Words leave imprints in your mind like footprints in the sand...
beach reading
starry skies to read under
reading in nature
  • Location: London

The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A book to be read on a train! Just be sure to keep an eye on your fellow passengers as you do so….

  • ISBN: 978-0857522313
  • Genre: Psychological, Thriller

What you need to know before your trail

When you look into someone’s house or garden from a train window what do you really see? What can you really see from the safety of your train carriage? what happens when curiosity gets the better of you and you take that game one step further and make it your mission to find out for real?

The girl on the train is a taunt thriller voiced by three different women and the train that travels each morning from Ashbury into Euston Station. When the train slows at a signal, the real journey of the woman on it begins…

Travel Guide

The story of the girl on the train takes place not surprisingly on a train but the places she sees and the people she watches live in homes which she can see from the train. Homes along the track. There are a few fictional places (Ashbury) for reasons that become clear but really the exact place is not really the case here – it’s the thought we’ve all had or the game we’ve all played – who can we see from the train window, what do they do, what are they called and who are they? Except sometimes games can go too far.

The atmosphere all the way through this book is the sense of a closed space – whether it be inside one of the character’s heads or inside the train itself. The sense of being a fish in a fishbowl is one which dominates as well since everyone, to the girl on the train, is being watched and their roles decided like puppets on a stage. Although she is not in control as she thinks she is.

Read this book on the train for maximum effect but if you see a pile of clothes on the track and a red headed man on the train then you might want to get off quick.

Streetview Maps

2) Euston station
Is Rachel in this picture???
1) Ashbury
A quiet place where Rachel lives?

Booktrailer Review

Susan @thebooktrailer:

Oh this was good! Part thriller, part psychological mystery centered around marriage and people’s lives. I loved the narration of the three women and the interchange between them. the clues left as if scattered on the very train track that is the centre of the mystery – sometimes you’d see something blow away and then it would come back and blow up in your eyes when you least expect it.

The premise of this really drew me in as like many people I watch people on a train all the time and only take a break to read 😉 People watching is fascinating and looking in the windows of passing houses even more so. Watching people live their lives etc is the way we all escape from our own lives and just take a peek into some one else’s. Addictive. Just like this thriller.

I loved the backstory and the way we got to know the characters, their motivations and everything in between. Things I thought I knew in one chapter were like a bunch of leaves on the line, flung in every direction possible when that train went past. I would even suggest that the plot and pace read like a train journey itself – short chapters stopping and starting and from one place to the next. smart.

To get inside the heads of these people was a real treat and  I will definitely be reading more from this lady!

Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:

Twitter: @PaulaHWrites

Web: paulahawkinsbooks.com

Back to Results

Featured Book

A Poisoner’s Tale

1651: Inspired by the true story of Giulia Tofana: The Angel of Death with a Vial of Vengeance

Read more