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The Choice cover art

The Choice

Written by: Gillian McAllister
Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
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Publisher's Summary

From the author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick Wrong Place, Wrong Time, comes a captivating, ingenious novel about a woman who must make an impossible decision....

“A Sliding Doors thriller with a moral dilemma at its heart. Brilliant.”—Claire Douglas, author of Last Seen Alive

It's the end of a night out and Joanna is walking home alone. Then she hears the sound every woman dreads: footsteps behind her, getting faster. She's sure it's him—the man from the bar who wouldn't leave her alone. So Joanna makes a snap decision. She turns, she pushes. Her pursuer tumbles down the steps and lies motionless, facedown on the ground. Now what? 

Addictive and compelling, The Choice follows the two paths Joanna's future might take, depending on the choice she makes. If she calls the police right away, she can save the man's life. Yet doing so puts her own innocence at risk, as she waits for judgment on a charge of assault and the hope that her husband and everyone she loves will stand by her. But if she runs and goes home as if nothing has happened, no one will ever know. No one saw her do it, and it's only up to Joanna to keep quiet...forever.

“Almost unbearably tense.”—The New York Times Book Review

©2020 Gillian McAllister (P)2020 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

One of Wisconsin Public Radio’s Summer Reading Picks 

The Choice, Gillian McAllister’s almost unbearably tense novel, divides its narrative into alternative stories, ‘Sliding Doors’-style, playing out two possible futures in one person’s life. It’s such a fascinating thought, how a moment can change everything….The Choice is less a conventional thriller than a morality tale, a granular exploration of secrecy and guilt—how they corrode, how they poison a psyche—in the manner of Crime and Punishment or The Tell-Tale Heart.”The New York Times Book Review

“[A] moral thought-provoker. [The Choice] seeks to give readers that glimpse of how differently a life can unfold based on one simple action (or inaction).”Self

"The suspense of each story line is compelling in this well-written novel, but the weightier value of The Choice is in author Gillian McAllister's probing questions about morality and responsibility, questions which—like most things related to human nature—have no easy answers.”—Mystery Scene

What listeners say about The Choice

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painful

I couldn't finish this. Interesting concept, but the characters are not interesting enough to make me care to find out what happens. I do appreciate the refund policy though!

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hard to get through

i only stuck this out cause I'm cheap. very drawn out went on and on with not much happening. narrator had the kind of voice that is too monotone i would stop listening and forget what was said.
sad cause i loved loved her other book wrong place wrong time.

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  • 2024-03-05

SO unenjoyable

Really enjoyed Wrong Place Wrong Time by the author - but this was just abhorrent. Neither timeline resulted in likable characters. The performance was flat (not likely her fault, the material wasn't great). There are so many ways this book could have been made better but the author seemed to have purposely decided against them. Horrible. Definite miss.

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