Give Me Your Hand

By: Megan Abbott

Narrated by: Chloe Cannon

A life-changing secret destroys an unlikely friendship in this "magnetic" psychological thriller from the Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and The Turnout (Meg Wolitzer).

You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.

Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her.

But now someone else is standing in her way: Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret -- the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine -- and it blew their friendship apart.

Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for.

How far would Kit go to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn't she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: it's in the blood . . .

Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award

Critic reviews

"The latest thriller from the ever-impressive Megan Abbott....Abbott sows suspense by shifting between past and present, demonstrating how life's earlier acts affect future ones."—Wall Street Journal

"A spectacular thriller . . . Give Me Your Hand is a nuanced and atmospheric story about the lure of big dreams, especially for women."—NPR's Fresh Air

"Abbott's trademark elements of darkness in her complex protagonists shine here."—Seattle Review of Books

"Abbott proves she's still the queen of uncovering the dark complexity of the female psyche with her new novel."—Los Angeles Review of Books

"Trust the nimble Abbott to elevate this smart page-turner beyond catfight into a tense battle between morality and ambition."—People, Book of the Week

"[Give Me Your Hand] should cement [Abbott's] position as one of the most intelligent and daring novelists working in the crime genre today."—Ruth Ware, New York Times Book Review

"Abbott, who always immerses readers in hothouse subcultures in her novels - cheerleading, gymnastics - here explores the relationship between competitive scientists at a cutthroat university laboratory."—New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice

"[A] nuanced tale of soured friendships, blood-soaked ambition, and desperate murders from Thriller Award-winner Abbott...No writer can touch Abbott in the realm of twisted desire and relationships between women, both intimate and feral."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This is a stellar book...This book is loaded with terrifying brilliance, and it's one of my very favorite Abbott reads for the way it so sharply fuses its setting to its characters and ideas."—Entertainment Weekly

"In Abbott's deft hands, friendship is fused to rivalry, and ambition to fear, with an unsettling level of believability. It will take more than a cold shower to still the blood thumping in your ears when you finish this."—Kirkus, Starred Review

"In Give Me Your Hand, Abbott again shows why she's one of our best story tellers"—Associated Press

"Bloodthirsty"—Family Circle, Best Books of the Summer

"Once again, Abbott plunges us deep into a vividly realized world of intense competition and creates life-or-death stakes where we wouldn't have known to look for them...this is a brilliant riff on hard science, human nature, and the ultimate unknowability of the human brain."—Booklist, Starred Review

"it's pure suspense hinging on terrifyingly real characters."—Vulture

"Abbott writes high school well, and her alternating then/now chapters balance teenage perception and identity with the extreme competition of the adult scientific world."—Newsday

Will keep you on the edge of your earbuds

Another thriller from Megan Abbott. High stakes academia. Deep friendship. Tied together with one twisted knot after another.

Pretty Good

I enjoyed this book, for the most part, and finished it. Was it a realistic premise? No, but since it's fiction, that's all right. The writing was solid, not literature, but the author did a good job. The pacing was fine, as well.

Too long and unbelievable

It will grab you, and I finished even when I didn't want to because I wanted to see what happened but it lacks credibility in many plot twists and isn't worth the time for me.

As a woman in stem I liked it

I enjoyed the science terms and reality of women in stem as just an assumed part of the story. I can definitely relate to some of the struggle

I give this writer my hand every time

Another riveting suspense thriller. Genius through and through. If you like Gillian Flynn you’ll like this one.