This novel begins with Cordelia Russell who has killed someone and fled the scene. We don't know why or who they are. The story then takes us back to the beginning where we learn how Cordelia (Delia) grew up, the nightmare of her childhood and early adolescence and her subsequent nightmare of an adulthood.
I can't help but feel that she has a personality disorder- nurtured under her father's obsessive parenting and then matured under her own accord.
Nothing sits well with me about this character. She is cold, calculating, uncaring, narcissistic and selfish.
The book follows her as she makes unwise decisions based wholly upon personal gain. What happens to her own child really disturbed me and I definitely feel she got her just desserts in the end. I would love another chapter though to see how she gets on in her final chapter of life.
This is a great book- one to read over a whole weekend if you have the time!. .

Sorry, just could not get into this one. I didn't like the main character so it just didn't hook me in frim the start - I have tried to get into it but no.

This was a wonderful and tragic story about a family In Ireland, there hard life and the tragedy that happened to them. I felt sorry for Delia she was a selfish, cruel woman, but no one is made that way. Her father adored her above her brothers and her mother, and she grew up thinking she was something special. A tragedy happened to her family, delia was adopted, she was never really happy she got married had a son, then tragedy struck again.
This was a very good story and glad I had the opportunity to read it.

Oh dear I am afraid that I did not enjoy this book at all. The character of Delia upset me, she was so uncaring and cold and I felt no sympathy for the character at all.
For some reason I have never read a book by an Irish author that dies not involve illegitimate babies and quite frankly I tend to ignore them for just that reason. All the guilt and sinfulness tends to become repetitious . Not for me I am afraid. Apart from anything else it was far too long. Sorry

t’s a why dunnit. It is fast paced and keeps you guessing. I loved it. I wasn’t a huge fan of Cordelia, as the main character. She was compelling and ruthless though so she made me want to keep reading. It jumped back to her childhood and again showed her Machiavellian ways. Very good.book.

This is a very dark tale that starts of with the unconditional love between Delia and her slightly strange father. Delia is a very troubled girl and her charector becomes more disturbing as the story unfolds. I loved the way this story twisted and turned and enjoyed reading about the somewhat twisted story of the little island and its historical inhabitants. An excellent page turner.

Wow! Absolutely fantastic book and definitely one of my favourites so far this year. The main character is a horrible person and the book was quite chilling at times. I thoroughly enjoyed this and devoured it in a couple of sittings. Would definitely recommend this book but it’s not for the faint hearted!

This book though!!!!! Amazing amazing amazing. I can not recommend it enough... I ready the synopsis and expected a certain story, and got far far more. The character development and plot twists and turns make this a far more engrossing read than the blurb gives it credit for. Dive in and prepare to lose yourself in this for many hours.

Cordelia is certainly one of the most odious, unlikeable main characters I have followed in a long time with no apparent redeemable features. And yet, due to Liz’s superb skills as such an adept author, I was utterly compelled by Cordelia and wanted to follow her story and find out how she ended up in her apartment having reacted violently to the visitor from the past. The story unfolds taking us back to Cordelia’s childhood through to the incident in the apartment and up to the present day.
A wonderful beautifully crafted book making an excellent read for anyone who loves a good thriller.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to admit upon finishing ‘Skin Deep’ that I had very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it’s an interesting and engaging story that kept me compelled to pick it up and keep reading it. Delia, the narrator is an unlikeable character, selfish, narcissistic and lacking in empathy, but this is what makes her interesting. The characters we are introduced to, even by a knowingly unreliable narrator are in depth and well-rounded. The plot itself nicely ties up it’s loose ends and runs full circle in a satisfying way. I really liked the interrupting chapters telling folk stories from Delia’s home island and also the infrequent chapters that switched perspective to other characters in her life so you got a chance to find out more about them and their side of an important event – usually after their story with Delia had come to an end.

However, the blurb and the first few chapters give the impression of this being an action based psychological thriller. The discovery of the corpse in Delia’s house in the first pages set you up to expect the book to be a certain way. What follows is a lot of flashback and backstory – over 90% of the book is a continuous backstory of Delia’s life up until the opening moment. Although this is interesting, you are reading it feeling like it will stop at any moment and clarify who the corpse is, but when it finally does this a few chapters from the end it’s too late to really do anything about it. As a reader you feel that you’ve just learnt all about this character for the story to suddenly end – it just seems a little pointless!

Overall it’s a great insight into a detailed and interesting character, I just wish there was a bit more of the present narrative to balance it out. Perhaps a change of blurb would also stop the misconception of what this book is about. A good, solid read though and thank you to NetGalley and Penguin UK for the chance to read Skin Deep in exchange for an honest review.

SKIN DEEP, an Adult Mystery Thriller by Liz Nugent left me in a quandary. Perhaps that was the reason: to shock and make the reader think. I, on the other hand, could not get to grips with the main character, Cordelia Russell. Within the first few pages, we learn Cordelia has the body of a dead man decomposing in her flat. But who?

Over the rest of the book, we are introduced to many would-be suspects as the story begins again when Cordelia is just nine years old.

Liz Nugent is a fantastic writer who takes us on one hell of a ride. My only concern, I did not feel anything for Cordelia, not one shred of sympathy. Her character traits proved too difficult to like.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the opportunity to review #SkinDeep

I’m sorry, but I could only give this story 3.5 STARS.

This is a book that gets under your skin. A definite page turner that will have you enthralled. I was at different times worried, disgusted, enchanted. A very well written book

I don't mind reading books with main characters I don't identify with or even like. And straight away the book presents Delia as someone we might have a problem with.
Indeed she turns into a less than sympathetic character - but only because we probably have little experience of her mindset, thankfully her actions are fully explained by the back story - which takes up most of the book. But I did enjoy spending time on the island of Inishcrann and it certainly helped to explain why Delia acted the way she did, so the outrageous story just about fell within the realms of reality.
Other characters appear only for Delia to hurt or have an effect upon - the story is mainly hers - and so I felt that the small individual chapters written by people she encountered to be a bit of a distraction. Until the end when we had Tom The Crow's story and it made sense because we HAD to hear from him, his account really helped to nail the story.
In fact the best bit about the whole book was the ending because it was an absolutely, perfect ending for Delia. I really couldn't imagine how the book would end but her ending up alone on the island as it's Queen was wonderful.
This was a dark, slightly grim and gruesome page turner that I loved reading. The only gripe I would have is that the middle dragged slightly - spending too long with Delia in Europe when the fantastic ending felt a little rushed.

Plot: Cordelia has lived on the Cote d’Azur for a number of years, but now she’s in trouble. She runs to a glittering party to escape the truth she’s had to leave behind in her grimy flat. We then delve back into Delia’s past, growing up on a tiny island off the coast of Ireland and the trauma she’s lived through, all of whch has brought her to where she is today.

My thoughts: This was a dark and twisting novel, with a protagonist who’s not the most likeable of characters – in fact, is positively detestable at points! – but is absolutely enthralling. I’ve read the storytelling being described as hypnotic, and I have to agree. The settings are so well described, the situations are clear and crisp – I really felt like I was on the bleak island of Inishcrann.
This is a story of love gone wrong, over and over, and a woman trying to find her place in the world in an entirely different way to the norm. At times, you feel sorry for her; at others, you absolutely despise her and her decisions. Either way, it’s a plot that keeps you reading and enthralled all the way to the last page.

Liz Nugent is back with book number 3, and it's a cracker. Liz has the ability to create a character who I both despised and was amazed with. The writing here is superb. The character development is wonderful. I just could not put this book down. I really think this book surpasses Liz's others.

See on my blog here:
https://donjimmyreviews.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/skin-deep-liz-nugent/

A very complex lead character, but a book that was hard to put down. A great read. Would read another by this author.

I wasn't very keen on Skin Deep, although that response is entirely personal. Liz Nugent is s very fine writer, but I just didn't find this life-story of a manipulative, sociopathic woman very involving.

The opening is excellent as Delia, the 50-year-old narrator finds herself destitute in Nice with a corpse in her wrecked flat and intimations of the dishonest, Ripley-like way she has lived. However, we then go back to her childhood on a small Irish island and follow her development as she grows up and becomes the almost monstrous character we meet at the beginning. It's very well done; Nugent writes extremely well and creates a convincingly frightful character – as she did so well in the excellent Lying In Wait. Here, though, for a very long time it is another Portrait Of A Dreadful Childhood And Adolescence In The Oppressive Ireland Of The Past and then more of a psychological study than a thriller or even an involving narrative. I'm afraid I didn't find myself drawn in at all and I also found the brief inserts of narrative from other characters to show the damage Delia leaves behind her. I even got rather bored, which I certainly didn’t expect from Liz Nugent.

So, I'm afraid Skin Deep wasn't for me. Plainly, I'm in a pretty small minority but for all its oppressive atmosphere and clever characterisation, I can't really recommend it.

(My thanks to Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

This book was not what I expected at all. It starts at the end, then tells the story all the way through, leading the reader back the the original point. Well-written and engrossing - a thoroughly good read.

A very different compelling psychological thriller, one that I enjoyed. A very self-obsessed main character that was formed at a young age by her doting father. Such an unfeeling and cruel character that does not change. You are still drawn into her story from page one.

A tragic tale,not to my liking. A very selfish,foolish main character who drew no sympathy. Moving from Ireland to London to the hotspots of Europe. Tragedy followed wherever she went.