The Girl on the Stairs
On sale
2nd August 2012
Price: £16.99
Jane Logan is a stranger to Berlin and she finds the city alive and echoing with the ghosts of its turbulent past. At six months pregnant, she’s instructed by her partner Petra to rest and enjoy her new life in Germany. But while Petra is out at work, Jane begins to feel uneasy in their chic apartment. Screams reverberate through the walls, lights flicker in the derelict building that looms over the yard, a shadow passes on the stairs . . .
Jane meets a neighbour’s daughter, a girl whose life she tries to mend, but her involvement only further isolates her. Alone and haunted, Jane fears the worst . . . but the worst is yet to come.
Louise Welsh, the acclaimed author of The Cutting Room, delivers another masterful suspense novel. The Girl on the Stairs is a powerful psychological thriller packed with twists and turns to keep you reading well into the night. Read it, or be left in the dark.
Jane meets a neighbour’s daughter, a girl whose life she tries to mend, but her involvement only further isolates her. Alone and haunted, Jane fears the worst . . . but the worst is yet to come.
Louise Welsh, the acclaimed author of The Cutting Room, delivers another masterful suspense novel. The Girl on the Stairs is a powerful psychological thriller packed with twists and turns to keep you reading well into the night. Read it, or be left in the dark.
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Reviews
Louise Welsh's taut new novel at times feels like a potent cross between The Yellow Wallpaper and Rear Window . . . Welsh expertly conveys the escalation of Jane's suspicions to something approaching obsession
'An impressive psychological chiller'
'Sharply rendered . . . The reader's anxiety is heightened by a myriad of small tensions . . . Welsh keeps the reader turning to pursue the multiple stories threading through the pages . . . The writing of crime fiction is, after all, a sort of conjuring trick played on the reader, a welcome deception. Welsh has developed flashing fingers with cards, rabbits and hats'
Builds up atmosphere admirably
Brilliantly atmospheric, the tension builds until you are chilled to the core
A taut narrative that plays with our sense of what's real. Brilliant
'A stylish and violent Berlin-set thriller'
'The Girl on the Stairs is crisply written and tightly constructed, gaining much of its considerable impact by its economy. Welsh is a novelist who straddles the shadowy borderline between crime and literary fiction. Here, she subverts and updates the convention of the romantic thriller while retaining the genre's central premise...the result is powerful, impressive and as black as sin'
'An outstanding work of psychological suspense that will thrill Welsh's existing fans and earn her many more'
'A portrait of a city haunted by its past, with nods to Don't Look Now and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, it's a profoundly creepy read'
'The Girl on the Stairs feels like a ghost story. Taking place in a haunted city, the book's knowing evocation of Don't Look Now, Du Maurier's Venice-set story, is sharpened by the fact that this mother is not grieving the loss of a child but anticipating a birth. Yet what Welsh knows, and brings to a bloody conclusion, is that no supernatural manifestation of our darkest hours is any match for what real human beings can do to each other'
Welsh skilfully exposes Jane's growing obsession in a tale that becomes more compelling with every shocking twist
A highly effective mystery, told by the kind of unreliable narrator able to rival the very best at keeping you guessing
'We've come to expect two things from Welsh: a brilliant sense of location and knuckle-whitening suspense . . . Superbly entertaining'
'Both chilling and disturbing insights into the female psyche'
'Wonderfully atmospheric'
A masterclass in sustained tension and hold-your-breath suspense
'Edgy, tense and a real page-turner'
'This is a fantastic, dark, edgy and edge of your seat thriller which will not disappoint fans of Louise Welsh but will also be perfect for fans of Rosamund Lupton and Julia Crouch. Be prepared to loose sleep'
'The uncertainties and ambiguities kept me guessing to the end . . . The Girl on the Stairs is a dark, psychological thriller, full of atmosphere and claustrophobic tension. I really enjoyed it'
'A clever Rear Window type thriller . . . You won't be able to put this book down until the very end when there is a surprising twist. I was left with an uncomfortable feeling at the end and am still thinking about this book days after I finished it'
'A dark haunting novel. The story builds and as the tension incrases I enjoyed it more and more, and felt it got better and better until I was gripped . . . It's a fairly short novel, written in spare prose with evocative descriptive passages and effective dialogue that always adds to the plot progression'
'A fast-paced read...this is definately a must read novel for fans of mystery or psychology'
'The Girl on the Stairs is a gritty, psychological thriller with plenty of suspense, tension and mystery. The twists and turns will have you believing Jane one minute and thinking she's mad the next. A definite page-turner and an excellent read'
'This was everything I could have ever hoped for in a thriller/fiction-type book'
Utterly absorbing