Every day, Rachel takes the train into London and observes a beautiful couple who live in a house close to the tracks. She imagines their perfect life together and builds a fantasy around them.
But the couple -- and Rachel herself -- are keeping secrets that propel the breakneck plot of 2015's standout thriller, The Girl on the Train, all the way to its shocking finale.
The MashableReads social book club has selected The Girl on the Train as our first pick of 2015. Over the next month, we'll devour, discuss and digest the twists and turns of the novel on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Goodreads.
To finish our online discussion, we'll be joined by author Paula Hawkins for a live Google+ hangout Q&A on the book. If you're in the New York City area, stop by Mashable HQ, where Hawkins will attend a book club Meetup with other members of the MashableReads community.
Paula Hawkins' first novel released under her own name, Girl on the Train draws obvious comparisons to another famous Girl in fiction, Gillian Flynn's contagious psycho-thriller Gone Girl. While both books have complicated females at their core, Girl on the Train is also influenced by classic crime novels, Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor's film-noir classic Gaslight.
Told from the shifting perspectives of three women, each damaged and unreliable in her own way, Girl on the Train is the kind of book that will be impossible to put down until you've uncovered every shocking twist. Ultimately, it will leave you wondering if you know those with whom you share the deepest intimacies any better than you know strangers from the window of a passing train.
Read a clip below, then pick up your copy and join MashableReads for this roller coaster read.