A slow fire burning

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Average Rating
Publisher
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Publication Date
2021.
Language
English

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AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe scorching new thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train.   “A Slow Fire Burning twists and turns like a great thriller should, but it's also deep, intelligent and intensely human.” – Lee Child “Only a clairvoyant could anticipate the book’s ending” – New York Times   With the same propulsion that captivated millions of readers worldwide in The Girl on the Train and Into the Water, Paula Hawkins unfurls a gripping, twisting story of deceit, murder, and revenge. When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim’s home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are – for different reasons – simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?   Look what you started.

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ISBN
9780593421208
073521123
9780593453179
9780735211230
9780735211254

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Similar Titles From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for titles you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These books have the appeal factors intensifying and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; and the subjects "murder victims," "crime," and "criminals."
These books have the appeal factors intensifying and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; and the subjects "murder victims," "crime," and "secrets."
These books have the appeal factors menacing, intensifying, and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; and the subjects "murder victims," "women murder suspects," and "city life."
These books have the appeal factors menacing, intensifying, and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; and the subjects "murder victims," "murder," and "secrets."
These books have the appeal factors suspenseful, intensifying, and intricately plotted, and they have the genres "psychological suspense" and "thrillers and suspense"; the subject "young women"; and characters that are "well-developed characters."
These books have the appeal factors suspenseful, intensifying, and intricately plotted, and they have the genres "psychological suspense" and "thrillers and suspense"; and the subjects "missing persons" and "secrets."
Troubled women become murder suspects in these intricate psychological novels. Both stories combine multiple perspectives (Slow Fire Burning) or an unreliable narrator (Pocket Wife) with an intensifying pace to ramp up the thrills and suspense. -- Andrienne Cruz
Both of these gripping psychological suspense novels revolve around a murder in a houseboat community where all of the suspects have a connection to the victim. -- Halle Carlson
Three single wives - LaManna, Gina
Readers will enjoy piecing together the puzzle in these gripping whodunits. Three Single Wives features high drama that Slow Fire lacks, but both intricately plotted suspense stories look at lives of fascinating female characters and their connection to a murder. -- Andrienne Cruz
These books have the appeal factors menacing, intensifying, and multiple perspectives, and they have the theme "too good to be true"; the genre "psychological suspense"; the subjects "murder victims" and "secrets"; and characters that are "complex characters."
These books have the appeal factors suspenseful, intensifying, and intricately plotted, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; and the subject "secrets."
These books have the appeal factors intensifying and intricately plotted, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; the subjects "women," "crime," and "murder"; and characters that are "sympathetic characters."

Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins use multiple (and often unreliable) narrators to craft disturbing, yet compulsively readable psychological thrillers with dark themes and Hitchcockian plot devices. -- Bethany Latham
Nicci French and Paula Hawkins write similarly gripping, suspenseful psychological thrillers with twisting plots that leave readers guessing at the truth, and gasping once it is unveiled. Complex relationships -- with individuals often grasping for insights into themselves or others -- and a strong sense of menace pervade their works. -- Kim Burton
Ruth Ware and Paula Hawkins write engrossing psychological suspense novels that amp up the tension through an increasing sense of menace while offering twists and turns aplenty. They often explore how emotional damage done in the past affects how the unreliable protagonists react and respond to the perceived threats around them. -- Halle Carlson
Although Greer Hendricks' female protagonists are more sympathetic than Paula Hawkins' decidedly unlikable women, they're equally unreliable guides through a maze of intricate plot twists and nonlinear narratives. A sense of menace and disorientation pervades both authors' work. -- Mike Nilsson
Readers looking for fast-paced psychological suspense stories with intricately constructed plots and plenty of shocking twists should explore the catalogs of both Paula Hawkins and Tanen Jones. Both write from the perspectives of people with plenty of secrets, but Hawkins' narrators tend to be more unreliable. -- Stephen Ashley
Though Alafair Burke frequently writes from the perspective of legal professionals and Paula Hawkins tends to focus on ordinary civilians, both are known for their fast-paced and intricately plotted tales of psychological suspense. -- Stephen Ashley
Though Jean Hanff Korelitz's protagonists tend to be much more sympathetic than Paula Hawkins' unlikable leads, both authors write shocking and suspenseful tales of psychological suspense that will leave readers breathless. -- Stephen Ashley
These authors' works have the appeal factors menacing, creepy, and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; the subjects "murder victims," "women murder victims," and "islands"; and characters that are "unlikeable characters."
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These authors' works have the appeal factors menacing, disturbing, and nonlinear, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; the subjects "murder witnesses," "murder victims," and "strangers"; and characters that are "unlikeable characters" and "complex characters."
These authors' works have the appeal factors menacing, intensifying, and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; the subjects "women murder victims," "alcoholic women," and "deception"; and characters that are "unlikeable characters."
These authors' works have the appeal factors menacing, intensifying, and multiple perspectives, and they have the genre "psychological suspense"; the subjects "secrets," "murder victims," and "women murder victims"; and characters that are "unlikeable characters."

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

Here is the long-awaited third riveting thriller from the best-selling author of Into the Water (2017) and the global phenomenon that was The Girl on the Train (2015). A young man is found murdered in a London houseboat. Three damaged women have connections with him--some tenuous, some intense. Laura, who identifies as a "vulnerable adult," has multiple social-behavior issues. A hit-and-run accident in her childhood left her broken physically and mentally and, eventually, psychically as well. Carla, the victim's aunt, is still coming to terms with the son she lost years ago and with the recent death of her sister, Angela, whom she held responsible for her son's catastrophic end. The victim is her nephew, Angela's son. The third woman, Miriam, not only snoops, she also keeps a notebook! Laura describes her as a hobbit. She moves with "legs heavy as her heart." Miriam survived an abduction at age 15 that claimed the life of her best friend. A fourth character, the poignant Irene, is a marvel of creation. Readers will witness courage and ingenuity where it is least expected, satisfying revenge where none was thought possible, and salvation that is painfully long overdue. Lee Child calls Hawkins an "intensely human" writer, and this book puts her on a par with the supreme Ruth Rendell. Packed with OMG moments, this novel may be slow burning, but it's a scorcher nonetheless.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That girl on the train continues to assure that Hawkins will draw readers, and her latest repays the investment handsomely.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly Review

The stabbing murder of 23-year-old Daniel Sutherland on his houseboat in London's Regent's Canal drives this twist-laden if unremarkable page-turner from bestseller Hawkins (The Girl on the Train). Miriam Lewis, who lives in the neighboring vessel, finds the body and removes a bloody key from the scene before notifying the police. Decades earlier, Miriam survived a horrific attack, wrote an unpublished memoir about it, and shared the manuscript with Theo Myerson, who used it, without attribution, as the basis for a novel, The One Who Got Away. Theo, it turns out, is Daniel's uncle by marriage, and his toddler son died from a fall at Daniel's mother's home. Another suspect is Laura Kilbride, who slept with Daniel on the night of his death; as a child, she suffered a skull fracture that affected her ability to self-regulate and has trouble functioning as an adult. Sections from The One Who Got Away and flashbacks add to the challenge of putting the puzzle pieces together. The result is a satisfying whodunit, but its overreliance on coincidence makes it fall short of the high standard of Hawkins's previous work. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Aug.)

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Library Journal Review

After Daniel Sutherland is brutally stabbed to death on a houseboat in London, five people find their lives entangled and scrutinized as the police seek out his killer. Laura, who still suffers from the effects of a childhood car accident, had a recent one-night stand with the victim. Theo is an aging author still in love with his ex-wife Carla, who is Daniel's aunt. Irene is a widowed older woman living on her own, still missing her husband and now freshly mourning the loss of her next-door neighbor and best friend Angela, who was Daniel's mother. Miriam lives on the houseboat next to Daniel's and was the one to find him. She also has a history with Theo, whom she has accused of stealing her unpublished memoir for his own crime novel. Hawkins deftly spools out their stories, expertly maneuvering suspenseful twists and turns as the characters' flaws and motives are exposed. VERDICT Hawkins (The Girl on the Train; Into the Water) returns with another novel of psychological suspense, sure to top best-seller lists. She takes seemingly ordinary characters and peers deeply into their complicated lives, skillfully building tension and keeping readers guessing.--Melissa DeWild, Comstock Park, MI

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Kirkus Book Review

A young man has been stabbed to death on a houseboat...that much is clear. Hawkins' third novel, after her smash debut with The Girl on the Train (2015) and a weak follow-up with Into the Water (2017), gets off to a confusing start. A series of vignettes introduce numerous characters--Irene, Deidre, Laura, Miriam, Daniel (dead), Carla, Theo, Angela (dead)--all of whom live or lived in a very small geographical area and have overlapping connections and reasons to be furious at each other. We can all agree that the main question is who killed Daniel, the 23-year-old on the houseboat, but it is soon revealed that his estranged mother had died just a few weeks earlier--a drunk who probably fell, but maybe was pushed, down the stairs--and his cousin also fell to his death some years back. Untimely demise runs in the family. The highlight of these goings-on is Laura, a tiny but ferocious young woman who was seen running from Daniel's boat with blood on her mouth and clothes the last night he was alive. Physically and mentally disabled by an accident in her childhood, Laura is so used to being accused and wronged (and actually she is quite the sticky fingers) that she's not surprised when she's hauled in for Daniel's murder, though she's pretty sure she didn't do it. The secondary crimes and subplots include abduction, sexual assault, hit-and-run, petty larceny, plagiarism, bar brawling, breaking and entering, incest, and criminal negligence, and on top of all this there's a novel within a novel that mirrors events recalled in flashback by one of the characters. When Irene reads it, she's infuriated by "all the to-ing and fro-ing, all that jumping around in the timeline....Just start at the beginning, for god's sake. Why couldn't people just tell a story straight any longer, start to finish?" Hmmmmm. Overkill. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Here is the long-awaited third riveting thriller from the best-selling author of Into the Water (2017) and the global phenomenon that was The Girl on the Train (2015). A young man is found murdered in a London houseboat. Three damaged women have connections with him—some tenuous, some intense. Laura, who identifies as a "vulnerable adult," has multiple social-behavior issues. A hit-and-run accident in her childhood left her broken physically and mentally and, eventually, psychically as well. Carla, the victim's aunt, is still coming to terms with the son she lost years ago and with the recent death of her sister, Angela, whom she held responsible for her son's catastrophic end. The victim is her nephew, Angela's son. The third woman, Miriam, not only snoops, she also keeps a notebook! Laura describes her as a hobbit. She moves with "legs heavy as her heart." Miriam survived an abduction at age 15 that claimed the life of her best friend. A fourth character, the poignant Irene, is a marvel of creation. Readers will witness courage and ingenuity where it is least expected, satisfying revenge where none was thought possible, and salvation that is painfully long overdue. Lee Child calls Hawkins an "intensely human" writer, and this book puts her on a par with the supreme Ruth Rendell. Packed with OMG moments, this novel may be slow burning, but it's a scorcher nonetheless.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That girl on the train continues to assure that Hawkins will draw readers, and her latest repays the investment handsomely. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.
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Library Journal Reviews

A young man is found brutally murdered on his gently rocking London houseboat, and the police immediately have three women in their sights: recent one-night stand Laura, prying neighbor Miriam, and Aunt Carla, already mourning another family death. Not surprisingly, a 500,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal.
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Library Journal Reviews

After Daniel Sutherland is brutally stabbed to death on a houseboat in London, five people find their lives entangled and scrutinized as the police seek out his killer. Laura, who still suffers from the effects of a childhood car accident, had a recent one-night stand with the victim. Theo is an aging author still in love with his ex-wife Carla, who is Daniel's aunt. Irene is a widowed older woman living on her own, still missing her husband and now freshly mourning the loss of her next-door neighbor and best friend Angela, who was Daniel's mother. Miriam lives on the houseboat next to Daniel's and was the one to find him. She also has a history with Theo, whom she has accused of stealing her unpublished memoir for his own crime novel. Hawkins deftly spools out their stories, expertly maneuvering suspenseful twists and turns as the characters' flaws and motives are exposed. VERDICT Hawkins (The Girl on theTrain; Into the Water) returns with another novel of psychological suspense, sure to top best-seller lists. She takes seemingly ordinary characters and peers deeply into their complicated lives, skillfully building tension and keeping readers guessing.—Melissa DeWild, Comstock Park, MI

Copyright 2021 Library Journal.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal.
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Publishers Weekly Reviews

The stabbing murder of 23-year-old Daniel Sutherland on his houseboat in London's Regent's Canal drives this twist-laden if unremarkable page-turner from bestseller Hawkins (The Girl on the Train). Miriam Lewis, who lives in the neighboring vessel, finds the body and removes a bloody key from the scene before notifying the police. Decades earlier, Miriam survived a horrific attack, wrote an unpublished memoir about it, and shared the manuscript with Theo Myerson, who used it, without attribution, as the basis for a novel, The One Who Got Away. Theo, it turns out, is Daniel's uncle by marriage, and his toddler son died from a fall at Daniel's mother's home. Another suspect is Laura Kilbride, who slept with Daniel on the night of his death; as a child, she suffered a skull fracture that affected her ability to self-regulate and has trouble functioning as an adult. Sections from The One Who Got Away and flashbacks add to the challenge of putting the puzzle pieces together. The result is a satisfying whodunit, but its overreliance on coincidence makes it fall short of the high standard of Hawkins's previous work. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Aug.)

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Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly.
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