of young girls enslaved by Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group that still holds sway in northeastern Nigeria. Whilst I enjoyed (in so much as one can, reading about such atrocities) this book, I feel a little uncomfortable about a white Irish woman having written it and to be the one to give voice to their ordeal. However, I assume Ms. O'Brien obtained the young women's permission before writing this book. Also, I hope the author intends to give at least part of the proceeds of this book to the survivors, as they struggle to build new lives for themselves and overcome the atrocities they endured. I cannot imagine going through the things they did and some still are, and no one should profit in any way from their pain.

Escape from the militants doesn’t bring protection and love. Word gets out that the community is sheltering a jihadi bride, and ‘girl’ is effectively pariah among the cowed communities. ‘Bush wives’ are not welcome home. Here we have the issue of place as well as time, and an early paragraph finishing like the one below (my emphasis) does not really serve to place the reader in 21st Century Nigeria: The seven siblings are the focus of the novel with Lex leading the narrative. Lex is intelligent and a strong-willed individual who was classified Girl A the day of their rescue. There is Delilah - Girl B. Evie - Girl C. Ethan - Boy A and the oldest sibling. Gabriel - Boy B, Daniel - Boy C, and lastly Noah - Boy D. Seven siblings all with vastly different personality and growth after the rescue. I think how the siblings were written encapsulates multiple roads recovery can lead to and was understandable based on who the siblings were instead of just being a symbol of a path that could be taken. What I valued in the characters is that who they are shaped their future, not just their imprisonment. I think there are good intentions in the attempt and it did remind me of their plight, I googled what the current situation is (unsurprisingly, it's not good and I still feel helpless to do anything).

Girl A

stars Engrossing and well I loved this beautifully crafted debut novel. I think it’s been mis-marketed as a thriller, but it’s a character-driven psychological drama about the survivors of an abusive “House of Horrors.” The story appears to be loosely based on the 2018 Turpin family saga, in which the parents chained, starved and abused their children until their 17 year old daughter was able to escape and summon help. Owen, James. "The best new thrillers for January 2021 — introducing a new hero, a bomb disposal expert". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 25 January 2021.

Für ihre Recherchen reiste die 90-jährige Autorin nach Nigeria, sprach mit den jungen Frauen und erschuf aus den vielen Erfahrungsberichten einen fiktiven Roman, der der Realität jedoch fast unerträglich nahe kommt. In der Protagonistin vereint die Autorin all die realen Frauen und versucht so, das Gehörte den Leser*innen nahe zu bringen. Für mich ist das der Autorin sehr gut gelungen. Ein Bericht oder Essay hätte die ganzen Emotionen nicht halb so gut erfassen können. Im Nachwort erfährt man, dass Edna O'Brian einige Orte ihres Romans selbst besucht und dort auch kurrzeitig gewohnt hat. Das war besonders inspirierend und hat die Geschichte noch greifbarer gemacht. And then she does something magical: make us twin with the stunned and traumatized Maryam as she reverts to sheer animalistic survival, trying to see her way to the light. There is a certain mixed-up and frenetic quality to this book as Maryam switches from reality to a dreamlike stance, from past to present. Throughout her ordeal, which includes a harrowing account of a woman stoned alive and a gang rape, we—the readers—are forced to bear witness helplessly. The story opens with Lex Gracie (Girl A) having been made executive of her mother’s will after her mother dies in prison. Lex and her siblings are infamous for unpleasant reasons: they were held captive in their home, abused and starved by their parents. Their father ended his own life when Lex escaped aged 15 and raised the alarm. Their mother ended up in prison. At which point Lion-Girl goes into exposition mode as the viewer learns how a massive “meteor tsunami” destroyed Earth, except for a small area around Tokyo and wiped out most of mankind. The meteors themselves give off rays that are fatal to humans. Except the ones they mutate into Anarocs who live by stealing the life force from humans. There are also Man-Anorocs like Lion Girl, whose mother was transformed while she was pregnant, much like how Blade became a Daywalker. She is the woman we saw in the bathhouse and all that stands between mankind and extinction.

Second, the author’s intention turned out to be at odds with what I wanted, and I can’t fault her for that, but I was most interested in how the psychology of torturing your own children works in practice. Sure, the father is of course a religious lunatic and the mother is a cowed baby machine but how can even such people view their emaciated children on a daily basis and think everything is copacetic? And also - how can such grisly horrors be kept away from the eyes of the surveillance society and its many-tentacled authorities for years? Predictability. I’m sorry, but I know Evie was dead as soon as Lex told Ethan she had talked to Evie about the idea for the house and he laughed at her. I imagine anyone who reads this genre knew that. The only surprise was about baby Daniel. I thought the baby they were talking about was Noah until they named him.