You Know Her

You know her – she’s the woman who learned to ignore the catcalls, always keeps a smile on her face, and a witty comment in her back pocket. But a single glass of wine will prove the tipping point for bartender Sophie Braam – and she’s a woman who believes that if you’re going to do something, do it well…

Or maybe you know her as Nora Martin, one of a very few female officers, a mixed-race woman who’s still managing to carve out a name for herself despite the mutterings about diversity hires. Smart and determined, and sure there’s a connection between a rash of recent deaths and disappearances in her small town, she’s not about to let this go until she proves they’re more than just coincidences.

Either way, you’re about to know them both, as Meagan Jennett sets them on a course that will propel them right towards each other, in her debut novel that comes out of the gate swinging. It felt like a fast read, but really I just stopped noticing time passing as I read it – I love when a book is written in a way that just sucks the reader in, and You Know Her did that for me.

I also thought the way the characters were written was just so satisfying. Nora is a delight, but she’s also a workaholic who can get snappy when she’s stressed and there’s no attempt at justifying it. Similarly Sophie, who may have snapped, but she’s not glorified as she moves further down her dark path – instead the author adds nuance by making her more and more quick to go to the place of rage, making her complex and keeping readers conscious that this is a woman killing people. It’s all various shades of grey, and it kept me invested and made me really think about the story.

Female rage has never been so compulsively readable – and I’ll never accept a brined drink again.