As recollections of her past collide with new revelations, Clara must question everything she thought she knew, to come to terms with the truth of her history and to summon the strength to navigate her future. We see her now, sequestered in an institution, questioned by men and women who call her a different name-Diana-and who accuse her husband of unspeakable crimes. We see her growing up, raised with her sisters by the stern Mama and Papa G, becoming a poised and educated young woman, falling desperately in love with the forbidden son of her adoptive parents. In chapters that alternate between past and present, the novel slowly unpeels the layers of Clara’s fractured life. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. wasn’t?Ĭlara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. As recollections of her past collide with new revelations, Clara must question everything she thought she knew, to come to terms with the truth of her history and to summon the strength to navigate her future.In this powerful psychological suspense debut, when a woman’s life is shattered, she is faced with a devastating question: What if everything she thought was normal and good and true.

Her debut novel, THE GIRL BEFORE, will be available from Putnam. By day she tries to save the world as a school therapist, and at night she creates new worlds in her writing. When career-minded Julia Hawthorne meets lawyer Bryce Covington by chance while on a work break one day, she’s immediately struck by how handsome he is and how gentlemanly he seems to be. wasn’t?Ĭlara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Rena Olsen is a writer, therapist, teacher, sometimes singer, and eternal optimist. In Olsen’s ( The Girl Before, 2016) second novel, a woman learns that her handsome new husband isn’t quite what he seems, and then some. In this powerful psychological suspense debut, when a woman’s life is shattered, she is faced with a devastating question: What if everything she thought was normal and good and true.

The Girl Before by Rena Olsen