Really enjoyed this very well written and loved the way characters all linked and the different paths their lives took

Alexandra Gracie is Girl A, now a successful New York based lawyer at the age of 15 she escaped the ‘House of Horrors’ in England where she and her siblings suffered neglect and abuse.

This is an extremely well written multilayered debut which via Lexi’s narrative examines how characters survive childhood trauma in varying ways. It is absorbing and compelling reading and although it demonstrates the horrifying events of the children’s childhood at the hands of their parents it is never gratuitous or over detailed. It is obviously very bleak in places and heartbreaking at times but it is also profoundly moving as you appreciate how, despite outward appearances most of the siblings are psychologically damaged. It flows well from the past to the present and at no point did it feel to be disjointed. Lexi makes a fascinating and thoughtful narrator of the story, you feel her many different, powerful emotions, understand the protective walls she constructs and how this will collapse like a house of cards at times of stress such as she faces in the present day.

Overall, this is a very absorbing and powerful character study and a riveting story of resilience and survival and one I will not forget in a hurry. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for the much appreciated arc for an honest review.

So far in 2020 I’ve read 49 books. My two absolute favourite books were debut novels that I was lucky enough to get an advanced readers copy to review. Girl A is one of those books.

The Gracie children grew up with a dictatorial father who slowly looses his power in the world, so balances that by asserting his power increasingly at home. The more power he gets, the more he wants. From removing the children from school to home educate them, to chaining them into their beds. Finally one of the children escapes, Girl A.

Girl A is Alexandra or Lex, she is one of the 7 Gracie siblings, known for being the one who escaped the infamous House of Horrors. The book follows Lex finding out her mother has died in prison and left the children the house and a sum of money. Now Lex needs to revisit her siblings and her past.

Lex’s narration throughout this book is haunted, uncomfortable and sometimes disturbing. You hear her story through three different time points; her terrifying and sad childhood, post-escape teenage, isolated years and her current successful lawyer self. She has many demons but she is strong, accomplished and determined.

Abigail Dean is a phenomenal writer. The narrative is so clever and extremely compelling. Your heart is pounding at different points, you feel harrowed and uncomfortable and also desperate to turn each page. There are sometimes subtle context, other times explicit which all add to the dramatic feel of the book. The imagery also cleverly sets the tone, for example in one section when Lex is out alone, in the dark looking for her sister she describes the ‘limbs’ of a tree in a bridge and the streams water going over the ‘bodies’ of stones. The whole feel is sinister and you read with your breathe held.

Major spoilers



This is going to be a bit of a tear jerked I think... just picturing those kids,alone,starved,neglected.

As the story rolls out,you become aware of two things.
Not everyone was innocent as they claim.
Not everyone got out.
Some real wince inducing moments here,and tension of waiting for something to happen.

Couple that with present day siblings,and how it's all affected them,and I think you've got a best seller on your hands.

Despite my keenness to review this novel in its entirety, I can only go on the extended extract which I was sent. This is a shame as it promises a rich, considered exploration of abuse and its aftermath through the eyes of its protagonist.

Previously known only as Girl A in the subsequent court proceedings, we meet Lex Gracie as the now adult survivor of horrific historical abuse. Following the death of her mother in prison, Lex is named in a last and particularly cruel gesture as the executor of the family estate. The imposition of this requires her not only to return to the site of her former childhood abuse and torture, but to liaise with the siblings that endured this trauma with her in order to decide on a fitting disposal of assets. This in itself promises to prove problematic as Lex has apparently grown estranged from all but one of them, her sister Evie.

Lex presents in the early chapters as a competent albeit psychologically scarred adult. The halting, unemotional narrative belies a life of careful arrangement, designed to allow her to operate in the real world whilst keeping the demons of her past at bay. The mannered quality of this point of view powerfully suggests the defence mechanisms at work here, initially distancing the reader. As we delve deeper into her childhood flashbacks, however, it soon becomes clear why this has become a necessity for Lex, and Dean is not mean on details. Squalor, humiliation and fear seep off these pages, in which the possibility for love and connection is posited as a miracle of human endurance rather than an assumed entitlement.

Deans’ prose is assured and impressively confident for a debut author, and had I been allowed to view the novel in full I am sure that this early promise would have been sustained throughout the story. Sadly, it is too early for me to tell if it can yet prove itself to be in the league of its early comparison novels - specifically, “Room” - but it’s a very promising start indeed.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this extract in return for an honest review.

Not what I expected at all - I imagined it would be dystopian! In actual fact it's actually more of a literary thriller- beautifully written, shocking and surprising. The characterisation is brilliant and believable and the author definitely one to watch.

Hugely powerful, beautifully written and a book you will not stop thinking about for a very long time. The complexity of human relationships and the effects of childhood trauma on adult lives combine in an extraordinary novel. The hype is entirely deserved.

This made me cry it was that good. Telling the story of 'Girl A,' one of the survivors of a notorious child abuse case, dealing with being appointed executor of her mother's will. Having six siblings means she has to go and visit each of them to obtain their approval for her plans to turn their childhood home into a community centre.

While the abuse is gradually revealed, the focus is very much on the character development and how their childhood shaped the people the children grow into. This is why I love it so much - I'm all about character development and Dean's depiction of the different ways people react to abuse really works for me.

Powerful and moving, this is definitely one of the best books I've read in a while.

Well written and cleverly plotted. This a great read, really gripping and one that is very difficult to put down.

"Girl A" intrigued me from the the first time I read the premise, and I was fully expecting a good domestic thriller. What I got was so much more than that.

"Girl A" is the story of Lex and her siblings, raised by their domineering and increasingly religious father and subservient mother, told beautifully through both past and present. While it is incredibly dark and cruel at times, it never feels like it's just for shock value - if anything, the more traumatic moments are understated or only hinted at, and all the more powerful for that restraint.

The characters are complex and beautifully drawn, and I was fascinated by each in a different way, But it was Lex who really held me under her spell, with her unique voice and spirit.

The writing is so incredibly rich and lush, and the unpicking of the plot is wonderfully managed - in less deft hands this could have been a decent but forgettable thriller; in Abigail Dean's, it's a masterpiece. Dark, disturbing, and ultimately redemptive - I will be thinking about this book for a long long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for providing me with a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much for allowing me to read an advance copy. After reading the sample I was very keen to read the rest of this book and I certainly wasn't disappointed. It was a thrilling well observed book which left me thinking about it well after I finished the book. The author has a superb voice and I shall be recommending this to our library readers.

Growing up in "The house of horrors" Lex and her brothers and sisters think themselves lucky they survived.
Lex was know as Child A the girl who survived.

The survivors now adults all try to get their lives on track but when their Mum dies who is in Prison, Lex must be the executor of the will and sort things out. Mum has left £20,000 pounds and their childhood home.
Evie the younger sister suggests turning the house into something good, so with the siblings blessings they all meet up, but that brings back more than BAD memories.

We go back in time and we see what they had to endure growing up. i am glad i wasn't in that family, I don't think i would have survived.

This is a hard read, but a worthwhile read, Lots of flashbacks and for readers who want to read from A to B this may not be for you.
I was quite surprised when I was reading that this story was set in the UK i presumed it would be in the USA but it worked well.

I enjoyed it and found it hard to put down. At one point i was reading in the early hours and had to force myself to put the book down and sleep.

I would recommend this to anyone who loves a thriller or a darker read. I liked the twist.

Thank you for the advanced copy.

Where to start .. This is such a powerful read .-.your heart is in your mouth each time we hear about events from the past.
Lexie Grace is Girl A . Subject to horrendous abuse by her parents -she manages to escape- alert the authorities and free herself and her 6 siblings . The story is mainly told years after the event -Lexie is a lawyer and has been designated as executor of her mothers' estate In between learning about how the family are coping in present day -we get a glimpse into how their home life as children turned into a nightmare.

Fantastic Read

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

While this is a work of fiction there are some similarities to real life crimes. Girl A is the eldest daughter rescued from a home dubbed 'the house of horrors'. Her and her siblings were subjected to terribly cruelty as children at the hands of their parents before being rescued when Girl A was 15. Some children were young enough to be unaffected by the abuse but Girl A is deeply affected. This book is set when her mother dies and the children have an inheritance split between them. I found parts of this really interesting but the novel loses its way a little and it isn't gripping throughout. Overall its quite an enjoyable read.

Girl A is an interesting book - complexly and compellingly written, it tells its story without falling into the many 'horror' tropes it so easily could have done to try to offer a more nuanced and complex study of long-term trauma and abuse. Sadly (for me), it leans heavily upon many of the other fictional props around the psychological impact of such abuse and it was this that let the novel down a little. (The twist, for example, is so by now so overused I almost hoped it was going to be a double-bluff when it presented itself.) Even so, Dean's writing and overall storytelling is strong enough to pull all this off and I can see why this has come showered with early praise. A really interesting new voice in fiction.

On the surface, the story is a simple one: it follows Lex Gracie, the eldest sibling of the Gracie family, as she goes through the probate of her mother's estate. The thing is, Lex' and her sibling's childhood and relationship with their mother is anything but simple. Lex is not only known as Lex, Lexi or Alexandra, she is also: Girl A, the one who got away.

Girl A is a compelling read. The book has an interesting structure, working through two time periods using, flashbacks which are progressively blurred with reality. Abigail Dean's writing is clear, yet vivid in it's description, which sometimes with such subject matter is quite gruelling to read. Truth be told, whilst there is a lot too like about the writing, I am not sure that the subject matter is for me. I kept hoping that there was going to be a turning point with redemption or hope and although the characters of the children were fictional, I found the scenes from the past hard to read at points.

Despite these personal reservations about the story, I thought the novel was really well written. I think it is set to be a success and is certainly provocative enough to start a lot of conversations in book groups far and wide,

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre,  however I wanted to take the opportunity to read something from outside my norm. And I am glad I did!! Thank you for  opening up my mind to something totally different. Characters were so well developed that I felt as though I knew them. I love when a book draws you into the story and it feels like you are living it with them.

Girl A is the type of book that leaves its mark, the story is so harrowing that it will stay with you for a very long time.
Girl A details the story of a group of siblings who grow up with a deeply religious father - slowly he begins to control every aspect of their life - schooling, food, relationships.
Abigail weaves the story with excerpts of the past, how each of the children - now adults (given pseudonyms) are dealing with their lives after their horrendous childhood experiences.

Without divulging too much of the plot, the ending is so harrowing, certain truths come to light and I found myself having to put the book down, to give myself time to compose myself.

An excellent book - I look forward to reading more of Abigail's work.

I bumped this book up my to be read list as I’d read so many 5 star reviews, and I have to say I totally agree with them all.. This book is a really accomplished debut novel. It left me quite speechless after finishing it and it will definitely stay with me for sometime, whilst I reflect on the characters and how they were all effected by the same events. This story is highly emotive but manages perfectly to portray the difficult storyline sympathetically whilst being accessible and relatable at the same time.

Lex is Girl A, the girl that managed to escape the House of Horrors. Lex has managed to move on but she is forced to face her family history after her mum dies and leaves the family home to her and her siblings. She intends to turn the house into a community resource to help others but first she must face her past and siblings.

#GurlA #NetGalley.
After a long time I read auch an excellent book. Lex Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped.
When her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer.
I loved it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Harper Fiction for giving me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.