Summer just wouldn’t be summer without a thriller by Sarah Pekkanen. The Women in White was just what I was expecting, a page-turner that kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish.

Back in the early 1960s, four women were selected to go through intense parapsychology experiments at Marquis University. While these experiments were all in the name of scientific research and conducted by a respected professor, they were not for the faint of heart, enduring hours and sometimes days of experiments that were both difficult on their minds and bodies. Despite the success and advancements that they were making, the program was terminated and the four women seemingly disappeared.

Riley Bell is looking for a fresh start. In need of lodging and a new job, she applies for the live-in caretaker position for Betty Sadler. Stepping into Betty’s house is like stepping into a time capsule or a movie set that was from the 1960s. Not only are her furnishings old fashioned, Betty also seems out of the loop on current affairs. I’m not going to lie, if I were in Riley’s shoes, I would have been more than a little creeped out by everything.

The book is told in dual timelines between the early 1960s and the present day. I thoroughly enjoyed the dual timelines for this story. Getting to know the four women, their lives, the friendships that they forged, and learning what they had gone through was absolutely riveting. In the present-day chapters, we get to witness Riley trying to discover what had happened to the women from the experiment.

With the short chapter lengths, the back and forth, and the suspenseful nature of the story, I found The Women in White to be a fast-paced, captivating read.

*4 Stars