I am fairly new to reading thrillers. I have spent a great deal of my life struggling with anxiety, so I naturally avoided any books I thought might make that worse. So no thrillers. However, in the last few years, I've discovered that I can read them without giving myself nightmares (yay recovery!), so every once in awhile I'll pick one up. 

And I'm so glad I did. 

Jane Holland's Girl Number One is a fantastic psychological thriller that grabbed me early on and kept me reading through to the end. It wasn't overly creepy or too obvious. It has just the right balance of unease and tension. I highly recommend this book--it's the best thriller I've read yet. 

It centers on Ellie Blackwood, a young woman who has returned to her hometown after university (it's set in the UK, so be prepared for the culture shock). She's young and strong, a phys ed teacher who knows martial arts, so she's not easily rattled. She even goes running in the woods by herself. On the anniversary of her mother's murder. In the woods where her mother's body was left by her killer. 

Ellie had been there that day. She had been walking in the woods with her mother, and when her mother saw who was coming after her, she told six-year-old Ellie to run, so Ellie ran. Eventually she got tired and scared and wanted her mother, so she had made her way back to where her mother was in the woods. It was too late. Her mother lay there, no longer breathing. 

Fast-forward eighteen years, and Ellie is in the woods again. Again there is a body, in the same place as her mother's had been. She runs for help, and the police searches turn up nothing. No body. No trace that one had been there. Ellie's head spins. Did it really happen? Was it just her imagination? Was she going mad? Or was someone targeting her, making sure that she stays off balance, making her a target? 

If you want to know, read the book. It's already a bestseller in the UK. I can understand why,. 

Galleys for Girl Number One were provided by the publisher through NetGalley.com.