Give Me Your Hand

Starred review from May 21, 2018
Kit Owens and Diane Fleming, the protagonists of this nuanced tale of soured friendships, blood-soaked ambition, and desperate murder from Thriller Award–winner Abbott (You Will Know Me), were once fast friends—until Diane tells Kit a secret so dark that it shatters their friendship, sending Kit into a minor tailspin. But high school is drawing to a close, and Kit hopes she’ll never see Diane again. Fast-forward more than a decade, and Kit is working in a lab under the impressive Dr. Lena Severin. When a new grant is announced to study premenstrual dysphoric disorder, Kit can hardly contain her shock as Diane reappears as a newly poached superstar from a competing lab. Kit and Diane each want coveted spots on Dr. Severin’s PMDD research team, and as the only women in the male-dominated lab, they must deal with their colleagues’ thinly veiled misogyny. When Diane’s secret pulses to the surface, lives are lost and futures are put in doubt in a mad rush to keep the past in its place. No writer can touch Abbott in the realm of twisted desire and relationships between women, both intimate and feral. Agent: Daniel Conaway, Writer’s House.

Narrator Chloe Cannon delivers an elegant and emotionally devastating performance of Abbott's latest psychological thriller. The story is told in the first person by Kit Owens, an up-and-coming lab scientist who is gunning for a coveted spot on a premenstrual dysphoric disorder research project. Cannon sounds so authentic that it's impossible not to be moved by Kit's aspirations. Fear and anxiety then creep into her voice as Diane Fleming, Kit's former high school friend and professional rival, joins the lab. As teenagers, Diane shared a terrible secret with Kit, and now their fractured relationship simmers with tension that boils over in shocking and unexpected ways. Through past and present timelines, Cannon captures Kit's increasing desperation to escape Diane's darkness and find a better life for herself. A.T.N. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

September 15, 2018

Abbott (You Will Know Me) fills her novel with concerns about and the reality of blood in many ways--including murder, of course. Focusing on a competition for a spot on a research team with a grant to study premenstrual dysmorphic disorder (PMDD), the story centers on frenemies Kit and Diane trying to impress the woman in charge of the project, their idol, Dr. Severin. Abbott moves back and forth with "then and now" sections to create the present tensions and backstories of these women who share old secrets and must hide new ones. The story line is compelling, but there are weaknesses that detract, including some predictability until a twist at the end. Kit, the main narrator, comes across with a lack of self-confidence and extraordinary jealousy that lead her to bad decisions. Diane is overly self-controlled, there and not there, in properly intriguing ways, haunting Kit throughout the years. The relationship between Diane and Dr. Severin is the bigger mystery here. Reader Chloe Cannon does a solid job. VERDICT Recommended for larger mystery collections. ["This novel adds to Abbott's reputation as a significant writer of suspense": LJ Xpress Reviews 6/8/18 review of the Little, Brown hc.]--Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.