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    The Sea of Lost Girls: A Novel
    The Sea of Lost Girls: A Novel
    The Sea of Lost Girls: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Sea of Lost Girls: A Novel

    Written by Carol Goodman

    Narrated by Natalie Naudus

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In the tradition of Daphne du Maurier, Shari Lapena, and Michelle Richmond comes a new thriller from the bestselling author of The Lake of Dead Languages—a twisty, harrowing story set at a prestigious prep school in which one woman's carefully hidden past might destroy her future.

    Tess has worked hard to keep her past buried, where it belongs. Now she’s the wife to a respected professor at an elite boarding school, where she also teaches. Her seventeen-year-old son, Rudy, whose dark moods and complicated behavior she’s long worried about, seems to be thriving: he has a lead role in the school play and a smart and ambitious girlfriend. Tess tries not to think about the mistakes she made eighteen years ago, and mostly, she succeeds.

    And then one more morning she gets a text at 2:50 AM: it’s Rudy, asking for help. When Tess picks him up she finds him drenched and shivering, with a dark stain on his sweatshirt. Four hours later, Tess gets a phone call from the Haywood school headmistress: Lila Zeller, Rudy's girlfriend, has been found dead on the beach, not far from where Tess found Rudy just hours before.

    As the investigation into Lila's death escalates, Tess finds her family attacked on all sides. What first seemed like a tragic accidental death is turning into something far more sinister, and not only is Tess’s son a suspect but her husband is a person of interest too. But Lila’s death isn't the first blemish on Haywood's record, and the more Tess learns about Haywood’s fabled history, the more she realizes that not all skeletons will stay safely locked in the closet.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 3, 2020
    ISBN9780062987785
    Author

    Carol Goodman

    Carol Goodman’s rich and prolific career includes novels such as The Widow’s House and The Night Visitor, winners of the 2018 and 2020 Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley, NY.

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    Reviews for The Sea of Lost Girls

    3.5/5

    114 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A twisty, harrowing story set at a prestigious prep school in which one woman’s carefully hidden past might destroy her future. Tess is a teacher and her husband is a professor at the school. She has a 17 year old son, Rudy, who is about to graduate from the school. Rudy's girlfriend, Lila, is found dead on the beach in Maine and 4 hours later Rudy and Tess's husband, Harmon, are the suspects. I found the book to be an easy read where the plot moves pretty quickly. The characters were very interesting. The school had a fabled history with many skeletons in the closet. The ending was a surprise and the best part of the book. I look forward to reading more from Carol Goodman and recommend this to those who like to read about murder at a elite boarding school. I would like to thank William Morrow Harper Collins Publisher for a free copy for an honest review.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Smart, literary-light thriller. Tightly plotted & more nuanced than most of this genre
    • 4/5
      The Sea Of Lost Girls- Carol Goodman
      ★★★★ When choosing books to read I always try to read reviews before I decide if it is a book I think I would want to read. Not so much as to determine the best books out there, But more so, to determine what I can expect out of a book. “The Sea Of Lost Girls” debuted March 2020. When viewing goodreads I had noticed in just two short months it had ONLY an average review of 3.5 stars. So, When diving into this book, I honestly didn’t expect much. I knew it was going to be a suspense thriller, and I have also heard really good things about Carol Goodman But, the reviews kind of shocked me. Here is the Summary of the Book in my eyes:
      A teenage girl who attends a private school seems to have fallen for a teacher. When the girl falls pregnant, she tries to tell the headmaster but is quickly shut down. (But, Why?). Instead, She goes to the teacher and they make a plan to run away. BUT, things don’t seem to go the way she had planned. The Man she loves seems to be obsessed with a story that dates back to when her private school was a refuge. She then sees herself in the story. With a newborn baby and all alone in a place she doesn’t know. Will she make the decision to flee?
      Years Later, the story has yet once again surfaced, but now it’s closer to home than she anticipated. With her now 17 year old son, His “friend” and her newer husband, she finds herself yet again caught up in the middle of the story but yet, there is another death. Who is guilty?

      Now, like I said after reviewing the reviews on this book, I did not have high hopes. But as the front cover of this book states…. Carol Goodman has “Enough shocking twists to leave you breathless. I loved it.”-Alsion Gaylin (award- winning author of “Never Look Back”

      Carol Is a Brilliant author who I will for sure read more of! This book does live up to what the front cover tells you. Even if the “WhoDunIt” was kind of obvious, Carol delivers it in a fantastic, thrill seeking, edge of your seat way!
    • 4/5
      The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman is a 2020 William Morrow publication.Twisty, atmospheric suspense-After surviving a painful past, Tess married a professor at prestigious boarding school, where she also teaches. Her troubled teenage son, Rudy, seems to be enjoying a period of stability until his girlfriend, Lila is found dead.Rudy instantly becomes a prime suspect. However, the police are also interested in speaking with Tess's husband, believing he might also have a motive to kill Lila.If that weren't bad enough, it would appear this is not the first time a female student has died at Haywood.Tess soon finds herself walking a tightrope, trying to keep her past buried, and protect her son and husband, and staying one step ahead of law enforcement and their probing questions.Tess is soon caught up in a vicious cat and mouse game as the walls start closing in on her.This is a taut novel of suspense with some nice twists that kept me invested in the story. There were a few minor lags here and there, but for the most part the story maintains a brooding sense of foreboding from start to finish.Tess is a great narrator, a terrific character whose strengths win out over her fear and vulnerabilities.Overall, this was an addicting novel I had a hard time putting down. Now that I have my first Carol Goodman novel under my belt, I am looking forward to reading more of her books!4 stars
    • 4/5
      Tess seems to have it all - a great husband, teenage son, nice teaching job at a private school and a great home. This was more than she ever dreamed of coming from the background she did and she will do almost anything to maintain this illusion of perfection and happiness. However, the death of his son's girlfriend brings all her secrets, as well as the myriad secrets of others, out into the open. I loved all of the twists and turns in this tale.
    • 4/5
      The Sea of Lost Girls has a very catchy beginning that hooked me right away. Tess gets a call from her teenage son, Rudy, in the middle of the night asking her to come pick him up. The situation surrounding why he wants to be picked up is suspicious, considering his clothes are wet. We quickly learn that her son’s girlfriend has been found murdered close to the area where Rudy was picked up and for a minute there, Rudy looks guilty.His stepfather looks guilty too. So do a couple of the other people in the story. In fact, there are so many twists and turns to this story, I changed my mind about what happened to Lila probably a dozen times. On top of all of that, Tess seems to be covering for some people by telling lies while also hoping other people are guilty. So I didn’t really feel like I could trust her 100% as the story unfolded.I love the way the book pulled me in as a mother who has three children that are similar in age to Rudy. What a horrific position to be in, having to pick up your child in the middle of the night, under suspicious circumstances! I also really liked the atmospheric and foggy tone this story had, since so much of it took place down by the water, near the forest. I also loved that it was paced so quickly, with short chapters. I always wanted to keep turning the pages to find out more, more, more information. I think there are a lot of characters with a lot of backstory, so I found myself confused in a few parts, trying to sort out different characters’ personal histories and how they crossed paths with Tess and Rudy and poor Lila. I wasn’t entirely surprised by the way everything ended up, although I wouldn’t have been able to say for sure it would and that way because of the twisty path it took to get there.Also, this is random, but I love the way different classical novels were brought up throughout the story (The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, for example). I love the classics so much so it was fun to see their themes incorporated in this narrative.I think people that enjoy quick, suspenseful, twisty stories may like this one as well as readers who enjoy the boarding school setting.I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you, William Morrow Books!
    • 3/5
      A prestigious school that hides many secrets and something even worse. Through the years young girls from the school have gone missing. Only one body ever found. A teacher who was once a student at the school who has many secrets of her own . Her son now attends the school and he has emotional battles of his own. When another young girl is found murdered after the presentation of the play, The Crucible, those who hold secrets are at risk of exposure.Was quite intrigued with this story, it was so jumbled, it was hard to tell which revelations mattered, which didn't. The trail is long and reveals a huge and detrimental system failure. Intrigued until near the end, until it became too convoluted. Another case of too much. After all lightening seldom strikes in the same place twice. I mean this figuratively not literally.Entertaining for the most part, but could've been better, imo.ARC from Edelweiss
    • 5/5
      The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman is a read that will keep you guessing, even when you might think you know who did it, and keep you turning pages. It is a quick read but, in some ways, one that you might should try to slow down a little while reading.I saw Tess referred to as an unreliable narrator, and I can't disagree, but I don't think she qualifies in the way that the term is usually intended. We often think of a narrator who is consciously telling a story to us and who either flat out lies or twists the truth to make their version absolve or vindicate themselves. This first person narration is more a case of us being inside her head as she thinks and acts, so what she says is what she tells herself. This is also where I think trying to slow down our reading is helpful so we don't think that she is lying to us when what she is doing is practicing what she intends to say to someone else. She may be preparing to lie to them, but she is not doing so to us. But we have to be cognizant of the framing of any story she tells, whether to herself or to another. I also am not a fan of using the empty phrase "she was unlikable" to judge a book. My problem with whether a character is likable or not as a judging tool is that we are mixing our reality with the world of the novel and not doing justice to the book. First of all, we are privy to far more information about a character in a book, particularly a first person narration, than we are about people up and down the street, even friends and some family. That extra information will likely bring out the blemishes in a person as well as any redeeming qualities. Fine, so I might decide I wouldn't like this person if I was in their world or if they were in mine. But neither is the case, so, who cares if I find the person likable or not? And I can feel, and usually do feel, empathy and compassion for people I don't like, and even some I actually dislike. So liking a character or not means little to nothing as a judging factor. Unless, of course, one only feels empathy and compassion for those one likes. If so, well, I'm sorry for everyone you know, hope they realize the shallowness of the person they share space with.Yes, Tess is a helicopter mom and believes she is doing so for valid reasons. Do I agree? I'm not sure, but I don't know what I would do if I had been traumatized and felt I needed to go to extremes to protect my child. Sometimes what we do to protect our children can have the opposite effect. But most of us aren't perfect enough to know this while we are going through it.The twists and turns in the plot were very well planned and executed well. Some, as I have also seen, could have been avoided if people had just talked to each other. Well, that is true of just about everything. But what seems so obvious to a reader while reading a fictional story wouldn't feel so obvious to that same person if they were going through it in real life. So I have no problem believing that people didn't want to "discuss" personal issues with other people. And some things are not easy to bring up when first getting to know someone, then when you're close to that person, they become difficult to bring up because they weren't brought up before. Well, for most of us who aren't perfect enough to know exactly what topics to discuss with every acquaintance we have at just the right time. But reviewers are apparently often perfect people and know exactly what they would have done and because of that they can't relate and can't empathize. Oh well, so sad.I highly recommend this to readers who like to be inside the head of the protagonist, blemishes and all, while a highly unusual series of events play out. The characters are mostly well rounded and there are none who come off as too good or, ultimately, too bad. Well, maybe a couple do come off as bad people, but they get theirs, so...Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.
    • 3/5
      I received this book through LTER. I enjoyed the first third or so, but then it just went all over the place. Lots of deliberate red herrings for distraction. Too many. I was not surprised about who the murderer was. I didn’t find the characters to be likeable, especially Tess. At one point I was beginning to think she was mentally ill, and not just a compulsive liar. And Luther’s fate seemed contrary to all we knew about him. It just didn’t make sense to me. Generally the read was pleasant enough, the general story line was interesting. But the characters were not compelling to me.
    • 3/5
      A fun quick read that unfolds the family secrets as it moves along. I found a few of the characters annoying, and was able to figure the killer pretty easily. I think "Lake of Dead Languages" was better.
    • 4/5
      This book definitely kept me guessing, with enough surprises throughout to keep my interest. I will definitely look for more books by Carol Goodman.
    • 3/5
      When Tess' teenage son Rudy calls her in the middle of the night to come pick him up, she's concerned, esp. when his clothes are drenched and he's somewhat vague about the events leading up to his call. When his friend/girlfriend Lila is found dead on the beach just a few hours later, Tess obviously becomes even more concerned, given Rudy's somewhat difficult past and moody temperament. As suspicion shifts amongst those within Lila's social circles, Tess isn't quite sure what to think. Further complicating things are Tess' own memories of her questionable and mysterious past, especially as they begin to intersect with the death investigation.This was a solid so-so novel for me. It was a quick read, and I did go back and forth with trying to figure out who was responsible for Lila's death, with a few red herrings thrown in along the way. Ultimately though, it was just an okay story with okay characters, none of which were particularly likeable. And though I've enjoyed some of Carol Goodman's books in the past and didn't dislike this one, it felt a little simplistic to me.
    • 3/5
      This was a quick little read on par with The Girl On The Train or maybe Gone Girl. It grabs you from the beginning but wasn’t that hard for me to figure who-done-it althoughthe story does a good job trying to lead you towards different suspects. If you are looking for a light, easy read with a little mystery and suspense that will keep you page turning you will probably enjoy this book.This was a early reviewers gift and I thank you.
    • 3/5
      I've read a few of Carol Goodman's books before and enjoyed them. This one was fine-- a little more angst driven than I prefer, but still a good book to cozy up with on a chilly November day. It did make me want to get up to Maine again and see that beautiful coastline once more (Rounded up for that in the star rating). Someday. But I won't cross the Nine Sisters on an incoming tide. Thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewer program for sending this.