This being a thriller, Gilly Macmillan's perfect girl is not so perfect

British author Gilly Macmillan studied Art History and was formerly a photographer before becoming a writer. She is now the author of seven thriller novels and a two-book detective series. I found Macmillan in my Kobo library subscription and have read four of her thrillers so far and the first one in the detective series. I suggest giving Macmillan's books a go as she's a clever and accomplished writer who manages to unsettle the reader with her intelligent approach to the genre. There's a strong theme of the nasty people in the world getting their comeuppance in her books, but the stories don't always have happy endings.

Below is my review of Macmillan's first standalone, published in 2016, The perfect girl. You can read my review of three of her other thrillers here and my review of book 1 in her detective series.

The perfect girl | Published March 2016 | Read October 2025

OK, so, to begin with, I have rated Macmillan's three thrillers I've read previously 4 and 5 stars, and book 1 in her detective series 4 stars. Those books are absolute crackers as Macmillan crafts clever stories with a bunch of flawed but intriguing characters. The nanny is one of my all-time favourite thrillers as it's so deliciously evil.

I've rated The perfect girl only 3 stars. The premise is solid, but there's something about it that's not quite as good as the other books I've read. Granted, The perfect girl is Macmillan's first standalone thriller, so perhaps she has honed her craft since then.

We meet Zoe in the book, the perfect girl of the title, who is a clever and musically gifted but rather socially inept and is bullied at her posh school where she is a scholarship student. In an attempt to fit in, she attends a party where her drink is spiked. She is persuaded to get behind the wheel of a car and the resulting accident leaves her three passengers dead. Zoe is charged with the deaths, partly because the friends and family of two of the teenagers lie in court, but she has served her time.

The present-day story sees Zoe back with her mother, Maria, now divorced from her father (who couldn't bare the shame of what Zoe did) and married to Chris, who son, Lucas, is also musically gifted. Maria and Chris have a baby and, as Zoe says, the Second Chance Family must be perfect at all costs.

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that Chris is nothing near perfect and Maria ends up dead fairly early on in the book. The story is then told from multiple points of view - Zoe, Lucas, Maria's sister who is cheating on her husband with Zoe's lawyer, Tessa's alcoholic husband, and the lawyer. Whew. There are a lot of narratives to keep up with and some don't seem necessary as they kind of just fizzle out.

Once the reader know who kills Maria, the story goes in a comeuppance direction. It's not terribly clever, but I was still immersed in the story, thanks to Macmillan's writing skills, and was keen to see how it all played out. I felt satisfied by the ending, even if it did make my heart feel heavy, but that ending is somewhat lacklustre. Still, a undemanding way to spend a few hours knee-deep in other people's dramas...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐