#BlogTour - The Woman on the Bridge by Holly Seddon

A STRANGER IN NEED - WOULD YOU INVITE THEM INTO YOUR HOME? 

'Strangers On A Train meets The Pact in this high concept thriller: daring, dramatic and totally original, I loved it.' Gillian McAllister

How far would you go to save a perfect stranger?

Maggie is trapped. Dumped on her wedding day, rejected by her family and hounded by a man determined to make her suffer.

Charlotte is desperate. Double-crossed by her only friend and facing total ruin, she will go to any lengths to save what matters.

Two women, one night. A decision that will change everything.

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Charlotte screams into the emptiness.

THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE is a clever, twisty, tightly plotted thriller which grabs the reader right from the opening sentence and doesn’t let go until the conclusion. When we meet Charlotte, she is hurtling through the night in her late mother’s Tesla, wishing the electric car had a screaming engine note to accompany her own screaming. Charlotte has had a bad day having discovered that her friend, Anna, whom Charlotte has taken on to help her run the antiques business inherited from her father, has uncovered some financial irregularities and intends to blackmail Charlotte into relinquishing control of the business. Her screams are understandable. And then she meets Maggie.

Maggie is perched on the rail of a bridge, dressed in a stained wedding dress, deciding when to jump. Despite, perhaps because of, her own troubles, Charlotte talks Maggie down, takes her into her car, and then into her home. There is an uncomfortable rapidity to the friendship the women share. They share their stories and frustrations as they dry off and warm up. Maggie spends the night in Charlotte’s cottage and in the morning she suggests that they might be able to help each other. And soon things begin to spiral out of control…

Holly Seddon is a wonderful writer. Her prose flows effortlessly. Her dialogue is naturalistic and her characters believable. The book alternates between Charlotte’s and Maggie’s viewpoints and we really get to understand the pain and confusion each feels as they find themselves thrown together seemingly by fate. As the page-turning plot develops, the women become more entangled, the stakes getting higher. As Gillian McAllister says, it really echoes Strangers on a Train, except that both characters are very likeable, even if their decision making is questionable. And then Holly Seddon pulls the rug out from below the reader’s feet…

The twists in the novel are as deliciously fiendish as they are unexpected. THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE is gripping and exciting, and incredibly good fun. The book is full of ‘you’re kidding me’ moments. It races towards the conclusion like the Tesla in the first chapter and, unlike the car, it makes a hell of a noise when it gets there.

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Holly Seddon is the international bestselling author of TRY NOT TO BREATHE, DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES, LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, THE HIT LIST and THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE.

After growing up in the English countryside obsessed with music and books, Holly worked in London as a journalist and editor. She now lives in Kent with her family and writes full time.

Alongside fellow author Gillian McAllister, Holly co-hosts the popular Honest Authors Podcast. You can find her on Twitter @hollyseddon, Instagram and Facebook @hollyseddonauthor.

Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers, @Tr4cyF3nt0n, Orion Books @orionbooks and Holly Seddon @hollyseddon for the invitation to the Blog Tour.