February 2022

GREENWICH PARK is such a strong debut novel. The plot came to Katherine Faulkner when she was in a prenatal class. Since all the women were pregnant, there was a feeling that they all should be friends.

In the book, Helen attends her first prenatal class and has a strange encounter with Rachel, who is also pregnant and immediately attaches herself to Helen in what feels like a smothering kind of friendship. At first, Helen appreciates the companionship. But as time goes on, Rachel becomes more erratic, and Helen begins feeling like she needs to find a way to escape this irrational creature. Rachel is everywhere that Helen is; it’s as if she has a GPS finder on Helen’s back.

Each story of Rachel’s becomes more fanciful until she shows up at Helen’s home one day and says she has nowhere else to go. Soon she is taking over the house and making Helen uncomfortable, but Helen doesn’t have the wherewithal to tell her to just leave. The more Rachel insinuates herself, the more the tension ramps up.

Why is Rachel there? It ends up she has some ties to moments in the past when Helen and her husband, and her brother and his wife, were all in university together. And she is looking to dole out some retribution.

The book is super snappy with a real bombshell, or two, or three of an ending.

» Watch my "Bookreporter Talks To" interview with Katherine Faulkner and listen to the podcast.