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With You Always

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With You Always

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Overview

From the author of The Girl Before comes a tense and incisive work of psychological suspense that examines how easy it is to fall into the wrong relationship...and how impossible it can be to leave.

In the wake of a painful breakup and struggling to prove herself at work, Julia feels adrift. When Bryce blows into her life, he seems like the perfect anchor. Handsome, charming, secure, and confident, Bryce brings out the best in Julia, sweeping her off her feet with attention and affection while grounding her with his certainty and faith. Together they embark on a path guided by the principles of his family and their church, each step a paving stone leading to happily ever after.

But this is no fairy tale.

Step by step, one small concession leading to another, Julia is slowly isolated from her job, her friends, and her family, until she comes to find that her dream come true is a cage. Then one day everything changes...and Julia is faced with no choice but to find a way out.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101982396
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Rena Olsen is the author of The Girl Before, a Booklist top mystery debut of 2016. Olsen grew up moving around every few years, following her minister father from church to church, and her exposure to so many different people and environments sparked an interest in human nature. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in marriage and family therapy. A licensed therapist, she works in Des Moines, Iowa.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

Excerpted from "With You Always"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Rena Olsen.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

06/04/2018
Olsen follows her debut, The Girl Before, with a tale of domestic abuse set in rural New York that suffers from a predictable plot, a bland female narrator, and abusive characters who behave in stereotypical ways. Aspiring graphic designer Julia is swept off her feet by rich and charismatic, if cryptic, lawyer Bryce Covington, and drawn into his community at the Church of the Life, led by the reverend and his wife, whom Bryce considers his parents, and eventually into the mystical Gathering, in which chosen members commune with God. But after they marry, Bryce’s controlling jealousy and the church’s attitudes on wifely behavior isolate Julia from work, friends, family, and medical help for the injuries Bryce causes her, while Julia’s secret delving into Bryce’s history reveals his dark and violent past. Tense snippets of story that share bits of Bryce’s childhood or telegraph Julia’s final acts aren’t enough to build complexity, and Olsen’s depiction of Julia’s mental state rarely evokes the depth of conflicted feelings or fear that would make the novel affecting. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for With You Always

“Compulsively readable.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The psychological suspense ramps up to the final pages....Olsen, whose debut was The Girl Before (2016), has another page-turner here.”—Booklist

Praise for The Girl Before

“Easily the most disturbing and unsettling book I have read this year....As in the best suspense novels, there are mysteries within mysteries, and all is not what it seems—not to Clara, and definitely not to the reader.”—BookPage, A BookPage Best Mystery of 2016

“Gripping...A powerful, moving debut by therapist Olsen in which cruelty is counterbalanced by compassion and love.”—Booklist (starred review)

“[A] thoughtful look at victims and perpetrators and the difficulties that arise for someone who is both at once....[The Girl Before] moves at the pace of a mystery, but the novel is strongest when it allows Clara to unpack her past and consider who she will be going forward. A moving story of recovery and responsibility.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] suspenseful but disturbing debut.”—Publishers Weekly

“I couldn't put it down. The novel is compelling, perplexing, and ultimately uplifting! The unusual structure is a perfect match for the magnetic voice of the central character. I predict this daring debut novel will make Rena Olsen “the girl ahead” among psychological suspense authors.”—Karen Harper, New York Times bestselling author of Upon a Winter’s Night

From the Publisher

2018-05-15
In Olsen's (The Girl Before, 2016) second novel, a woman learns that her handsome new husband isn't quite what he seems, and then some.When career-minded Julia Hawthorne meets lawyer Bryce Covington by chance while on a work break one day, she's immediately struck by how handsome he is and how gentlemanly he seems to be. To her delight, he asks her out, and after a few blissful dates, Julia is smitten, and evidently, so is Bryce. Everything would be perfect if it weren't for the fact that Julia's sister, Kate, with whom she's very close, is suspicious of Bryce. Kate claims that Bryce seems contrived and too perfect and points out that he never talks about himself. Julia chalks it up to the fact that her ex (and only other serious boyfriend), Jake, was charming too at first, and that ended in disaster. Julia is thrilled when Bryce invites her to meet his parents, the enigmatic Reverend and his wife, Nancy. They mostly raised him, but they aren't his biological parents, and they run the Church of the Life. When Bryce invites her to attend, she's open to the experience, though she's not overly religious, and the experience is a revelation. The congregation makes her feel welcome, and she instantly feels like part of the family. In a creepy turn, she's later invited to participate in the Gathering, where the congregants eat strange-tasting wafers, drink bitter wine, and then, in euphoria, speak in tongues and attempt to achieve Oneness with God. As she becomes entwined with the church, she quits her job and becomes isolated from her friends and family, especially after she and Bryce get married. As Bryce becomes more controlling, Julia blames herself for nearly all of his bad behavior. Even when he starts hitting her. When Julia begins to dig into Bryce's past, all hell breaks loose. Readers will cringe as they turn the pages in hopes that Julia gets out before it's too late to reclaim herself and her life.A somewhat predictable yet compulsively readable story of a woman in way over her head.

Kirkus Reviews