Saturday, February 13, 2021

Six novels about women trying to outrun their past

Suzanne Redfearn is the bestselling author of four novels: Hush Little Baby, No Ordinary Life, In An Instant, and Hadley & Grace.

[Q&A with Suzanne RedfearnMy Book, The Movie: Hadley and GraceThe Page 69 Test: Hadley & Grace]

Born and raised on the east coast, Redfearn moved to California when she was fifteen. She currently lives in Laguna Beach with her husband where they own two restaurants: Lumberyard and Slice Pizza & Beer.

In addition to being an author, Redfearn is an architect specializing in residential and commercial design. When not writing, she enjoys doing anything and everything with her family—skiing, golf, tennis, pickleball, hiking, board games, and reality TV. She is an avid baseball fan. Her team is the Angels.

At CrimeReads Redfearn tagged six novels about women fleeing for and from their lives, including:
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is my favorite woman-on-the-run story, mostly for how original it is. Amy Dunne has gone missing, and Nick Dunne, her husband, is the prime suspect. Evidence against him mounts as an annual wedding anniversary treasure hunt turns up a slew of clues—an affair between Nick and one of his students; the shocking revelation that Amy is pregnant; and a diary that divulges Amy’s growing isolation and her fear that Nick is going to kill her. But… what if? This twisty, turny novel is too good to give away, but it puts a whole new spin on the classic cat-and-mouse chase.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Gone Girl made Max Manning's top ten list of psychopathic crime & thriller characters, Steven L. Kent and Nicholas Kaufmann's list of six favorite literary human monsters, Elizabeth Macneal's list of five sympathetic fictional psychopaths, Jo Jakeman's top ten list of revenge novels, Amanda Craig's list of favorite books about modern married life, Sarah Pinborough's top ten list of unreliable narrators, C.A. Higgins's top five list of books with plot twists that flip your perception, Ruth Ware's top ten list of psychological thrillers, Jane Alexander's top ten list of treasure hunts in fiction, Fanny Blake's list of five top books about revenge, Monique Alice's list of six great fictional evil geniuses, Jeff Somers's lists of the top five best worst couples in literature, six books that’ll make you glad you’re single and five books with an outstanding standalone scene that can be read on its own, Lucie Whitehouse's ten top list of psychological suspense novels with marriages at their heart and Kathryn Williams's list of eight of fiction’s craziest unreliable narrators.

--Marshal Zeringue