‘Girl A’ is the story of Lex Gracie and the infamous House of Horrors where she and her siblings grew up. The remote and hidden world of Moor Wood Road where her parents inflicted cruelty and callous treatments upon their children is described in so much intricate detail and juxtaposed so dramatically to the exciting places Lex travels to in her adult life; but years on Lex is pulled backwards after her mother dies in prison leaving her the executor of the children’s inheritance.
This book was so wonderfully written as you are taken back and forth between the sibling’s past and present with Lex as the guide. As the eldest girl of the Gracie family she always felt the need to care for her younger siblings and drew upon unknown strength to escape and rescue them all of those years ago. Now she must face them all and their realities of their past traumas.
This novel is quite lengthy but rightly so because every word is necessary to build such a realistic set of characters so you understand all of the layers of their stories. The importance is placed upon the children and their individual journeys of survival: this novel takes the opportunity to go far deeper than the news surface headline of ‘Girl A’.
An amazing debut novel that I couldn’t and didn’t want to put down.

Really gripping - I enjoyed the story so much. I thought it was fast-paced and engaging, struggled to put it down most of the time! Ending was great too. I would definitely recommend this novel. Thanks so much for sharing this review copy.

Wow, wow, wow. What a book!
When Lexie and her siblings are left the family home after their mother dies, we are taken on a journey of what happened din the house of horrors where they grew up.
So well written, with even the hardest images of the abuse suffered by Child A and her siblings, told poetically and sensitively.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley and Abigail Dean for the chance to read GIRL A and review.

Girl A is a gripping and excellently written novel that's dark and edgy as you become absorbed in the main protagonist's journey as she and her sisters find the courage to confront their horrific past and learn the true power of forgiveness and moving on.

Lex Gracie is "Girl A", the name she was given for anonymity after the madness of her family home hit the headlines.....and the title of Abigail Dean's new novel. Along with her brothers and sisters she's treated like a prisoner by parents whose grip on reality,and sanity, quickly deteriorates when her Father's dreams of sharing his beliefs with the general public in his own chapel , a converted shop, fail miserably.. With a ,literally, captive audience the obsessed wannabe preacher runs his household like a cult with the children enduring violence, lack of food and eventually being changed to their beds and totally isolated from the world outside. Lex eventually escapes and there is a media storm when what has happens in the house becomes public knowledge. Several years later Lex's Mother dies and and she finds she's been made the executor of the will,some money and the House. With an idea in mind she tracks down her siblings to get them to agree to her plan. The book uses this to tell the story of each of the children from their time in the house until the present......and their massively different personalities and how they coped with the past.
The tale is told in flashbacks ,which is very effective, and from rather a pedestrian beginning as more of the children's ordeal is revealed and from different perspectives it becomes a gripping and tangled tale with some profiting from their experiences, others determinedly staying anonymous and some very complicated relationships and convenient memories..
This is an amazing piece of writing, as the book progresses the initially rather 2 dimensional Lex becomes a believable,if complicated and flawed, person and we see how her ordeal,as with her equally well-characterised siblings, has made her the person she is. Not all are as they initially seem,neither are their memories.
The ending is a bit different but ultimately satisfactory, in conclusion a great read.

Thanks to Abigail Dean, HarperCollins UK and Netgalley for the ARC in return for and honest review.

Lex and her siblings grew up in her parents house of horrors, she managed to escape and was known as “Child A the girl who survived”

When Lex’s mother dies in prison, she is asked to be the executor of her mother’s will, as she has left her their childhood home and £20,000 to be shared between her siblings.

Along with her sister Evie’s help, she wants to turn the house into something good but will need to get her other siblings to agree. Lex has to face the childhood that she had left behind and meet up with her family, bringing all the bad memories back.

The book goes back to when they were children and how they were badly treated by their parents. I must admit to crying, as this felt so real and you do read about cases like this in the newspapers!!

This had me gripped from the start, you can’t help but be drawn in with this beautifully written story about survival against all odds.

This is going to be a must read book of 2021.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Ask anyone about the house on Moor Woods Road, and they'll be able to tell you the story: seven children, raised in a house of horror by parents whose reign only ended when Girl A, Lex, was brave enough to escape. Years later, and Lex has done everything she can to put her childhood behind her. But everything changes when her mother dies in prison, and names Lex as the executor of her will. Now, Lex must face up to the trauma of her past, and finally come to terms with what happened all those years ago...

The synopsis of this book on NetGalley states 'If you liked Room, My Dark Vanessa and We Need to Talk About Kevin, you will love this book.' Now, these are three of my favourite books, so I definitely went into this one with high hopes, and fortunately I wasn't disappointed!

I will say that at the start, it does take a while to really connect with Lex. At times, she felt a bit stiff and wooden, but as the novel progresses you realise that this closed off nature is due to the intense trauma she faced as a child, and she develops into more of a well-rounded, sympathetic character. Her present life isn't really the focus of the book, so it does take a while to really get to grips with her, but I found her to be a great choice of narrator, with a very true and authentic voice.

A real strength of this book is the flashbacks, and I love the way the storyline alternated between now and the past. While I did enjoy the present day sections, I was completely gripped by the flashbacks, and the chilling way they showed how a seemingly normal family descended into evil. The author also did very well in creating scenes that, while disturbing, never felt gratuitous.

Now I assume I'm right in thinking that this book is at least partly inspired by a similar true story that occurred in America last year, but this book differentiates itself from this by basing the story in England. I personally found that this worked really well, as not only did it make it more unique but it also made it feel a lot more chilling to an English audience, making it feel like something that really could happen in any street in any town. I've often questioned how real cases like this could occur, but reading this really showed how easy it is for such situations to occur, and for families to slip through the gaps in the blink of an eye.

All in all, I found this to be a great read, really gripping and one that is very difficult to put down - you keep telling yourself 'just one more section' until suddenly it's the early hours of the morning! I would definitely recommend this, especially to fans of psychological thrillers with a dark and disturbing twist.

Disclaimer - I was fortunate enough to receive an advance reading copy from NetGalley. This has not affected my review in any way, and all opinions are my own.

This one was a little slow to get into at first. The main character, Alexandra/Lex isn't someone I connected with easily, and because of that it was a little bit of a slow burn to buy into her story, despite the description being so interesting.
Throughout the book, she remains a little bit of a wooden character, but as her back story unfolds, that's forgivable as we kind of grow to understand a little bit more of why she's closed off. I would have liked to see a little bit more insight into her as a person though, as even her childhood memories and flashbacks kept her as a fairly bland character.
That being said, the story itself is interesting enough to carry her and the other characters and once that started picking up and I started learning more and more, I found it easy to get caught up in the story.

I think my main gripe, however, is with the character of Ethan. I think that we could have seen a little bit more about him and his gradual move towards being a dark, cruel character. There's so much possibility there, especially with Delilah's revelation towards the end of the story. Even serious things like his violence towards Lex was fairly glossed over, or the scene where Ana was having some doubts was very quickly moved on from. I think that we can almost see the Mother as a tragic figure rather than an evil one, because we do get enough insight into her life, her time in prison, her submissive behaviour around the Father... while Ethan seems to be the real villain of the piece. His betrayal of his siblings would cut a lot deeper than their two screwed up parents, and I think this and the repercussions afterwards could have been explored more deeply.

Overall, I'd give this 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4, because it is a well written, original, interesting story and while not exactly a "pleasant" read, it definitely left me sitting there with a lot to think about afterwards. I think that as it currently is, the story is a little too shallow - like I've read a newspaper article about the events rather than really delving deep into the minds of these characters and the emotional scars and that's what left me feeling a little bit wanting upon finishing.

Beautifully written, cleverly plotted and pacey – it's the first book that's caught and sustained my attention during lockdown, and the first book in ages that I want to push onto everyone I speak to.

Read this in one sitting despite it's length! I had to know what happened to Lex & Evie & the rest of the Gracie children. An interesting take on a familiar trope - growing up in a 'house of horrors' - it made me sad to realise just how commonplace this has become in real life. What I enjoyed was the dissection of each child, how they responded to the trauma & how it affected them later in life. We are all wired slightly differently as Dr K says. Will definitely recommend this devastating, poignant & thought-provoking novel.

Loved this story. Obviously very clearly based upon the recent events in America last year, where another family were found guilty of tying their children to their beds and starving them until one of the girls managed to escape. However, there are a few changes, it's set in the UK, there aren't quite as many children and there are definitely twists in the story - that may or may not have happened in the real life story. It does make you think. And this tells it from the perspective of the adult Girl A. There's a lot of twists and turns and I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. It doesn't give you a happy ending but I suppose that's true of the real story as well.

Reading a book that tells the tale of a young girl who escapes from a “House of Horrors” after years of abuse at the hands of her own parents is never going to be easy reading.
GirlA tells the story of Lex, the eldest daughter who along with her siblings has been imprisoned by her ultra religious father and mother for several years. Retelling the story as an adult, a successful lawyer in adulthood, we learn about Lex, her brothers and sisters and their lives before and after.
Often harrowing, but never gratuitous in the telling, this work of fiction resembles so many of the horror stories we have read over the years. And although this may be fiction we all know that this could have been reality.

This got a bit dark! A mix of cases from real life seem to have inspired this - The house of horrors of Frank and Rosemary West and Fritzl and....when you realise this situation actually happens and people really do this kind of thing. It's a sharp shock of a novel and very captivating and hard to describe. This is emotional and you need to hold your breath and dive in.

It wasn't my cup of tea but it's a good novel and some very sharp writing and gripping plot.

Dive in to the darkness......

One of my anticipated reads. I actually did a little happy dance when I had the email from @netgalley last night to say it was in here.
This hasn’t disappointed and I have devoured this in just one sitting. This has been a dark read which has considered a family who grew up in a “house of horrors”
This author has pulled me in from the beginning and I have loved it. This is a great read, out January 2021. I highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️