Book Review: The Woman in the Park | Teresa Sorkin & Tullan Holmqvist

A married woman, a mysterious stranger, a murder… Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist wrote a slam-dunk five-star thriller that kept my mind spinning to the very last delightfully twisted page. Once you pick up The Woman in the Park, you won’t be able to put it down!

About the Book

Manhattanite Sarah Rock is going through a tough time. She is certain her husband Eric is having an affair with his younger coworker Juliette. Her kids are away from home at boarding school. She’s so lonely. To fill her time in between preparing for her weekends with the kids, events with her husband, and appointments with her therapist, Sarah sometimes takes a book to Central Park to read.

One day, Sarah is reading in the park when she is approached by a handsome and mysterious stranger named Lawrence. He strikes up a conversation about her book, Thérèse
Raquin, which he has read before. After the most authentic and intriguing adult conversation Sarah has had in ages, she finds herself thinking about Lawrence more and more. Running into eachother again in the park, it begins to become a regular thing, and before long the two strike up a steamy affair.

But when the police show up at Sarah’s door a few weeks later investigating the murder of a woman whom Sarah saw in the park, things begin to unravel. The woman is somehow connected to Lawrence. Sarah hasn’t heard from Lawrence in a while, and now she starts to wonder if there is more to this affair than she realized.

As Sarah finds herself accused of this serious crime, her view of what is true and what are lies becomes distorted. Sarah needs to find out what is going on, if she can keep it together long enough…

Reflection

Coming in at 250 pages, the authors don’t waste a paragraph of this book on a throwaway moment. Every single sentence kept me glued to the pages. Truly, this is one of my favorite books of 2019! Twisted, dark, and disorienting in the most delightful and salacious way.

I want to add as a side note that the weaving of Thérèse Raquin into this novel was brilliant. I have read that book several years back, and I instantly loved the way this story drew elements from it in a subtle but brilliant way. If you haven’t read it and you enjoy this book, I highly recommend going back and reading it!

Back to the book at hand…

There’s no omniscient narrator in this book, which meant that I was never totally certain what to believe and what was happening. The writing is brilliant! How two authors collaborated in such a tightly woven story and kept the writing so flawless, I’ll never know! I wish I could ask them how they did it, because this is one of the most seamless dual-authored novels I’ve ever read.

The psychologist in me was obsessed with Sarah as the main character. Sarah isn’t unreliable in the way of lying to the reader, but she is unreliable in the sense that she is struggling a bit with her mental health, and so I found myself never really trusting her reporting of the events. Sarah is paranoid, she has gaps in time, and she’s a bit erratic. But there is something so pure and vulnerable about Sarah, that I felt my heart wanting to reach into the book and protect her.

But from who??

That’s the key to this book! What exactly is going on? Obviously, I’m not going to tell you, but I want to say this: I read a LOT of thrillers and I have seen a lot of twists, and I didn’t even come close to guessing what was happening in this book. Masterful! I thought I had it all figured out, and then suddenly everything turned over and then twisted again. The entire last third of the book is impossible to put down for even a moment!

A truly twisted ride that left me so satisfied, and simultaneously wanting more from these authors! I am blown away!!!

Thank you to the authors and to Suzy Approved Book Tours for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About Teresa Sorkin

For as long as Teresa can remember she has loved the world of storytelling.  Her passion for writing began at an early age. She loves Teresa Sorkin’s passion is stories – creating, writing, telling, sharing and producing them.Teresa went on to study Marketing and Writing at New York University and with her degree she landed a job at RAI Italian Television as a television host and producer.  She worked as a News Producer and worked on documentaries that highlighted her love of telling a story through images and prose. She later went on to develop television and film for MTV, A&E and sold her screenplays to various studios including Miramax. 

Teresa has produced shows for various American networks, including MTV and Bravo. She helped develop “The Hills” and “Girl, Get Your Mind Right!,” which aired in 15 different countries. She has worked on many projects under first look deals with The Weinstein Company and DIGA, run by Tony Disanto and Liz Gately. She was a journalist and news producer for many years working on many significant international news stories.

In early 2000’s, Teresa took courses in screenwriting and production and proceeded to help pro- duce Jay-Z’s documentary, “Fade to Black”. Shortly after, she was offered a first look deal with The Weinstein Company, where she created ideas for film, scripted and reality TV until its recent filing. She has helped cast and produce for companies like Bungalow Media and Tru Entertainment. She also created her own show “The X Effect” and sold her first screenplay to Ben Affleck’s production company.

Teresa received her degree in Marketing and Media from New York University (NYU). While studying at Bocconi University in Milan, she modeled During one of her shows, a producer from RAI TV tapped her to be their fashion and entertainment correspondent. She then hosted her own entertainment show at RAI for several years, where she interviewed Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise and many other celebrities.

When Teresa isn’t working on the best next story, she spends time with her husband Ian and two children Jaden and Isabella and their dog Coco.

https://teresasorkin.com/

Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewomaninthepark/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/teresasorkin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeresaSorkin

About Tullan Homqvist

Tullan Holmqvist is an investigator, writer and actor and is the coauthor of the psychological thriller novel and screenplay The Woman in the Park with producer Teresa Sorkin. Tullan’s work as a private investigator has included global fraud investigations, financial due diligence and art cases. She has a master’s degree in political science from the University of Florence; literature and language degrees from universities in France and Italy; and screenwriting and acting studies at New York University, Boston University, Michael Howard and HB Studios. Originally from Sweden, Tullan lives in New York with her composer-attorney husband Giovanni and two sons.

https://www.tullanh.com/

Social Media:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/tullanh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tullanh