Good Girls Don't Die - Softcover

Henry, Christina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593638190 ISBN 13: 9780593638194

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

A sharp-edged, supremely twisty thriller about three women who find themselves trapped inside stories they know aren’t their own, from the author of Alice and Near the Bone.

Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers…

Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is sure that something about this trip is very, very wrong…

Maggie just wants to be home with her daughter, but she’s in a dangerous situation and she doesn’t know who put her there or why. She’ll have to fight with everything she has to survive…

Three women. Three stories. Only one way out. This captivating novel will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Christina Henry is a horror and dark fantasy author whose works include Horseman, Near the Bone, The Ghost Tree, Looking Glass, The Girl in Red, The Mermaid, Lost Boy, Alice, Red Queen, and the seven-book urban fantasy Black Wings series.

She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on, and watching movies with samurai, zombies, and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.

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CHAPTER ONE

mysterybkluv: who else here loves cozy mysteries best?

poirotsgirl: cozies are my fave, esp if they have recipes in the back

mysterybkluv: ngl it would be great to live in a small town where there are lots of low-stakes murders and I could solve them while working in my family restaurant

tyz7412: lol living the dream

"Mom."

"Earth to Mom. Come in, Mom."

"Mom, I'm going to be late for the bus!"

Celia shook her head. The small person beside her was blurry, out of focus. Did she need glasses now?

And why was this person calling her "Mom"?

Celia blinked hard, once, twice, and the little person came into focus. A girl-maybe ten, eleven years old?-staring at her expectantly, holding an open backpack.

"What?" Celia asked.

"My lunch," the girl said. "I need my lunch. Did you drink enough coffee this morning?"

Celia looked down. In front of her, on a white countertop, was an open cloth lunch bag. Inside it there was already a plastic bag of sliced apples, a bag of all-natural puffed corn snacks (cheese flavored), and a chocolate soy milk.

A piece of waxed paper lay unfolded on the counter. What is all this disposable packaging? I would never buy things like this.

"Mom!" The little person was getting really insistent now. "Sandwich!"

Celia couldn't think. She needed this small girl to leave so she could organize her thoughts.

Why does she keep calling me "Mom"? I don't have any children.

"Two minutes!" the girl screeched.

There was a loaf of wheat bread and a package of cheese from the deli next to the waxed paper. Celia took out two pieces of bread.

"One piece in half! Mom, what's wrong with you today?"

"Sorry," Celia said, cutting the single slice of bread in half. "How much cheese?"

"Two pieces! Come on, come on!"

You're old enough to do this yourself, Celia thought as she folded the bread around the cheese, wrapped the sandwich in waxed paper and shoved everything in the lunch bag. The girl grabbed it, stuffed it in her pack and sprinted toward the door.

"Bye, love you!" she said as she threw the door open, then slammed it shut behind her.

Celia walked like a sleepwalker to the window next to the door and peered out. The little girl was running down a long inclined driveway toward what appeared to be a country road. Across the street there was nothing to see except trees, tall trees that looked like older-growth maple, oak and ash.

The little girl reached the end of the drive just as a yellow school bus pulled up in front of the mailbox. She clambered onto the bus and it pulled away.

She's gone. Now I can think.

Footsteps sounded overhead and Celia glanced up at the ceiling in alarm. The steps moved across the floor, and a moment later Celia heard someone large coming down the stairs. She couldn't see the stairs from where she stood. The kitchen was attached to a dining room on one side and a hallway on the other. Celia peered into the hall. The bottom of the stairs was at the far end.

A strange man rounded the banister and headed toward her, frowning at his cell phone as he walked. Celia backed away from him, her heart pounding. Her butt bumped into the edge of the counter. She scrambled around it and positioned herself close to the door so she could run if she needed to do so. She looked down at her feet. Socks. Not even slippers. There was a pair of low shelves positioned next to the door with shoes neatly arranged on them. One of those pairs should be hers. But would she have time enough to figure out which pair, put them on and get out the door?

"Hey, babe, I've got a ton of meetings this morning," the man said. "I'll stop by the restaurant at lunchtime."

Who is he?

The man was very tall, at least six inches taller than herself, and she wasn't a small woman. He had dark hair cut in what she thought of as "millennial fund manager" style and wore a well-tailored gray suit. He had a gym-toned look about him and altogether gave the impression of someone who belonged in a city. This impression was reinforced when he pulled on an expensive-looking wool overcoat. His shoes, Celia noted, were very shiny.

He leaned close to her and kissed her cheek absently, still looking at the phone so he didn't notice the way she inched backward. She caught a whiff of his aftershave, something musky and heavy. Her nose twitched.

"See you later," he said, and disappeared out the same door as the little girl.

Celia went to the window and pulled one blind up to peek out. The man who'd called her "babe," the man who'd kissed her goodbye, had gotten into a black Audi SUV that was parked at the top of the driveway. He backed down the drive and pulled out onto the road, heading in the opposite direction of the bus.

An Audi. City guy, she thought again, and then wondered why she thought this.

Because I live in a city and I see those kinds of guys all the time, she thought, but the thought was like a stabbing pain in her head. She looked around the kitchen, then out the window once more.

Clearly, she did not live in a city. Why did she think she lived in a city?

But now, finally, all the people were gone from the house and she could stop and think.

The kitchen was large and had a white countertop that wrapped around half of the room and then extended out on the third side as a breakfast bar. There were stools lined up along that side, facing the dining room.

Celia pulled one out, sat on it and stared at the rectangular dining room table and chairs, done in some heavy dark wood that she never would have chosen for herself. She didn't like dark wood, didn't like the formality of it, and she definitely didn't like anything that looked like it would need regular polishing. Celia hated to clean, and she particularly hated to dust and polish. That dining room table represented everything she didn't want in a piece of furniture.

"I didn't buy that," she murmured. "I have a round oak table."

Again, there was a little stabbing feeling between her eyes, and she rubbed the spot with her forefinger. Obviously she didn't have a round table. The two people who'd rushed out of the house seemed to think she lived there, that she belonged there.

And that guy, that guy who kissed me goodbye-he did look a little familiar.

"He said he would see me at the restaurant. Do I work at a restaurant?"

She had a vague memory of her hands collecting dishes from a table, of tucking a notepad into an apron.

Maybe I drank a lot last night. Or maybe I had a mini stroke or something.

The only thing she knew for sure was that her first name was Celia.

She stood up again and walked into the dining room. At one side of the room there was a large cabinet with glass doors on top and drawers on the bottom. The cabinet matched the dining set, and she crinkled her nose at it.

I hate that matchy-matchy thing. I bet all the dishes are in a matching pattern, too.

When she opened the glass doors, she confirmed that her prediction was accurate. All the tableware and serving plates were in a matching pattern, a kind of country floral that made her think of wedding registries.

On the wall opposite the cabinet there was a large, posed photograph of three people. The background was soft gray, like they'd been in a photo studio. There was Celia, sitting next to the tall dark-haired man. They both wore white-cabled fisherman-style sweaters. The lunch-demanding little girl stood in front of them, positioned so that she was halfway between them. She, too, wore a cabled sweater, this one in pink. All three of them had the slightly glazed eyes and overly toothy smiles that came with posed photography.

This is my family? Celia thought, then told herself, more...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593638190
• ISBN 13: 9780593638194
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar