Woman on the Edge by Samantha M. Bailey

Woman on the Edge by Samantha M. Bailey

Genre: Suspense/General adult fiction

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: March 3, 2020

About Woman on the Edge

A moment on the platform changes two lives forever. But nothing is as it seems…

‘Take my baby.’

In a split second, Morgan’s life changes forever. A stranger hands her a baby, then jumps in front of a train.

Morgan has never seen the woman before and she can’t understand what would cause a person to give away her child and take her own life.

When the police question Morgan, she discovers none of the witnesses can corroborate her version of events. And when they learn Morgan longs for a baby of her own, she becomes a suspect.

To prove her innocence, Morgan frantically tries to retrace the last days of the woman’s life. She begins to understand that Nicole Markham believed she and her baby were in danger. Now Morgan might be in danger, too.

Was Nicole a new mother struggling with paranoia?

Or was something much darker going on?

Pulse-pounding, heartrending, shocking, thrilling. This is one book you won’t be able to stop thinking about.  (from Goodreads)

My thoughts

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for a copy of Woman on the Edge in exchange for an honest review. 

Post-Partum Depression/Psychosis

I’ll admit it: I do not have an impartial view of this subject matter. As someone who has a mental illness (bipolar II) and who has dealt with postpartum depression, I can not judge Nicole. Nor can I say that this is an unlikely or melodramatic scenario.

Some reviewers say Nicole should realize that her mental state is disintegrating. Or that she lacks common sense. Or that others around her wouldn’t overlook her disturbed mental state. These sound unduly harsh to me.

A mentally ill person might not realize how bad her mental state is. It’s difficult to judge from the inside out, especially when one’s mind is lying and not fully grasping reality. If people close to the mentally ill person don’t take positive action (rather than walking away, as Nicole’s acquaintances/friends/family do), then the ill person may have no resources to reach out for help: no energy, no ideas, nothing.

And yes, people will walk by an obviously hurting person. Even people you know. Believe me, that hurts. Plus, it minimizes the pain, as if others think the person should simply “get over it” and “deal with it.” As if the person–exhausted, edgy, isolated–knows how to handle it.

(How many times have you passed someone who looks disheveled, distraught, and desperate? Maybe you knew them. Maybe not. But you were too busy to help? Too afraid? Too uncertain? Sadly, I admit that I’ve done this.)

Anyway, here’s my point:

Nicole’s increasingly distraught and isolated state resonated with me. It felt real. Raw. It mattered to me in ways that novel conflicts rarely do, no matter how well-crafted they are.

It broke my heart seeing how delusional and mentally broken Nicole becomes. Knowing that her death is coming makes it all the worse. I kept wanting to beg her to live, plead with her for her baby’s sake, and snatch her away from the edge where she teeters, mentally, emotionally, and physically. If I could’ve reached through the words on the page and grabbed her, I would’ve.

I couldn’t. But the author made me want to do that. Despite any unsympathetic, self-sabotaging choices Nicole makes, despite any seeming dumb mistakes, despite anything else, Nicole Markham had my sympathy.

Morgan had my sympathy, too. (This is another woman who is often makes dumb choices; ignoring one’s attorney’s advice to leave investigations to the police is a bad idea, but most fictional protagonists do a horrible job following a lawyer’s orders!)

Ryan, her late husband, killed himself. A financial broker, he had embezzled clients’ funds to invest in a corrupt hedge fund. When that went badly, and everyone–including family–who had trusted him lost everything, he died, leaving Morgan to be a suspect in his scheme. She didn’t know what he was doing. Almost no one believes her. As a result, she’s been found guilty in the court of public opinion, though not in court.

She judges herself harshly, too. But the emotions she feels echo what I’ve heard from suicide survivors: Why did they do it? Why didn’t I see? Could I have stopped it? Honestly, she seems to be suffering from PTSD and needs therapy ASAP. She’s also longing for a child but unable to have one. At points, her grief seems to overwhelm her personality.

Even her attorney doesn’t fully trust her. Morgan is as alone as Nicole. The author does a great job painting a picture of a woman who is lonely, even when standing on a crowded platform, waiting for a train.

There are issues with the story, of course.

Certain twists are obvious to anyone who reads many suspense/thriller novels.

I also never understood the motivations of certain supporting characters. Without giving spoilers, I can’t say much. But I felt like the antagonistic characters’ motivations weren’t fleshed out enough. I didn’t feel that I had enough information to see the full picture of what had been happening outside of Nicole’s and Morgan’s points of view. As a result, the ending felt rushed.

There are other aspects that seem unbelievable. The detective who investigates both Nicole’s death and Ryan’s suicide seems intent on blaming Morgan for both the death and embezzlement. Yet even supposing Morgan was complicit with her late husband and helped steal other people’s investments and squander it in an corrupt hedge fund, there’s a huge difference between fraud and murder. It does not logically follow that a thief would become a killer.

As well, there is a lot of backstory introduced early in the book. While it is important, it felt like too much, too soon for me.

Yet despite the flaws, Woman on the Edge haunts me.

This is a story about grief and regrets, and what makes one person able to move past those traumas and another person succumb to them. I am willing to overlook many writing flaws because of my emotional connection with these characters. It was a powerful, poignant experience for me to journey alongside these two women. It will haunt me for a long time.

If you like this book, check out my review for The Sunday Girl by Pip Drysdale.