Did you know that between 1930 and 1965, Duke University operated a renowned Parapsychology Laboratory that conducted over ninety thousand trials designed to measure psychic abilities in volunteers? This real-world history serves as the haunting foundation for Sarah Pekkanen’s latest thriller, The Women in White, a book that asks a deeply unsettling question: what happens when scientific ambition eclipses basic human decency?
Overview
The Women in White follows Riley Bell, a divorced nurse’s aide who takes a live-in caretaker job for 81-year-old Betty Sadler. Betty’s home is frozen in 1964—no internet, no TV, no modern technology.
As Riley helps Betty search for her three college friends who vanished after participating in parapsychology experiments six decades ago, she uncovers a dark conspiracy involving unethical scientific testing, institutional cover-ups, and a present-day threat to replicate those same dangerous experiments.
Reader recommendation
The Women in White is best for readers who enjoy dual-timeline psychological thrillers like those by Simone St. James or Alice Feeney; fans of historical mysteries with a paranormal edge; anyone interested in stories about female friendship, institutional abuse, and survival against the odds.
The Women in White is recommended for readers seeking a fast-paced action thriller with minimal emotional weight; those uncomfortable with depictions of psychological manipulation and sensory deprivation; anyone looking for a neatly wrapped, perfectly explained supernatural element.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
Title: The Women in White
Author: Sarah Pekkanen
Publication Date: August 4, 2026
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Psychological Thriller / Historical Mystery / Suspense
Sarah Pekkanen is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of sixteen solo and coauthored novels, including The Wife Between Us (co-written with Greer Hendricks), The Golden Couple, and Gone Tonight.
Her books are sold in thirty-six countries, with several optioned for TV and film. The Women in White marks her return to solo fiction, and it’s already garnered a starred review from Booklist, which called it “a tour de force”.
2. Background
Before diving into the story, it’s worth understanding what inspired Pekkanen to write this novel. As she explains in an interview, her editor, Jen Enderlin, saw a social media reel about parapsychology experiments at Duke University in the 1960s.
Pekkanen dove into research and discovered that Duke had a renowned Parapsychology Laboratory that conducted “hundreds of thousands of experiments” designed to measure psychic abilities.
She traveled to the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, an outgrowth of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, where she explored archives, conducted interviews, and even tested her own psychic abilities. The center’s employees, including Sally Feather Rhine (daughter of the laboratory’s founder, J.B. Rhine), welcomed her research.
This historical context is woven throughout the novel. Each chapter of Betty’s 1964 storyline opens with a real quote from newspapers, academic journals, or official documents, many of which are still stored at the Rhine Research Center. These include references to:
- Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell’s ESP experiment during the Apollo 14 mission
- The CIA’s Project Stargate, a multimillion-dollar program exploring psychic abilities
- Psychic Dorothy Allison, who assisted police in more than 4,000 investigations
- The University of Virginia’s database of over 2,200 children who have described apparent recollections of a previous life
Pekkanen’s characters and plot are purely fictional, but the eerie truth is that the experiments she depicts were rooted in real history.
3. The Women in White Summary
The Setup: Present Day
The novel opens with Riley Bell, a 32-year-old nurse’s aide, standing outside Betty Sadler’s small brick house. Riley’s life has collapsed: her husband Danny’s hidden gambling addiction destroyed their marriage and finances, leaving her sleeping in her car. Desperate for work, she’s applying for a live-in caretaker position.
Betty is 81 years old, uses a wheelchair, and lives in a house that’s a complete time capsule from the 1960s. There’s no Wi-Fi, no television, a rotary phone, and Betty has never seen a cell phone. During the interview, Betty offers Riley tea, and somehow knows Riley prefers tea over coffee before Riley even says anything. Betty hires Riley on the spot.
Riley soon discovers that Betty’s primary request isn’t help with daily tasks, she wants Riley to find her three college friends from Marquis University: Ivy Lennox, Kathleen Moore, and Helen Hopkins. Betty says they were as close as sisters.
The 1964 Timeline: The Women in White
In 1964, Betty is a nineteen-year-old newlywed married to Douglas Sadler, a PhD student working under Dr. Silas Trimble at the Trimble Institute, a parapsychology research center at Marquis University.
Douglas tests Betty with Zener cards (cards printed with one of five symbols: circle, cross, wavy lines, square, or star). To his astonishment, Betty performs exceptionally well. Dr. Trimble becomes obsessed.
Trimble identifies four young women with extraordinary psychic abilities:
- Betty Sadler – Gifted in every category (telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis)
- Kathleen Moore – A former stewardess with strong telepathic abilities
- Ivy Lennox – A pregnant woman who excels at precognition
- Helen Hopkins – An eighteen-year-old factory worker with clairvoyant abilities
Trimble makes them sign confidentiality agreements and requires them to wear identical white dresses, eat the same meals, and submit to increasingly invasive tests.
The experiments escalate rapidly. Trimble subjects them to the Ganzfeld experiment, sensory deprivation where they wear blindfolds made from halves of Ping-Pong balls and earplugs, cutting them off from external stimuli. He isolates them in the basement of the university library, making them sleep on cots and waking them repeatedly throughout the night to record their dreams.
The four women form a deep sisterhood. They share secrets: Betty confesses she’s been secretly flushing her birth control pills because she wants a baby. Helen reveals she’s developed feelings for Douglas. Ivy admits she feels trapped in her marriage and fears her husband doesn’t love her.
Trimble’s psychological manipulation intensifies. He turns the women against each other, forcing them to vote on who will endure the longest, most grueling Ganzfeld sessions. He isolates Ivy in a separate room. He ties Kathleen’s hands down during the experiment.
The Breaking Point
The climax of the 1964 timeline comes when Trimble pushes the women too far.
Ivy goes into premature labor during one of the experiments. Her baby, Sandra, survives, but Ivy’s mental state deteriorates rapidly.
Betty discovers Helen’s note confessing her feelings for Douglas. The friendship fractures.
Trimble’s final experiment, a prolonged Ganzfeld session where the women are isolated and the bonds of their friendship are deliberately broken, shatters them all.
On the same day in 1964:
- Kathleen, in a dissociative state, mistakes her husband Ronald for her childhood abuser and kills him with a baseball bat. She then takes her own life.
- Helen commits suicide by jumping off a bridge.
- Ivy is institutionalized for schizophrenia.
- Betty and Douglas flee Marquis. Dr. Trimble knocks on their door, but Douglas refuses to answer. He packs their belongings and drives away, with Betty begging to say goodbye to her friends.
The university covers up everything. The program is erased from history.
The Present-Day Mystery
In the present, Riley’s investigation leads her to:
- Sandra Lennox: Ivy’s daughter, who was raised by her father and stepmother after Ivy was institutionalized. Sandra became a therapist specializing in grief. But she also became obsessed with her mother’s diaries and Dr. Trimble’s work.
- Sam Trimble: Dr. Trimble’s grandson, who runs a group called the Seekers Collective and has been trying to write a book about his grandfather’s work.
- Alex Finch: A sorority student who is one of Sandra’s patients. Sandra stole Alex’s student ID to access the Trimble Institute archives.
- Professor Joshua Woods: A Marquis psychology professor who Alex accused of sexual misconduct. But the real culprit is Sandra.
Sandra has been replicating her mother’s experiments on vulnerable young women, including Alex. She kidnaps Alex and subjects her to the Ganzfeld experiment, giving her LSD and leaving her tied up in a sensory deprivation state.
Betty and Riley confront Sandra at her home. Betty uses her intuition and Riley’s growing trust in her instincts to fight back. Betty smashes Sandra with a chair, and Riley uses a coffee mug as a weapon. They subdue Sandra and rescue Alex from a black shed in the woods.
The Ending
Sandra is sentenced to life in prison. Alex recovers and transfers to a smaller school.
Betty and Riley take a road trip together, fulfilling Betty’s lifelong dream of seeing the Grand Canyon. On their last night, Betty watches a meteor shower, feels a deep peace, and passes away in her sleep with a smile on her face.
Riley inherits Betty’s house. She uses part of the money to pay off Danny’s gambling debts, then finally blocks his number and begins building a new life.
The novel ends with Riley giving an interview to a journalist from The Atlantic, telling Betty’s story so the world will finally know what happened to the women in white.
4. The Women in White Analysis
4.1 Characters
Riley Bell: The present-day protagonist is a woman whose life has been shattered by her ex-husband’s betrayal. She’s lost her home, her marriage, and her sense of self. Riley’s defining trait is her lack of trust in her own instincts, a consequence of ignoring red flags throughout her marriage.
Throughout the novel, she learns to listen to her intuition again, guided by Betty’s wisdom. Some critics have found Riley underdeveloped compared to the historical characters, but her journey from self-doubt to agency is the emotional backbone of the modern timeline.
Betty Sadler: The heart of the novel. Eighty-one years old but sharp as a tack, Betty is a survivor of unimaginable trauma. She’s spent six decades hiding, isolated by her husband’s fear and her own shame.
Betty is kind, perceptive, and incredibly resilient.
Her decision to finally confront the past, to ask Riley to find her friends, is an act of immense courage. One reviewer called her “a standout character” and “the absolute best part of the book”.
Dr. Silas Trimble: The novel’s villain is a chilling portrait of scientific ambition run amok. He’s charismatic, intelligent, and utterly devoid of empathy. He views the women as “laboratory animals”, not as human beings. His obsession with proving his theories leads him to destroy four young women.
Trimble represents the dark side of institutional power, the way authority figures can exploit vulnerable people in the name of progress.
Kathleen Moore: The most outwardly confident of the four women, Kathleen is a former stewardess who’s used to navigating male attention.
But beneath her polished exterior, she carries deep trauma from childhood sexual abuse. Her tragic end, killing her husband in a dissociative state and then taking her own life, is the novel’s most devastating moment.
Ivy Lennox: The pregnant member of the group, Ivy is naturally sunny and optimistic, but the experiments drain her vitality. She’s trapped in a controlling marriage and fears her husband doesn’t love her. Her postpartum depression, misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, leads to her institutionalization.
Ivy’s story is a heartbreaking reminder of how women’s mental health was misunderstood and mistreated in the 1960s.
Helen Hopkins: The youngest and shyest of the group, Helen is desperate for connection. She develops a crush on Douglas, Betty’s husband, and writes a note confessing her feelings. When Betty discovers the note, Helen is consumed by guilt. Her suicide is the result of shame, exhaustion, and the collapse of her only friendship network.
Sandra Lenno: The novel’s present-day villain is Ivy’s daughter, and the most complex character in the book.
Sandra was raised by a father who remarried quickly and a stepmother who abused her. She became a therapist to help others, but she also became obsessed with her mother’s diaries and Dr. Trimble’s work.
Sandra’s motivation is twisted: she wants to prove the experiments were valid, to achieve the recognition her mother never received. But she’s also driven by a deep, unresolved pain.
Betty tells Sandra, “You may share her blood, but you are not Ivy’s daughter”, a devastating assessment of how Sandra’s choices have disconnected her from her mother’s legacy.
Douglas Sadle: Betty’s husband is a tragic figure. He’s complicit in the experiments, assisting Dr. Trimble and bringing Betty into the program.
But he also tries to protect Betty, whisking her away from Marquis and isolating her for decades. His fear, of Dr. Trimble, of the government, of anyone who might exploit Betty’s abilities, becomes a prison for both of them. Douglas’s love for Betty is real, but it’s also suffocating and controlling.
4.2 The Women in White Themes and Symbolism
Female Friendship and Sisterhood: The bond between the four women is the novel’s emotional core. They become “as close as sisters”, supporting each other through the horrors of the experiments.
Their friendship is what makes them strong, and what Trimble deliberately destroys. The novel argues that female solidarity is a form of resistance against patriarchal power.
Scientific Exploitation and Institutional Abuse: Trimble’s experiments are a metaphor for how institutions have historically exploited women. The women are “laboratory animals”, their bodies and minds treated as resources for male ambition. The university’s cover-up, erasing the program from history, mirrors real-world patterns of institutional protection of abusers.
Gender Inequality and Social Conditioning: The 1960s timeline vividly depicts the constraints placed on women. Betty is expected to be a perfect housewife, keeping dinner hot and her voice soft. Kathleen is told she must retire from her stewardess job once she marries. Ivy is trapped in a controlling marriage.
The women’s inability to protest, their training to be compliant and accommodating, makes them vulnerable to Trimble’s manipulation.
Trauma and Its Long-Term Effects: The novel explores how trauma reverberates across generations. Betty carries the scars of the experiments for six decades. Ivy’s daughter Sandra becomes a perpetrator of the same abuse she witnessed indirectly through her mother’s diaries. The novel suggests that unaddressed trauma can be passed down, creating cycles of pain.
The Power of Intuition: Throughout the novel, Betty encourages Riley to trust her instincts. Riley has been conditioned to ignore her intuition, she ignored red flags in her marriage, and she initially dismisses her own psychic abilities. By the end, she learns to listen to that inner voice, and it saves Alex’s life. The novel argues that intuition is a form of intelligence that deserves respect.
Isolation as Both Protection and Prison: Douglas isolates Betty to protect her from the outside world, but this isolation becomes its own form of imprisonment. Betty’s house is frozen in 1964, and she’s frozen along with it. Only by leaving, by confronting the past, does she finally find freedom.
The Metaphor of the White Dresses: The women are forced to wear identical white dresses, erasing their individuality. The white represents purity and uniformity, but it also symbolizes the way the women are stripped of their identities, reduced to “Girl 1,” “Girl 2,” “Girl 3,” and “Girl 4.”
5. The Women in White Evaluation
The Women in White is a haunting and emotionally devastating thriller that lingers long after the final page. Pekkanen has crafted a novel that is both a gripping mystery and a poignant exploration of female friendship, trauma, and survival.
Strengths
The 1960s Timeline Is Riveting: The historical storyline is the novel’s strongest element. Pekkanen vividly captures the atmosphere of the era—the martinis, the beehive hairdos, the social expectations placed on women—while building unbearable tension as Trimble’s experiments escalate. The friendship between the four women is beautifully rendered, making their eventual fates all the more tragic.
Betty Is a Memorable Protagonist: Betty is one of the most compelling characters I’ve encountered in recent fiction. Her strength, resilience, and kindness shine through despite everything she’s endured. Her decision to finally confront the past is an act of profound courage.
The Historical Research Adds Depth: The real-world quotes that open each 1964 chapter ground the story in historical reality. Knowing that similar experiments actually happened, that the CIA and universities conducted psychic research, that women were used as test subjects, makes the novel even more chilling.
The Pacing Is Propulsive: Pekkanen’s background as a journalist serves her well. The short chapters and cliffhanger endings make the book difficult to put down.
Weaknesses
The Present-Day Mystery Feels Uneven: Some critics have noted that the contemporary plot is marred by “cartoonish villains and an underdeveloped heroine”. Sandra’s turn to villainy, while explained by her traumatic childhood, feels abrupt. Riley’s character doesn’t have the same depth as Betty’s.
The Ending Wraps Up Too Neatly: Several reviewers have noted that the ending feels rushed and overly tidy. After the darkness of the 1964 timeline, the present-day resolution—Sandra goes to prison, Alex recovers, Betty dies peacefully—feels a bit too clean.
Some Loose Ends Remain: I still had questions after finishing the book, particularly about the mechanics of the psychic abilities. The novel never fully explains how the women’s gifts work, which may frustrate readers seeking a more definitive supernatural explanation.
Impact
The Women in White left me saddened and angry on behalf of the four lead characters. It’s a story about how power can corrupt, how institutions protect abusers, and how women’s voices are silenced.
But it’s also a story about resilience, about the bonds of friendship that can survive even the darkest circumstances, and about the courage it takes to finally confront the past.
Comparison with Similar Works
The Women in White will appeal to readers who enjoyed:
Simone St. James’s novels: Like The Broken Girls and The Sun Down Motel, Pekkanen’s novel blends historical mystery with a paranormal edge.
Alice Feeney’s thrillers: The dual-timeline structure and psychological depth are reminiscent of Feeney’s work.
Kate Morton’s historical mysteries: The layered storytelling and exploration of long-buried secrets echo Morton’s novels.
Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White: Pekkanen’s title is a deliberate homage to Collins’s classic Gothic novel, and both books explore themes of female victimhood and institutional power.
6. Personal Insight with Contemporary Educational Relevance
Five Lessons from The Women in White
1. Trust your instincts.
Riley spends most of the novel doubting herself. She ignored red flags in her marriage, and she initially dismisses her own intuition. Betty teaches her that “instincts want to help you, to guide you toward the truth”. In a world that often tells women to second-guess themselves, this is a powerful message.
2. Institutional power must be questioned.
Dr. Trimble is able to abuse the four women because of his position of authority. The university covers up his crimes to protect its reputation. This pattern, institutions protecting abusers, remains relevant today. The novel is a reminder that power structures must be scrutinized, and that survivors deserve to be believed.
3. Friendship can be a form of resistance.
The four women’s bond is what makes them strong, and what Trimble deliberately destroys. Their friendship is a source of comfort, strength, and survival. The novel celebrates the power of female solidarity in the face of oppression.
4. Trauma echoes across generations.
Sandra’s descent into villainy is a direct result of her mother’s institutionalization and her own traumatic childhood. The novel shows how unaddressed trauma can be passed down, creating cycles of pain. Breaking those cycles requires confronting the past.
5. It’s never too late to reclaim your life.
Betty spends sixty years hiding, frozen in the past. But in her final months, she finally confronts her trauma, reconnects with her past, and fulfills her lifelong dream of seeing the Grand Canyon. Her story is a reminder that it’s never too late to start living.
7. The Women in White Quotes
“She was called Girl Four. But she wasn’t a number. Betty Sadler was the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met.”
“The human mind is the greatest undiscovered terrain in every realm of every world. But fear is its mortal enemy.”
“Inside the library basement, we were laboratory animals.”
“You may share her blood, but you are not Ivy’s daughter.”
“I know you tried to send me a message to lead me to Alex, but I’ve never had a psychic experience in my life.”—Riley, still doubting herself even after finding Alex.
“The sheet is wonderful. It keeps you four close and contained. Your instincts were correct.”—Dr. Trimble, praising Betty for something that will ultimately be used against them.
“Betty Sadler was called girl four. But she wasn’t a number, she was the most extraordinary woman and she mattered.”
8. Conclusion
The Women in White is a gripping, emotionally devastating thriller that deserves a place on your reading list. Sarah Pekkanen has crafted a novel that is both a page-turning mystery and a profound exploration of female friendship, trauma, and survival.
The 1960s timeline is the novel’s strongest element, featuring richly drawn characters and a tension that builds unbearably toward its tragic conclusion. Betty is a standout protagonist, a woman of immense strength and resilience who finally finds the courage to confront her past.
While the present-day mystery is somewhat uneven, and the ending wraps up a bit too neatly, these flaws don’t diminish the novel’s power. The Women in White is a story that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.
Recommendation: I highly recommend this book to fans of Simone St. James, Alice Feeney, and Kate Morton. If you enjoy dual-timeline mysteries with a paranormal edge, or if you’re interested in stories about female friendship and survival, The Women in White is for you.
