The Locked Ward: A Novel by Sarah PekkanenPublication Date: August 5, 2025
Pages: 320
Add on: Goodreads
Buy the Book: Amazon
Rating: ★★★★
Source: From the Publisher
Genre: Fiction / Thrillers / Domestic
Publisher: St. Martin's Press / Macmillan
The Locked Ward is the latest twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Tonight and House of Glass, Sarah Pekkanen.
It was the Crime of the Decade. Pathological sibling rivalry. Bitter, all- consuming envy. Whatever the cause - and everyone has an opinion - it led Georgia Cartwright who was adopted as a newborn, to kill the younger, biological daughter of her wealthy, socially prominent family.Georgia is being kept at an institution where the most violent offenders are held while she waits to see if she is ruled not guilty by reason of insanity. When her estranged twin sister, Amanda, visits her, Georgia's first words are, "You've got to get me out of here. I didn't do it." Her sister can’t walk away. There has always been a part of her that feels missing a strange hollowness that she has hidden from everyone.
Does it exist because of the absence of her twin sister? Can Amanda really trust Georgia? Or is she being led down a path of madness and into the web of a master manipulator. Nothing is as it seems in Sarah Pekkanen's new psychological thriller, The Locked Ward.
REVIEW
Sarah Pekkanen’s latest psychological thriller grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. In The Locked Ward, she weaves a dark tale of two twins separated at birth – one raised in Southern luxury, the other in obscurity. Now they’re reunited in the most twisted way possible: Georgia Cartwright sits in a psychiatric facility, accused of murdering her biological family’s daughter, while her twin sister, Mandy, might be the only person who knows what really happened.
The story unfolds in sharp, visceral chapters that alternate between the sisters’ perspectives. Pekkanen transforms the sterile halls of the psychiatric ward into a pressure cooker of secrets and lies. Every orderly, every security camera, every locked door adds another layer of suffocating tension.
But this isn’t just another thriller. Pekkanen digs deeper, exploring how privilege shapes identity and whether blood really is thicker than water. The relationship between the twins crackles with electricity – two sides of the same coin, separated by fate and class, now forced to confront their shared darkness.
The middle section takes its time unravelling the psychological complexities of its characters, which might test impatient readers. But trust me – stick with it. The finale hits like a punch to the gut, forcing you to question everything you thought you knew about family, truth, and the secrets we keep even from ourselves.
At 320 pages, The Locked Ward proves Pekkanen hasn’t lost her touch. If you loved Sharp Objects or The Silent Patient, clear your schedule – you won’t want to put this one down.
