Cover Image: Fragile

Fragile

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Member Reviews

Thank you to Anne Cater for my invitation to the tour and to Pan Macmillan for my copy of the book in return for a fair and honest review.

This is one of those books that you know from the outset that it is dark story. Nell has come from a disturbed background and was abandoned as a child. She is desperate to get into Starling Villas but you don’t know why, but it involves Joe who she has been in a relationship with. She is very resourceful and she gets herself employed by Dr Robin Wilder. She is hiding from a foster mother she had called Meagan Flack, the story is told from the perspective of both Nell and Meagan. Nell starts work as a housekeeper for Dr Wilder and gets inside Starling Villas. Dr Wilder is a strange character who likes his routines and then she finds out that her instincts were right about the house as she discovers more about it’s residents.

This is the first book that I have read by this author but I was immediately hooked by the style and descriptive prose. As the book progresses the reader begins to discover the horrors that Nell has experienced in her young life but it also very uncovers why Nell was so keen to get on the inside of Starling Villas. I don’t want to give spoilers about this story as it is definitely one best read cold as you slowly find out the disturbing truth about Nell and Meagan. The characters in the book are complex and flawed and this adds to the suspense of the novel.

A dark, detailed and disturbing story

4 Stars ****

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I always enjoy reading Sarah Hilary, her Marnie Rome books are among the best police thrillers currently being published and she never shields her characters from the worst experiences. Readers can normally expect a comforting security when reading about recurring characters – the danger happens elsewhere, to other people, leaving our favourite cops free to sweep in and catch the killer or lock up the bad guys. Not so with Sarah Hilary’s books, she is one of the few authors where you do feel the gloves are off and every single person she creates can just as easily be destroyed. The gut-punch twists she works so well into her stories are what bring me back every single time.

Knowing that Fragile was a stand alone novel I started reading with one thought uppermost in my mind – anything could happen here!

Nell was a runaway, living on the streets of London with Joe and the pair of them doing what it took to survive. Then one night Joe vanishes leaving Nell alone. She knows where she saw him last and returns to the street to watch for him. She eventually spots Starling Villas – a tiny doorway in a busy street which leads to the house behind. This is where Joe was last seen, going into this house and Nell is going to find out what happened to him in there. Starling Villas is the main hub of activity for the events unfolding but the history Nell and Joe share are equally relevant to the current events so readers will revisit Nell’s past to understand how she comes to find herself knocking on the door of Starling Villas applying for a job she finds out about by chance.

Nell had been brought up in care. From a very young age she cleaned, cooked, scrubbed, mended and did whatever else was required to appease the woman who was acting as her guardian. On learning the mysterious and enigmatic Robin Wilder needed an assistant in Starling Villas Nell makes herself available as a housekeeper. Her responsibilities are meticulously laid out, her every waking moment appears to be planned and her new employer gives away very little, even to the point of virtually ignorning Nell’s existence. She want’s to investigate the house to look for signs of Joe but so carefully plotted are her responsibilites it is hard to see how this could happen.

The pair have a very strange, controlled existence in Starling Villas but that precision is about to be shattered as Wilder’s wife adds an infusion of chaos to the dynamic. Nell hates her from the outset but also knows that this woman is involved with Joe’s disappearance. Things are about to get intense and with Sarah Hilary pulling the strings there is just no telling where we will end up.

Fragile was a fabulous read. For large parts the story felt out of its time. Starling Villas and the seclusion it brought from the outside world, the role of cook and housekeeper for the young girl who also washes, mends and does the shopping for her master. It had an old-world feel but then a mobile telephone is mentioned and you are brought back to the reality of a modern world but with a strange relationship and cirsumstance within this unusual house and its quirky residents.

I fully understand why Fragile is described as modern gothic The writing is beautiful, the depiction of Starling Villas and Nell’s challenging world were vivid and detailed in my imagination. For large parts of the book I had no idea where events may lead but I was fully caught up in the story and I was there for every step of that journey. Highly recommended.

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Fragile is a standalone novel from Sarah Hilary. I have read some of her D Marnie Rome series and they are exceptional. This is a different genre so I didn't know how good it would be but I jumped on the tour when I got invited.
Fragile is a dark story that actually gave me goosebumps at certain parts of the book. We meet Nell Ballard, someone who has no idea how it feels to have unconditional love. An abandoned child by the age of eight, by her mother and placed in a foster home with a foster mother who only cared about the pay packet she gained for fostering. Nell made up for what she lacked by becoming a surrogate mother to her foster sibling.
As Nell attempts to find her identity and somewhere she belongs she falls for 17 year old Joe Peach a runaway and existing with addiction. They find themselves homeless and on the London streets. Nell finds she can't rely on Joe who will manipulate any situation in order to get hold of a fix. She decides to have a fresh start and ends up a housekeeper at Starling Villas working for Doctor Robin Wilde who is an eccentric recluse. We see Nell with a home again, one which she has rules and has to work hard for her wage, a very similar thing to what she did in foster care.
Starling Villas is a haunting and forboding place. The imagery that Sarah Hilary brings to mind is a cold, dark house that really caught my imagination. As the story unfolds it begins to turn darker and we become privy to some heartbreaking back stories too.
Sarah Hilary for me, has created a fabulous story that incorperates, love, tension and disappointment all skilfully blended to create this story with gothic indertones that kept me invested. Her characterisations are spot on. They all have their unique flaws but they jump out at you and their flaws make you want to know them. A cleverly written eerie and atmospheric novel I highly recommend.
Thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours, Pan MacMillan publishers and NetGalley for my copy of the book.

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One of the things I love most about this book is the way it is written, the metaphors, the clever turns of phrase that pepper the narrative time and time again. It is clever, sinister and menacing with some really unlikable characters such as foster carer Meagan Flack a “Poundland Bond villain without even a cat to warm her vicious lap”, Dr Robin Wilder who owns Starling Villas “his loneliness had a colour, pebble-grey”, his wife or is it ex-wife Carolyn who “didn’t need a weapon, with her eyes like knives” and I hate to say it – “soft boy” Joe Peach.

One always wonders in these types of story how someone like Meagan Flack (her full name makes her sound more sinister) ever got to be a foster carer. Surely someone was suspicious. She doesn’t even like children. She is mean and spiteful and lazy – allowing foster child Nell Ballard to do all the work. Abandoned at eight years old when her mother met a new man and wanted to start a fresh family with a new baby, she becomes the mum to all the little ones. She cooks, cleans and even irons their clothes. She reads them bedtime stories and puts them to bed. Then Rosie Bond arrives, the pretty little ‘princess’ whose parents wanted a doll to show off and got a toddler with the terrible twos. Nell adores Rosie who calls her her new mother and follows her everywhere.

But when tragedy strikes, Nell and Joe run away to London, doing anything and everything to survive till they end up on the streets. Then Nell sees an opportunity to become the housekeeper at Starling Villas, but employer Dr Wilder has rules, pages of them, which would send most people running. But Nell doesn’t mind – she’s used to rules – and she doesn’t believe she is worthy of anything better. She breaks everything she touches because she knows how fragile people can be, including herself. All she really wants is love and security but she doesn’t believe she deserves it, not after what she and Joe did back at Lyles.

This is a very dark story, full of guilt, secrets and lies. As the reader you pray there will be hope and salvation, but can Nell find a way back and forgive herself?

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours and to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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This is a stunning psychological thriller that haunts from the first page to the last.

Nell Ballard is a troubled young woman who is in care when her birth mother decides she wants another child and Nell has a difficult upbringing by Meagann uncaring foster mother (to call her uncaring is actually kind).
There's also a boy, Joe, who Nell is very close to and a tragedy unfolds.

The story is mainly told when Nell and Joe move to London and Nell finds herself a job as housekeeper in a large 3 storey villa, working for a strange, uncommunicative man who has very rigid rules.

The book is so well written, I found it in turns; spooky, scary, troubling, heartbreaking and multi layered as the chapters move from present day in London, to Nell's troubled time in Wales.

It's very difficult to put down and I strongly recommend for those who love a thriller.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview.

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This is the first book I’ve read by Sarah Hilary but it definitely won’t be the last! Fragile follows teenage runaway Nell, a former foster child who is running from an incident shrouded in secrecy and trauma. She ends up at Starling Villas whilst searching for her fellow runaway Joe. However there is more to Starling Villas and it’s mysterious owner Robin Wilder than meets the eye and Nell finds herself in a dark and dangerous predicament.

The first thing I have to say about Fragile is how beautifully written and observed it is. Hilary imbues her prose with an evocative and lingering atmosphere that really gets under the skin of her readers. There are definite echoes of Du Maurier both in the slightly gothic tone of the novel and in the sense that Starling Villas, like Manderley is very much a character in itself. There is a creeping sense of dread to the story that is connected to the house and the secrets it holds. The characters are equally fascinating. Fragile is narrated by Nell and by her former foster mother Meagan, a woman consumed by vengeance and bitterness. Nell herself is a damaged soul whose story is full of sadness, loneliness and loss. Robin Wilder is a bit of an enigma whilst his wife Carolyn is a frightening study in malevolence. Together this cast of characters makes for a brilliant slow burn of a thriller with a quiet sense of unease. Fragile is deftly plotted and beautifully paced and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a thriller steeped in emotion and atmosphere.

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Well so much was happening in this book! It took me about 70 odd pages to get into it but when I did I was thoroughly gripped.

This book had very few likeable characters - but I found myself enjoying that about it. They've all got so many secrets and I really liked unravelling them all.

It had so many twists and turns and it they were written beautifully.

Really do recommend this one

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My first book by Sarah Hilary. I was drawn in from the very beginning. A fantastic psychological thriller with some really great characters. A very well structured book with all its twists and turns. Both tragic and heartbreaking but a must read. Loved it.

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This is a complex thriller with so many layers, from social justice, traumatic childhoods and relationships. Nell is our lead protagonist in this story, and we follow her troubling tale in the form of a dual timeline – one being the present day, and the other taking us back to a year previous.

In the present day Nell is currently homeless, and her lover Joe has disappeared into the night with a well groomed older woman. Nell manages to track them down, and her search leads her to a tiny, three story Victorian house that is almost invisible from certain places. As Nell waits for Joe to emerge from the house, she uses what little money she has to buy herself a hot drink in the cafe nearby. As she is waiting, and watching the house, the only person that emerges is a young woman, so Nell takes it upon herself to approach her and find out what exactly is going on within the walls of the mysterious house.

As the story drifts back to Nell’s past, we learn that she has had a rather hard upbringing within the care system. Whilst picking up the slack of the housework and looking after the younger children in the house, Nell certainly seems to mature before her time, and it is in this house that she first meets Joe. As two teenagers forced into each others lives, it wasn’t long before they became inseparable. Something occurs within the foster home that causes them to flee, but what could have been so bad to convince them sleeping rough is a better option?.

This is an utterly chilling read that captivated me entirely from the moment I opened the cover. The characters are gritty and realistic, each of them being given their own fleshed out personalities and flaws that add to the complexity of the story. The storyline itself is perfectly paced and has so much drive throughout it is difficult to part with it.

The story is both thrilling and heart wrenching at the same time as we learn more about the characters and the lives they lead, not to mention the many difficulties they have faced throughout their lives. With a unique plot and an ending that I hadn’t anticipated, this is one of those books that I will be talking about with others for a long time to come.

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There’s a lot packed into this complex thriller about human relationships, traumatic childhoods, damaged adults, social justice, and the differences between those who are deemed to be respectable and those society deems outcasts. It’s an addicting and sometimes uncomfortable read, but it’s themes pour scorn on those who dismiss genre fiction as having nothing important to say. Across two timelines, one current and one a year in the past, we follow our main character Nell. Currently she’s homeless and her lover, Joe, has disappeared into the night with a well- groomed older woman. Nell tracks them to a tiny house, almost impossibly narrow, and invisible from certain points in the street. It’s a three storey, possibly Victorian town house and must be worth a fortune. Waiting impatiently for Joe to emerge she spends her last handful of change on a cup of tea in order to sit in the warmth of a cafe. The only person who comes out is a young girl with a blonde plait hanging over her shoulder. As she comes in for a drink Nell makes a choice to go over and talk to her and finds out she’s been interviewed for a position as assistant to the house owner - a man. In her desperation to find Joe, Nell decides she needs to get inside that house and comes up with a plan.

In her past, Nell has been in the care system, ending up in a group home in Wales with a foster carer called Megan Flack. She is a career rather than a vocational carer, collecting the money but rarely doing the job. She is neglectful at best, but there’s much more going on under the surface. Nell has learned to look after a home because she was always picking up the slack with housework, cooking and mothering the younger children, particularly the cute 6year old Rosie who clings to Nell. When Joe first arrives at the home Nell is knocked sideways by how beautiful he is. Two teenagers under one roof, with plenty of time to themselves creates the perfect opportunity and they are soon joined at the hip. In the heat of the summer they go bathing at a nearby pool, but Joe doesn’t always want the younger kids there and Nell is having to make hard choices. What has happened to cause the pair to flee their foster home? They end up in London, sleeping on the streets, until one night Joe disappears into Starling Villas.

The book’s structure is clever and works really well to pace the action and build tension. We learn a little bit more about the present, then go back into the past; a past that constantly updates and informs the present again. There was a growing sense of unease, as I got further into the book. I was never sure who was truly playing who. Caroline was unnerving and hard to like, because she never seemed to show any vulnerability. Megan was worse though; cold,manipulative and completely without empathy. The thought that there are people like this looking after children who are already traumatised and suffering from attachment issues. There was a social conscience here. The fact that a magistrate, a man who decides the fate of children like this, can be licentious and exploitative behind closed doors shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow it was. There was something about Robin that I trusted, despite all the evidence to the contrary. We all know that status is conveyed according to how people appear and what they own. We might automatically assume that the well-read man living at Starling Villas is a fine, upstanding citizen. We also might assume that those brought up in the care system, the homeless and the hopeless, are capable of just about anything. What did drive Nell and Joe to pack and leave Wales, so suddenly? Why is Megan still seeking them out?

Nell is a wonderful character, all tough exterior but marshmallow inside. Her vulnerability is evident in her interactions with Robin, her new employer. She’s a hard worker, trained by a foster mother who seems to have hated some of her charges as much as doing anything that made her break a sweat. Nell’s been a mother figure at an age when she still needed one herself. She’s used to making a home too, making the best of the meagre things she can find to enhance her surroundings and lift her spirits. She’s tough enough to survive most things, even a winter on the streets in the capital, but the things that have happened to her still haunt her mentally. She’s been let down so many times it shouldn’t hurt anymore, but it does, especially when she’s let her guard down and softened slightly. Even though some of her behaviour is morally questionable, she’s so young and has had so few chances in life, I found myself rooting for her. The author’s knowledge about a childhood spent in care and what it can do to the rest of your life shows research, listening to personal accounts and experience. Not everybody survives, some will be institutionalised for the rest of their lives, while those who do survive the system don’t always leave unscathed. I think this was represented so well through the characters in this novel. Thankfully, not all foster parents are like Megan Flack.

This was a great read, compelling and difficult to put down once you’re hooked by the story. Every character has nuance and flaws, meaning in both the past and current narrative, you’re never quite sure who to trust or what to believe. I was haunted by little Rosie, just like Nell is. The author has created an addictive thriller, but given it heart and poignancy too. I was completely drawn in until the very last page.

This review will be part of the blog tour currently running with Random Things Tours.

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Gorgeous writing with a Highsmith-esque feel, this is a knock out standalone from one of the UK's best crime writers. I hope this is the massive breakout book that Hilary deserves.

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My thanks to Pan Macmillan for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Fragile’ by Sarah Hilary in exchange for an honest review.

This psychological thriller has an intriguing start. Nell Ballard is a former foster child with a dark secret. She and her foster brother, Joe Peach, have run away from a home in Wales, run by the corrupt Meagan Flack. The night before Joe had been picked up by a glamorous woman and Nell has followed them back to a house in West London.

The house is Starling Villas and is home to the enigmatic Dr. Robin Wilder. Nell seizes an opportunity and talks him into hiring her as a live-in housekeeper. She plans to seek Joe’s whereabouts. Robin has secrets of his own and also has a list of strict rules that Nell has to follow. Then Meagan shows up at the door….and she’s not alone.

As with any good psychological thriller, there are twists and turns. Alongside events in the present we get glimpses of the earlier lives of Nell and Joe and the reasons for their running away from Meagan.

This was quite a slow burn of a novel with a focus on the various interpersonal relationships. It is also quite dark in terms of the failings of the foster care system as well as the exploitation of vulnerable individuals by those in power.

Starling Villas very much has a Gothic atmosphere despite it being smack in the middle of a built-up part of London rather than a windy moor, craggy
shoreline or forest setting. Sarah Hilary has cited ‘Rebecca’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ as inspirations and there are subtle nods to each in the narrative while confidently standing on its own.

Overall, ‘Fragile’ held my attention though the nature of the subject matter was not always easy to read.

This is my first novel by Sarah Hilary and I am now interested in checking out her DI Marnie Rome series of police procedurals.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

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Nell Ballard, abandoned as a child, joins the household of serial foster mother Meagan, a cold and neglectful woman only interested in the money she makes from taking in children. Nell acts as cook, cleaner and little mother to the younger ones, and at 15 falls in love with beautiful but abused Joe, a drug addict. They make up a little family of sorts when they bond with “little princess” Rosie, but run away to London after tragedy strikes and Meagan is driven out of the home. They separate when things go wrong, but trying to find Joe leads Nell to Starling Towers and Dr Robin Wilder, an eccentric academic with his own secrets. Nell becomes his live-in housekeeper, but his manipulative ex-wife keeps appearing and dropping hints that Nell is being used in some kind of sinister game. Meanwhile, her own past is about to catch up with her…
This is a creepy, psychological thriller. Sarah Hilary writes well and is good at building up an unsettling and disturbing atmosphere. The story is told by both Nell and Meagan, giving both sides of what happened, which adds depth to the narrative. What emerges is that there will always be people who will take advantage of the vulnerable and parents or carers who will not love or care for their children, and that damaged children carry that burden with them and can struggle to ever find a way out. Sad as this is, I found the characters in the book unlikeable overall and found the misery of it all rather oppressive. This could just be me, as I don’t really like the gothic genre, but I have really enjoyed Hilary’s Marnie Rome crime novels.

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A tale of power, corruption and greed, love and revenge. Nell and Joe, two adolescents in foster care are exploited, and used by their foster mother Meagan. Nell works as in the house as surrogate parent to the little ones and does most of the house work whilst Meagan takes the State’s money,
Nell and Joe fall in love and are embroiled in the disappearance and death of young Rosie who tagged along whenever she could.
After running away, it all goes terribly wrong for them both.
All the characters in this book are flawed, a few are deeply unsettling and Nell is in the middle of them all, pulling, pushing and scheming to get what they want. Looking for an escape and some personal security, Nell is an unfortunate pawn in their games.
Thanks to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication in exchange for an honest review

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This author is new to me, but based on this book, she’s certainly one whose other works I’m keen to read. This is a very unusual story, in part, quite unsettling and it explores a number of themes. It unfolds from the narrative points of the two central females. They’re very different and neither make for reliable narrators, so the reader is left not knowing what to trust and where the tale is going next. It’s complex, dark and there’s a gothic feel with some of the descriptive passages, all of which add to the complexity of the story. For me, this was a very different read and I enjoyed it.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

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I found Fragile, by Sarah Hilary, an enjoyably unnerving read, largely because of the nature of the characters. You’re never quite sure whose version of events to trust or what anyone’s true motives are. The story is told from the point of view of Nell, a highly unreliable narrator who’s constantly holding back from the reader, and Meagan, a thoroughly unpleasant character who I imagine was a lot of fun to write.

Meagan is the world’s worst former foster mum, who really didn’t have her charges’ best interests at heart or treat them with any degree of genuine kindness or fairness. She blames Nell for the ignominious end to her career, and isn’t going to let her just disappear. Meagan made reading this book a very tense experience, as you never quite knew when she was going to enter a scene and wreak havoc on the other characters’ emotions.

Nell, meanwhile, is hard to get a handle on. It’s clear that she’s very resourceful; when we first meet her, she’s blagging her way out of homelessness and into a housekeeping job for Dr Robin Wilder at Starling Villas, and throughout the book, we hear about how she acted as a ‘little mother’ at Meagan’s foster home by looking after the younger children and making meals and cakes.

You do feel sorry for Nell as you find out how she ended up in foster care, and realise that she makes herself useful in order to be accepted and guard against abandonment. You can tell she’s feeling lost without her beloved Joe, although he’s very much a lost soul himself, who finds himself pulled between various other characters. At the same time, though, you’re never quite sure what her intentions are, or what her true involvement was in the tragic event that precipitated her move to London from Wales.

Robin is also a tricky character; sometimes he’s rigid and cold with Nell, and other times he shows a warmer, more caring side. You’re not sure what his motivations are either. When Nell arrives at Starling Villas, he claims she’ll be working for only him, but is that true? Does he have ulterior motives for hiring her? What happened to his last housekeeper? And what does he do, exactly? You’ll have to read the book to find out!

Starling Villas is like a slippery character in itself, by turns dark and unsettling, and fascinating and homely, particularly as Nell makes the space in the attic her own. The house is full of mysterious and archaic objects, and the ways the characters interact with them bring the house to vivid life.

Fragile is an unnerving, dark and tense modern Gothic novel.

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Sarah Hilary’s Marnie Rome series is one of the few that I am up to date with and I am a huge fan of her writing and her characters so was looking forward to reading Fragile which is a standalone novel. A few days after finishing it I am still trying to understand my feelings regarding the characters. All of them have given me something to think about. The title of the novel is the best way I have of describing all of them.

There aren’t many characters in the novel but all of them had an impact, especially the women. Nell featured more than Meaghan and Carolyn but I found that every time each of them appeared I found myself analysing them and trying to work out what damage they had caused but also how they had suffered due to others. I tried not to judge but with at least one of the characters it was difficult.

There was an often overwhelming sense of pain and loneliness evident from all of them. This doesn’t make it a depressing novel, but it did make me think about how many in our ‘care’ system are damaged by the ones who have the power to make a difference. Unfortunately much of the storyline is sadly believable and I dread to think what some children in care go through and the reasons why they are there.

Fragile isn’t a quick read but it is a mesmerising one and the author has proven that she is just as good as writing standalone fiction as well as her series. This reader is certainly looking forward to what will be next.

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Nell, is a runaway and takes lodgings at Starling Villas working as a housekeeper, following rigid rules from her employer. Nell finds out that her employer is hiding secrets however, her arrival at Starling Villas was not a coincidence.

This book is very dark and mysterious and I was able to read most of it within one day.

I felt that not much happened in the plot however, Hilary slowly builds on tension and reveals the motives of the characters, making me keep reading to find out what happened. The plot does become more fast paced, particularly in the last 25%. I liked how Hilary writes from past and present tense to reveal details from Nell's early years. as she was a very intriguing character and a slightly unreliable narrator.

Please be aware that this book does include some difficult topics such as child abuse, drug dependency, sexual abuse and death.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest and unedited feedback.

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I loved that this book had a gothic feel from the beginning, with the carefully developed descriptions, especially of the Starling Villas. It definitely hooks you in and makes the book an original and dark read.

Sarah Hilary clearly has a talent for building believable yet dark worlds, and well-drawn and complex characters.

Nell is a complex and empathetic character. Despite clearly being somewhat manipulative, obsessive, you might even say unhinged, and a very good liar, you can tell that deep down there is just a little girl that wants to be loved.

This is a complex story that explores lots of issues, the most impactful for me being the effect that a disrupted and damaged childhood can have on our psyche and life at adulthood.

Overall, this was a compelling, dark and atmospheric read which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think this author is extremely talented and I am definitely going to go and check out more of her books.

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I have to confess that it did take me a little while to settle into the writing style of Sarah Hilary's new standalone thriller Fragile as it's fair to say that it's completely different to her Marnie Rome series which I have previously enjoyed. It's a gothic and intense read that really gets under the reader's skin.

When we first meet Nell she is watching a house in central London and she's trying to come up with a plan to get inside but the reasons as to why are initially unknown. It's only through flashbacks to events of the past and information that comes to light in the present day that we get to understand more as to what is the driving force behind Nell's actions. But the more that is revealed, the more it becomes clear that things are not as straight forward as first anticipated.

Nell hadn't had the easiest of upbringings, rejected by her mother when she was young and placed into the foster care system. But sadly for her it wasn't the loving home she deserved, instead she was severely neglected and had to grow up well before her time taking on far more responsibilities than any child should.

The descriptive writing of Starling Villas made it feel just as much of a character as the rest of the flawed characters, Nell, Dr Wilder and the other characters that feature within this brooding story. It's hard to say much more about the plotline without spoiling the enjoyment of reading for others.

Fragile was certainly different to anything else I've read in recent years, it's a dark and creepy tale featuring love, obsession and revenge at its core that had me racing through the chapters wondering how it was all going to play out.

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