Invisible Girl: A Novel

by Lisa Jewell Narrated by Donna Banya, Katherine Kelly, Connor Swindells

Overview

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with an “edge-of-your-seat thriller” (USA TODAY) about a young woman's disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.

Young Saffyre Maddox spent three years under the care of renowned child psychologist Roan Fours. When Dr. Fours decides their sessions should end, Saffyre feels abandoned. She begins looking for ways to connect with him, from waiting outside his office to walking through his neighborhood late at night. She soon learns more than she ever wanted to about Roan and his deceptively perfect family life. On a chilly Valentine's night, Saffyre disappears, taking any secrets she has learned with her.

Owen Pick's life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt's spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct-accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.

Owen lives across the street from the Fours family. The Fours have a bad feeling about their neighbor; Owen is a bit creepy and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night. Could Owen be responsible? What happened to the beautiful missing Saffyre, and does her disappearance truly connect them all?

Evocative, vivid, and unputdownable, Lisa Jewell's latest thriller is another “haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author).

Editorial Reviews

JANUARY 2021 - AudioFile

It can be difficult for a slow-burn whodunit to gain steam, especially when the story is told from multiple perspectives. Happily, narrators Donna Banya, Katherine Kelly, and Connor Swindells manage to keep listeners engrossed when a British teen suddenly goes missing after stalking her sketchy former child psychologist. The narrators’ skill with U.K. regional accents makes it easy to follow who’s speaking, and their mastery of tone and pitch somehow manages to evoke high drama even when the plot dodders. While this novel won’t have listeners on the edge of their seats, and some may be offended by transphobic content, fans of British mysteries will most likely enjoy it. G.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

08/10/2020

Facile plotting, underdeveloped characters, and unconvincing stakes mar this disappointing domestic thriller from bestseller Jewell (The Family Upstairs). Owen Pick, a 33-year-old computer science teacher, gets suspended from his London college when female students allege sexism in the classroom and misconduct at a Christmas party. While awaiting the results of the school’s investigation, Owen—a virgin who lives with his aunt—begins frequenting rage-filled “incel” web forums. Across the street, 52-year-old Cate Fours—a stay-at-home mom to two teenagers—grows suspicious of Owen after a masked man starts assaulting local women. Meanwhile, troubled 17-year-old Saffyre Maddox, whom Cate’s husband, child psychologist Roan, recently discharged from treatment for self-harm, decides to follow Roan, because, after three years of therapy, she misses his stabilizing presence. To Saffyre’s regret, her surveillance reveals that Roan isn’t the upstanding man she believed him to be. Though Jewell neatly entwines her protagonists’ story lines, a too-pat conclusion fails to gratify. Fans will hope for a future return to form. Agent: Deborah Schneider, ICM Partners/Gelfman Schneider Literary. (Oct.)

TAMAR COHEN

“Dark, gripping, emotionally intense. My heart hurt from being squeezed so tight.”

LOUISE CANDLISH

“A masterclass in character... A wonderful slow-burn gripper—I loved it.

ALEX MARWOOD

“Another masterpiece from a novelist whose grip on human nature in its flawed entirety never slips. Invisible Girl is gripping, disturbing and acutely observant; Jewell is an extremely special writer."

TheSkimm

"We won't judge if you read with one eye open."

Woman's World Magazine

"Gripping, haunting, chilling."

Book of the Month Club

Jewell is a master at weaving a tale that’s unpredictable, deeply creepy, and that pushes the boundaries of what’s taboo.

USA Today

Lisa Jewell's latest edge-of-your-seat thriller stands out... [she] highlights how our views of the world and of others can often render us blind to what is truly going on around us... brilliant... deft ... surprising."

BUST Magazine

Jewell showcases the many ways that sexism can creep in and infect everyday moments . . . dark, sharp, and thought-provoking.

JENNY COLGAN

“A breathtakingly brilliant novel by an author at the absolute top of her game.

Clare Mackintosh

“Compelling and surprisingly moving—Lisa Jewell never lets you down.”

Buzzfeed

“A dark, carefully plotted domestic thriller filled with complex, lonely, and (mostly!) sympathetic characters. It takes on toxic masculinity and incel culture in a way that adds to but never overwhelms the central mystery of the novel, and ends with a satisfying conclusion and then one final, disturbing twist.”

ERIN KELLY

“Lisa Jewell is the kind of writer you read twice—once as a breathless reader to see how the story unfolds, and then again to see how she makes it look so easy.

San Francisco Book Review

"Lisa Jewell is known for her intricate and timely thrillers; her latest is no exception [...] With an eye for contemporary detail and a clear understanding of the sexual politics that can lead to violence, Jewell presents a taut and thought-provoking cautionary tale in Invisible Girl that will entertain as much as it haunts the reader."

PopSugar

"Full of twists you won't see coming."

JOJO MOYES

This weekend I finished Lisa Jewell’s gripping Invisible Girl and it was such a joy not to be able to put a book down. Her best yet."

HARRIET TYCE

A masterclass in how to write with pace and tension.

E! Online

"In classic Jewell fashion, it's unputdownable."

JANE CASEY

I am always reminded of Ruth Rendell at her very best when I read Lisa Jewell. Not only is her plotting masterful, Lisa has the rare ability to make you care—passionately—about all her characters, whether they are important or minor, instantly appealing or apparently monstrous. Invisible Girl is quite brilliant in every way.”

Crime by the Book

"I'm obsessed."

AJ FINN

“I loved it. Every damn word.

LUCY FOLEY

"I absolutely loved Invisible Girl—Lisa Jewell has a way of combining furiously twisty, utterly gripping plots with wonderfully rich characterisation—she has such compassion for her characters and we feel we know them utterly. To anyone who claims crime fiction is plot at the expense of character, I prescribe Lisa Jewell. A triumph!"

ADELE PARKS

She isn’t afraid of plunging an icy blade into her readers’ hearts whilst examining the cruel realities of the world.

CLARE MACKINTOSH

“Compelling and surprisingly moving—Lisa Jewell never lets you down.”

From the Publisher

Praise for The Family Upstairs:

“Lisa Jewell has done it again—rich, dark and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunnit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect.” —RUTH WARE, New York Times bestselling author

“A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read. I was desperate to uncover all the twisting mysteries inside The Family Upstairs, layer by tangled layer. Eerie, suspenseful, and completely consuming.” —MEGAN MIRANDA, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls

LUCY MANGAN

“It is as BRILLIANT as you’d expect. Possibly brillianter.

Library Journal

09/11/2020

Saffyre Maddox likes to be invisible. After several years of counseling, she is released by her child therapist Roan Fours, but she's not ready to let go. Saffyre begins to follow Roan, spending a lot of time in an empty lot across the street from the house he shares with his wife, Cate, a physiotherapist, and their kids. The lot is also next to the home of Owen Pick, a loner whom the neighbors find odd. When Saffyre goes missing, police question Cate and Owen, and a story begins to unfold that links all of these characters together. Jewell's newest novel (The Family Upstairs) is about family and identity mixed in with a mystery of a missing girl. Told through the perspectives of Saffyre, Cate, and Owen, the narrative unwraps details through each character's distinct personality. In Saffyre, Jewell creates a sarcastic and poetic character, while Cate is suspicious and prone to heavy dialog instead of introspection. Owen's chapters ensure that readers find him odd yet also feel sympathy for him. VERDICT Suspense fans will devour this twisted tale of intricately interwoven characters. The many turns will surprise and keep readers thinking long after they've finished.—Natalie Browning, Longwood Univ. Lib., Farmville, VA

JANUARY 2021 - AudioFile

It can be difficult for a slow-burn whodunit to gain steam, especially when the story is told from multiple perspectives. Happily, narrators Donna Banya, Katherine Kelly, and Connor Swindells manage to keep listeners engrossed when a British teen suddenly goes missing after stalking her sketchy former child psychologist. The narrators’ skill with U.K. regional accents makes it easy to follow who’s speaking, and their mastery of tone and pitch somehow manages to evoke high drama even when the plot dodders. While this novel won’t have listeners on the edge of their seats, and some may be offended by transphobic content, fans of British mysteries will most likely enjoy it. G.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2020-07-14
The disappearance of a teenage girl disrupts the lives of her former therapist, his family, and a lonely neighbor.

Seventeen-year-old Saffyre Maddox has been in therapy with Roan Fours, a child psychologist, for three years for self-harming after the deaths of her parents. When Roan suggests Saffyre is ready to move on, she feels betrayed and begins following Roan and spying on his wife, Cate, and two teenage children. She learns Roan is having an affair but also that multiple sexual assaults are taking place in his neighborhood. When Saffyre disappears after her blood is found by the apartments across the street from Roan’s house, Owen Pick, one of Roan and Cate’s neighbors, is arrested and jailed based on his history of visiting incel websites after having been placed on leave from his job following sexual misconduct complaints. At the same time, Cate becomes suspicious of Roan’s lies and where their son, Josh, is sneaking out to. Jewell’s latest domestic thriller features an array of characters set in a posh London neighborhood but struggles to create any real tension regarding Saffyre’s disappearance. The themes of sexual assault and incel culture are only marginally developed despite the key part each plays in the story. As such, even with these subjects, Jewell's latest is not nearly as dark as her earlier novels. This might be a welcome change if the characters had emotional depth or unique narrative voices, but they too are only superficially realized.

A lackluster and underdeveloped story.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173272027
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	645,425

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Saffyre

MY NAME IS Saffyre Maddox. I am seventeen years old.

I am mostly Welsh on my dad’s side and partly Trinidadian, partly Malaysian, and a tiny bit French from my mum. Sometimes people try to guess my heritage, but they always end up getting it wrong. If anyone asks I just say that I am a mixed bag and leave it at that. No reason for anyone to know who slept with who, you know. It’s my business really, isn’t it?

I’m in my first year of sixth form at a school in Chalk Farm, where I’m doing maths, physics, and biology because I’m a bit of a nerd. I don’t really know what I want to do when I leave school; everyone expects me to go to university, but sometimes I think I’d just like to go and work in a zoo, maybe, or a dog groomer’s.

I live in a two-bedroom flat on the eighth floor of a tower on Alfred Road, right opposite a school I don’t go to, because they hadn’t actually built it when I started secondary.

My grandma died shortly before I was born, my mum died shortly afterward, my dad didn’t want to know, and my granddad died a few months ago. So I live alone with my uncle.

He’s only ten years older than me, and his name is Aaron. He looks after me like a father. He works at a betting shop, nine to five, and does people’s gardens on the weekends. He’s probably the best human being in the world. I have another uncle, Lee, who lives in Essex with his wife and two tiny daughters. So there are finally some girls in the family, but it’s a bit late for me now.

I grew up with two men, and, as a result, I’m not that great with girls. Or, more accurately, I’m better with boys. I used to hang out with the boys when I was a kid and got called a tomboy, which I don’t think I ever was. But then I started to change and became “pretty” (and I do not think I’m pretty; I just know that everyone I meet tells me that I am), and boys stopped wanting to hang out as a mate and got all weird around me, and I could tell that I’d be better off if I could harvest some girls. So I harvested some girls, and we’re not close—don’t reckon I’ll ever see any of them again once I’ve left school—but we get on OK just as something to do. We’ve all known each other a long, long time now. It’s easy.

So that’s the bare outline of me. I’m not a happy, happy kind of person. I don’t have a big laugh, and I don’t do that hugging thing that the other girls like to do. I have boring hobbies: I like to read, and I like to cook. I’m not big on going out. I like a bit of rum with my uncle on a Friday night while we’re watching TV, but I don’t smoke weed or take drugs or anything like that. It’s amazing how boring you can get away with being when you’re pretty. No one seems to notice. When you’re pretty everyone just assumes you must have a great life. People are so short-sighted, sometimes. People are so stupid.

I have a dark past, and I have dark thoughts. I do dark things, and I scare myself sometimes. I wake in the middle of the night, and I’ve twisted myself into my bedsheets. Before I go to sleep, I tuck my bedsheet under the mattress, really hard, really firm, so the sheet is taut enough to bounce a coin off. The next morning all four corners are free; my sheet and I are entwined. I don’t remember what happened. I don’t remember my dreams. I don’t feel rested.

When I was ten years old something really, really bad happened to me. Let’s maybe not get into that too deep. But yes, I was a little girl, and it was a big bad thing that no little girl should have to experience, and it changed me. I started to hurt myself, on my ankles, inside my ankle socks, so no one would see the scratches. I knew what self-harming was—everyone knows these days—but I didn’t know why I was doing it. I just knew that it stopped me thinking too hard about other things in my life.

Then when I was about twelve my uncle Aaron saw the scratches and the scars, put two and two together, and took me to my GP, who referred me to the Portman Children’s Centre for therapy.

I was sent to a man called Roan Fours.

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