After an assault in London, a young wife and mother wants better for her family. After publishing a well-received novel, she is offered a teaching position in a university up north. She has to move up there immediately to take the job. Her husband Mark balks. It would be difficult for him to find a high school teaching job right before the school term starts. She is disappointed, but she needs to get out of the city, so she heads north with their toddler Sammy, okay with being independent until the school weekends and school breaks, when Mark can join them.

She takes on several classes in addition to her fiction course for writers getting their masters degrees. It’s a diverse group, a few young men and a couple of young women, with projects from all corners of fiction. As a young teacher, she is aware of how small the age difference is between her and her students, so she tries to stay strong, to be helpful but not overly involved, to stay professionally distant.

And then she meets Nicholas Palmer, who doesn’t seem to have any qualms about crossing boundaries.

His dark, edgy novel makes others in the class uncomfortable, as does his attitude. She tries to rein him in, but she struggles with the fact that his writing is extraordinary. And when he takes her reticence as something more, the dynamics of the entire class falls apart. As the school year plods on, she finds her level of dread increasing. But is the danger only on the pages she reads, or does it extend into real life?

The Body Lies by Jo Baker is a revelation in thriller form. She takes a look at so many of the tropes in modern thrillers that seem to overly victimize female characters. From studying the trope of the naked female (young, beautiful) woman in the fiction class to looking at office politics, from glancing sideways at the systems that favor men to questioning the imbalanced stereotypes in relationships, Baker takes to task all the ways that society minimizes women, looks them dead on, and shows us that this is not good enough.

When I had finished this book, i was so happy that I had read it. It wasn’t always easy to read, but I think this is the most worthwhile book I’ve read in quite some time. Baker’s dedication to shining a light on women in fiction (and indeed, in life) is powerful and inspiring, and I recommend this beautiful novel to all readers, women and men. It will make you a better human being, and that’s something that will ultimately benefit us all.

Galleys for The Body Lies were provided by Penguin Random House through their First-To-Read Program, with many thanks.