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Elizabeth Day

Magpie: The Sunday Times bestselling psychological thriller - the perfect holiday read this summer Paperback – 28 April 2022

by Elizabeth Day (Author)

6,979 ratings

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'Completely, terrifyingly BRILLIANT’
Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups

‘I didn’t want it to end’
Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women and Animal

‘Magnificent: I read it in one sitting’
Kate Mosse, author of The City of Tears

When Marisa meets Jake, everything falls into place. But then their new lodger Kate arrives.

Something isn’t right about her. It’s the way she looks at Jake, keeps her toothbrush right next to theirs and constantly asks questions about the baby they are trying for. Or maybe it’s all in Marisa’s head. That’s what Jake thinks. And she trusts him, doesn’t she?

But Marisa knows something is wrong, and she is determined to find out why, even if it costs her everything.

'A very elegant, tense, literary thriller'
Sarah Vaughan, author of Anatomy of a Scandal

‘Utterly engrossing, a thick sense of dread unfurling from every page’
Refinery29

‘I literally couldn’t put this down’
Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

‘A compelling, twisting read’
Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library

‘Sharp, twisty … Impossible to put down’
Daily Mail

‘A pulse-quickening tale’
Stylist

‘Sharp and sinister’
Mail on Sunday

‘A pacy, stylish thriller’
Observer

‘Scintillating’
The Sunday Times, Thriller of the Month

‘A compassionately crafted psychological drama’
Harper’s Bazaar

‘I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough’
Prima Magazine

‘Be prepared for a sleight-of-hand-twist that will leave you gasping’
Red Magazine

Sunday Times bestseller 06/09/2021

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Fourth Estate
Publication date

28 April 2022
Dimensions

12.9 x 2.1 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0008374988
ISBN-13

978-0008374983
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Product description

Review

'I raced through Magpie. A very elegant, tense, literary thriller full of misdirection, unreliable witnesses, motherhood, madness, rage, and the most heart-breaking account of infertility I've read'
SARAH VAUGHAN, AUTHOR OF ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL

‘A dark, sleek, ever-tightening spiral …Completely, terrifyingly BRILLIANT’
MARIAN KEYES, AUTHOR OF GROWN UPS

‘Elizabeth Day has written that rare book I always go hunting for, something that will keep me breathless with suspense but also buoyant with good energy. It is both sinister and comforting, outrageous but grounded, with a head-spinning plot twist…Magpie is a book that needed to exist in the world. It is the book that was missing’
LISA TADDEO, AUTHOR OF THREE WOMEN AND ANIMAL

‘Magpie is a clever, suspenseful read with a brilliant central pivot and a keen eye for relationships, including the toxic ones. A compelling, twisting read’
MATT HAIG, author of The Midnight Library and The Comfort Book

‘Superbly taut and well-written, noirish with a big and beating heart’
JESSIE BURTON, AUTHOR OF THE MINIATURIST AND THE CONFESSION

‘An absorbing exploration of infertility and mental illness combined with the pace and plot of a heart-racing thriller … I literally couldn’t put this down. Sublime’
SARA COLLINS, AUTHOR OF THE CONFESSIONS OF FRANNIE LANGTON

‘The most mind-blowing book of the year’
JOANNA CANNON, AUTHOR OF THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP AND THREE THINGS ABOUT ELSIE

‘Magpie is tightly plotted, crackling with an uneasy tension, and has an ingenious twist you won’t see coming. Stylish, sinister, and clever, this is a sublime thriller’
LOUISE O’NEILL, AUTHOR OF AFTER THE SILENCE

‘Magnificent. Clever, beautifully-crafted, gripping, warm: I read it in one sitting’
KATE MOSSE, AUTHOR OF THE CITY OF TEARS

Book Description

The Sunday Times bestselling psychological thriller - the perfect holiday read this summer

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fourth Estate; 1st edition (28 April 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0008374988
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0008374983
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 2.1 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 4 in Conceiving & Infertility
- 45 in Women's Literary Fiction (Books)
- 55 in Romantic Suspense (Books)

Customer reviews:
6,979 ratings

About the author

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Elizabeth Day

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Elizabeth Day is an author, journalist and broadcaster.

Her memoir, How To Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is a Sunday Times top 5 bestseller and has been described as ‘life-changing’ by critics. Her debut novel Scissors, Paper, Stone won a Betty Trask Award. Her follow-up, Home Fires was an Observer Book of the Year. Her third, Paradise City was named one of the best novels of 2015 in the Observer and the Evening Standard, and was People magazine's Book of the Week. Her fourth novel, The Party was an Amazon bestseller and a Richard and Judy Summer Book Club pick. It has been optioned for television.

Her chart-topping podcast, How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, is a celebration of the things that haven't gone right and won the Rising Star Award at the 2019 British Podcast Awards.

Elizabeth is a columnist for You magazine on the Mail on Sunday and a feature writer for numerous publications in the UK and US including The Telegraph, The Times, the Guardian, New York Magazine, the Observer, Vogue, Grazia and Elle. She is a contributing editor for Harper's Bazaar.

Elizabeth grew up in Northern Ireland and her first job was for The Derry Journal. She won a British Press Award in 2004 for Young Journalist of the Year and was Highly Commended as Feature Writer of the Year in 2013. She has a ginger cat called Huxley who approves this message.

@elizabday

www.elizabethdayonline.co.uk

Customer reviews

5 star		38%
4 star		33%
3 star		20%
2 star		6%
1 star		3%

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Rosy

Lazy, contrived nonsense

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2021

Verified Purchase

This plot is ridiculous. The character Marissa has become a surrogate with an agency (who apparently don't do any background checks) despite the fact that she has serious psychiatric illness. However, the way this illness is described is completely unrealistic. It doesn't actually say what diagnosis she is supposed to have. Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are vaguely mentioned but the relevant part is that it includes psychosis. It really makes me so angry when writers use a contrived misrepresentation of mental illness as a device so they can have a character behave any way that will fit in with the plot. It is not only lazy but insensitive. Anyway, so this very unwell woman becomes unhinged and violent having stopped taking her antipsychotic medication for the sake of a healthy pregnancy and instead of contacting the police or a hospital, the couple decide to kidnap her, drug her and wait out the pregnancy so she can sign legal documents relinquishing all rights to her child and making them full legal guardians. Despite the fact that she is being "treated" by Jake's father (not a psychiatrist but a retired G.P., not in a psychiatric unit but their house in the cou ntry), she makes a miraculous recovery. They don't bother to tell the obstetrician or anybody else about the illness or all the major tranquilizers she's been taking and the baby is delivered without a hitch to the sound of 90s r&b music. She hands over the baby without a second glance and the legal arrangement is apparently all above board despite her being completely delusional just a few short months previously. Everything in the plot is too easy. It's lazy and it's ridiculous. Some of the worst bs I've ever read. Sorry I wasted my money on it.

152 people found this helpful

Helpful

Cathy Kennedy

No way lived up to the reviews

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 October 2021

Verified Purchase

So many superlatives were heaped on this book's cover that having read it ,I wondered if they read an entirely different book. I have the distinct feeling that the author has watched the same surrogate movies on prime video that I have. Surrogate reneges on the deal/is psycho/falls in love with husband/fantasises ..blah blah and so on. So much out there to construct a novel such as this. And the book is meticulously constructed, and well researched too in terms of IVF process and treatment but all of that does not a good novel make !! So much cliche, one dimensional characters and predictable twists and formulaic show but not tell.
Chicklit !

68 people found this helpful

Helpful

SL

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2021

Verified Purchase

I am a fan of Elizabeth Day's writing and was looking forward to Magpie as the synopsis sounded great. This was a disappointing read that descended to pretty low levels of predictable domestic suspense. I started skim reading pretty early on and gave up after the twist. The entire section on infertility did nothing to further the plot and was shoehorned in for unknown reasons. Though I didn't finish it, I gave it two stars because I think the writing is good. It may appeal to others but I won't be reading anything else by this author.

53 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Six for Gold -if I could add an extra star)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2021

Verified Purchase

I was feeling quite smug when I started the book. I was second guessing where the plot was going. Sure enough something happened and I thought 'predictable. I was right'. Then when I returned to the book and read on, it seemed not only had I been led down a hall of mirrors , I'd been played like a Stradivarius. Very difficult to write a review without spoilers but I will say the subject issues were introduced with the right balance of red herrings and suspense leading to a satisfactory conclusion on many levels. The characters were very believable .This story would make an excellent TV drama.

26 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Gripping????

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 October 2021

Verified Purchase

It annoys me when books are allowed to be advertised as the most gripping psychological thriller of the year when they are nothing of the sort. This book is tedious and repetitive. I feel cheated as I bought it because of it's description. I had to skim through it trying in vain to find the gripping parts.

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

MM Buyer

Excellent story telling and great plot

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 September 2021

Verified Purchase

The act of collecting and keeping is the backdrop of the story, not as the nursery rhythm goes, one for sorrow, two for joy that I will use later to structure and write my review.

First the plot, Marisa meets Jake and after a whirlwind romance they move in together and decide to start a family, but as money gets tighter, they agree to take in a lodger Kate. But something is not right, and Marisa gets a feeling of unease when the closeness of her partner, Jake, and Kate becomes apparent. You might guess what happens next and I almost put down the book for an unimaginative plot then the whole thing turned on its head as we deal with mental health, fertility, love, and acceptance, with as much anticipation as any thriller.

One for sorrow – there is a clever plot but an underlying sadness to the story which is dealt with brilliantly by the author.
“… happiness was transient, and she would find this out when the lodger came”.

Two for joy – whilst possessing a darkness, the story also possesses one of hope, acceptance, and healing. We see kindness in the characters and joy for this reader !!!!

Three for a girl – The character development of the women in the story was excellent. We have the partner and the lodger who inevitability clash because something is not quite right about Kate. The way she stands and sits too close to Jake. The way the two of them stop talking when she enters the room, but they find an accommodation – but over what?

Four for a boy – Jake the central male character navigates his way very cleverly through a difficult and distressing period, so hats off to the author for not creating intriguing female characters at the expense of a weak male character.

Five for silver, and as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining, and so does the story of the 3 central characters.

Six for Gold – this was gold standard story telling. I loved the plot, the characters, the themes of infertility and mental health that were dealt with so sensitively in the story and the writing style of the author. We also have a reference to the "... golden Buddha, shining out from the centre. Peace she thinks."

Seven for a secret never to be told. Well, no spoilers by me, but this is a book well worth reading. Highly recommended.

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

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Elizabeth Day

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