The Girl Beyond the Gate

By: Becca Day

Narrated by: Clare Kissane, Imogen Wilde, Stephanie Racine

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to Kensington Grove, the safest place to call home....

Jodie Evelyn can't think of a better place for a fresh start than the exclusive gated community of The Grove. But from the moment she passes through the wrought iron gates, she starts to suspect she's made a mistake.

Despite her vow to keep apart from the other residents, Jodie can't help but feel drawn to her unnerving neighbour Norah Williams and terminally ill daughter, Lacey. Jodie knows she should stay away, but something draws her in.

When a murder shocks The Grove, Jodie vows to do everything in her power to save Lacey from her mother. But as more secrets emerge from Norah's shadowy past, Jodie is faced with the unthinkable—Norah's not so different to herself, and neither woman is innocent.

The past won't stay hidden forever. And The Grove will be an unforgiving witness.

©2022 Becca Day (P)2022 Bonnier Books UK

Critic reviews

"Tantalisingly toxic. A fantastic debut with an OMG ending!" (Lauren North)

"The Girl Beyond The Gate is the type of book that demands your attention." (SV Leonard)

Potential??

The blurb for this story intrigued me however the story fell flat. Character development never really happened with the main and especially secondary characters who have a big presence. Maybe with better editing and reworking the storyline it could be better. However the ending was really a disgrace to the book and the reader. I don’t mean that in the way some endings leave it open for multiple scenarios to plausibly occur. But the way it abruptly stopped just did not work .

Narrators did what they could!

Worst Ending Ever

In general, this book was an entertaining read and a pretty fascinating story.
However, the characters (and there are really only 2 that have a “voice”) are so thinly developed that eventually, it becomes flat, 2D.
There is virtually zero descriptive language, even in the most basic sense.
We don’t even ever get clear descriptions of what these primary characters look like for instance.
There is no atmosphere. Talk about the sound of the leaves blowing in the wind, or the colors as the sun is rising or setting. Talk about the nuances of all the relationships in this small, exclusive community.
It would have made this book son much better.
And it was good to start off with, a creepy setting, a bereaved woman who has mysteriously relocated to this exclusive enclave for reasons totally unknown, etc.
The neighbor next door who is either a courageous woman taking care of her terminally I’ll daughter, or a complete psycho whose daughter isn’t even sick.
The problem is, the entire book makes a solid case for one scenario, and it’s as if the author just wanted to be done with this book and choked on the ending in the worst possible way.
The trauma our protagonist was living with made absolutely no sense, no one would die in the scenario she describes at the end, I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to ruin this for anyone else.
The other problem is how idiotic our protagonist proves herself to be, again, completely and totally unbelievable, would not happen. This woman is a journalist for The Guardian! She would never make the kinds of idiotic mistakes our main character “Jody” makes.
And finally, that ending was like getting slapped in the face.
It betrayed everything already proven and established throughout the book, and it just ends with her suddenly having some total paradigm shift and everything we just read was somehow not real????
Give me a break! You left the cat in car both literally and figuratively on this one.
The only thing worse that a truly terrible book, is a really interesting book, loaded with potential that is squandered totally as the chapters progress and is thrown out a window in the final moments.
I was so upset by this ending (I mean really??? What ABOUT THE CAT???) I’m seriously never going to so much as consider purchasing another word this author writes.
I stayed up two nights listening to this truly believing that things would all make sense in the end, instead, I was even more confused and totally outraged.
It was lazy, and rushed, thoughtless, and completely disrespectful to these characters as well as to the reader (and the poor cat)
Never again.
No cats left in cars people, not on my watch.

Interesting story

Decent suspense. Took a while for it to really get my attention but stuck with it and the story was good. The ending was a bit abrupt but still a good story.

A ridiculous ending

Wasn't much of a mystery where this was going. It moved so slow and one ridiculous thing after another that I'm supposed to believe are remotely possible.

Then cranks up the crazy nonsense at the end, was like a really really bad lifetime movie that didn't even try.