Book Review:
Fragile by Sarah Hilary
Published by Pan Macmillan, 2021

As someone who has read Sarah Hilary's novels since her debut, Someone Else's Skin (2014), seeing her success with the Marnie Rome series has been fantastic, with each new instalment being eagerly pounced on.

Fragile is the author's first standalone and is a tension-filled psychological thriller. We meet Nell, who starts working for Dr Robert Wilder at his London home. The former foster child turned runaway/rough sleeper becomes Wilder's housekeeper. Dr Wilder is a peculiar character, but he's got nothing on Nell, who has an ulterior motive for blagging her way into Starling Villas.

Quite different from the author's previous books, this is an eerie slow burn that worms its way under your skin. Hilary's prose takes on a gloriously gothic tone as the menace and manipulation build. Points of view switch between Nell and her former foster parent Meagan and are told partly via flashbacks, with harrowing details. With fundamentally flawed, complex characters and an unsettling vibe overall, Fragile is an unnerving, haunting read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Pan Macmillan and Sarah Hilary for the ARC provided via NetGalley; this is my unbiased review.

#Fragile #SarahHilary #PanMacmillan #Macmillan #BookReview #NetGalley

It was fine. It kept me reading but I didn’t really engage with it or find myself loving the story or the characters. I wouldn’t recommend it to friends but I’m sure some people would like it.

In her heartbreaking and evocative novel Fragile, Sarah Hillary tells the story of a young orphan whose only wish is to fit in. The story of Nell is dark and lonely, completely captivating, and has a gothic undertone that is virtually impossible to put down. I read it with goosebumps on my skin and tears in my eyes.

I haven't read a decent character-driven narrative in a while, and Fragile is no exception. My only hope would be for the story to contain some upbeat or uplifting elements to help the reader get past the lingering grief this masterpiece left behind.

A haunting and terrifying Gothic spine-chiller, award-winning author Sarah Hilary will hold readers spellbound with her latest superb page-turner, Fragile.

Nell Ballard has been an outsider her entire life. A foster child who has always felt unwanted and unloved, her dearest wish is to find somewhere she belongs and a place she can call home, but Nell has had a lifetime of rejections and doors being slammed in her face. However, it looks like her luck is about to change when a job opportunity comes up at Starling Villas, home to the enigmatic Robin Wilder. Finally, it seems as if Nell has found the home she has been searching for for so long. At Starling Villas, she thinks that she has at long last secured the happiness and fulfillment that have long been denied her. But should Nell take everything at Starling Villas at face value? Is this job really a new beginning for her? Or will accepting this job prove to be the biggest mistake of her life?

Robin Wilder is a man who lives by a set of very rigid rules, but he also has dark and powerful secrets of his own that might end up placing everybody who comes into close contact with him in acute danger. Nell has her own secrets she will go to great lengths to keep hidden, but the more time she spends at Starling Villas, the more she finds herself wondering whether her arrival was mere coincidence or part of an evil and sinister plan that might just end up costing her the highest price of all.

Can Nell trust anyone at Starling Villas? Has she just stumbled into a trap that will force her to confront malevolent forces and lingering shadows from the past? Nobody knows better than Nell just how fragile people can be, but when the stakes are this high, she realises that she is going to need all of her strength to keep from spiraling out of control and breaking into a million tiny pieces…

I’ve long been a fan of Sarah Hilary’s DI Marnie Rome series, but she has completely outdone herself with Fragile. A cleverly constructed and deftly plotted thriller worthy of DuMaurier, Vine and Highsmith, Fragile is a beautifully layered tale rich in tension, terror and suspense guaranteed to linger in readers’ minds weeks after the last page has been turned.

In Fragile, Sarah Hilary has written an outstanding tale readers will want to savour but which they will find themselves galloping through and eagerly turning page after page desperate to reach the highly satisfying denouement.

Immersive, emotional and absolutely fantastic, with Fragile, Sarah Hilary continues to affirm her standing as one of the UK’s leading crime writers.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

A great thriller book. It is a slow burner but it is worth it. Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for gifting me this book

A slow burning thriller. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

An excellent gothic thriller, truly creepy and compelling, I felt so tense the whole time I was reading it!

Fragile is a dark and atmospheric story - I felt fragile reading it. This was a real page turner ... one more chapter kind of book.

Had me up all night as the twists and turns left me unable to put this book down.

A delight of a read for fans of domestic noir.

I discovered Sarah Hilary as an author earlier this year and have been devouring her books ever since.
Fragile is a stand alone novel from her DI Marnie series so I was intrigued to see what it would offer.

The story centres around two young people - Nell Ballard and her friend Joe, a young lad with a troubled past, both of whom have run away to London from a foster home in Wales, following a tragic event. The teens are struggling to survive on the streets and have taken to selling themselves in an effort to keep warm and dry at winter.

One night Nell sees Joe disappear into a house (Starling Villa) and he doesn't reappear, so she decides to find a way into the Villa to uncover what has happened to her friend and why is he missing.

This book is an onion, it has so many layers. At times I found it quite chilling and dark and thought it may be a ghost story, but as it unravelled its layers it became a book about loss, longing to belong, family, friends and what it takes to survive.

Nell manages to find a way into Starling Villa's through a job and meets the enigmatic Dr Wilder and his wife, who have secrets of their own.

I don't want to say more, but the two storylines of what happened at the Foster Home and what happens to Nell and Joe at Starling Villas are sensational, I was equally invested in them both. Definitely an author I'd recommend

Although the characters were very well written and descriptive right down to the shocking back story’s, I just couldn’t get right into this book.
It was very slow burn with not enough happening to involve me but the style of writing was informative and very easy to read, and the setting eerie.
Not really for me though.

Great plot to get yourself lost in. This book has everything. A real fast paced thriller. Will get your heart racing on more than one occasion. Very well written. Highly recommend this book

I picked this book up so many times and had to stop as many times as well. In the end I just gave up because it was really not for me. Not even sure what I didn’t liked about it to be honest. Probably the characters just annoyed me too much.


Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy

Fragile is a dark emotional contemporary standalone mystery thriller from award-winning crime writer, Sarah Hilary, author of the DI Marnie Rome series.

Nell Ballard was abandoned as a young child by her mother. She was transferred to a foster home where she was abused. As the foster woman was only interested in the money, Nell ended up supporting her foster siblings. Nell falls in love with seventeen- year- old, Joe from the foster home and both run away together to London, from Wales.

Nell and Joe had been homeless for six weeks, living on the streets of West London on the embarkment, and Joe, living with addiction, was turning away from Nell, pursuing other activities on the streets, home to dealers and addicts.

Nell has a dark secret she is desperate to keep.

While trying to escape her past, Nell manages to start a new job as a housekeeper at Starling Villas, working for a dark and creepy person, Doctor Robin Wilder, who has very strict rules. Nell had seen Joe enter this house, and she wants to know why Joe was there.

But Nell soon realizes that her new home might not be that safe, and that the Doctor is hiding secrets of his own.

This dark and compelling character-driven story is ladled with twists and turns and drama and suspense. It is the story of secrets and lies, jealousy, love, loss and revenge and the fragile life of a foster child that is just looking for a place where she can belong.

Many thanks to the author, Pan Macmillan and Net Galley for my digital copy.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan, Sarah Hilary and NetGalley for the review copy of Fragile.

The story of Nell - a foster child who has never truely belonged - this is a dark and gripping thriller which is tense and heartbreaking in equal meaure.

Nell has had a difficult past and a dark secret she wants to keep hidden. When she starts a new job at Starling Villas she feels that she has finally found somewhere she belongs, however, it turns out her new employer is more than a little controlling and is hiding some secrets of his own!

Quite a unique thriller (more slow burn and drip feed than fast paced and gripping), but I enjoyed the duel timeline that helped build up a tense backstory.

Omg......... this book was amazing I flew threw the pages with Olympic speed I was hooked from the very first page. I found it full of twists and turns threw out and it kept me on the edge of my seat all the way threw  I would defiantly recommend this book if you like a good book to keep you reading threw the night hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did

Loved this book - a psychological thriller that builds and builds to a chilling denouement. Really unsettling, and so so beautifully written - Sarah's prose immerses the reader in the intrigue and layers of this book until they are unable to turn away from the story. So good.

I wasn't sure at times with this book, but I persevered.
Sometimes gothic, sometimes psychological but powerful. This is a very haunting of an orphan who just wants to belong somewhere. Actually made me cry at times.

Good book, not like anything I've read before. Enjoyable from a writer who is new to me. Would recommend.

I highly recommend this book.
It had just the right amount of suspense and eeriness that kept me engaged throughout.

Nell characters shows vulnerability and resilience and adapting to survive in situations that are not predictable.
We get some backstory too, so the chapters do alternate which I liked because we get to learn more about the characters.
If you like psychological thrillers then you have to read this!

I found this book a tiny bit slow but still nevertheless enjoyed the story, Nell is a young girl that has been brought up in care and has left her old life behind to try and forget about an awful event that happened in her past, when she stumbles across an job as a housekeeper in Starling villas she has no idea what she's letting herself in for.