From the outside, Anna’s life looks perfect. Married to her husband Dom, running a small millinery business, and mother to three lovely daughters – two by birth, and one stepdaughter. But she loves Bay just as much as she loves her biological daughters Nell and Iris… right?

The novel begins with the pivotal encounter that is the catalyst for the family’s unraveling. Teenage Nell is spotted at a gallery by a scout for a modeling agency. Nell is thrust into the modeling world, forcing Anna to upend her life to chaperone Nell on calls across Britain and even internationally. The story explores the dark and dangerous underbelly of modeling – sexual exploitation, body shaming, eating disorders, partying, and underage drinking/drugs.

Nell’s modeling career also causes drama between her and Bay. Bay is jealous of the attention Nell is getting, not to mention the fact that it takes Nell’s attention away from her. Only eighteen months apart in age, the stepsisters are close, but the foundation their relationship is built on dark secrets… secrets that are threatening to destroy this blended family. What lengths will Bay go to in order to keep her family’s attention and affection?

This story is billed as dark and emotional, and it definitely is! Although this book was a tad slow to start (and a little too fast to wrap up at the end), it drew me in before too long. The story is told from alternating viewpoints between Anna, Nell, and Bay, and interspersed with some flashbacks to when the girls are young. Each character’s voice is distinct and rings true. The insider view of the modeling industry feels authentic too. As a mother myself, I felt sick watching Nell get sucked into seedy environments, cringing as she made one bad choice after another. I felt Anna’s anxiety and despair as Nell grew more rebellious and out of control, while Dom enables Nell’s behavior and because her modeling was so financially lucrative. My sense of dread grew steadily as the story unfolded and the characters’ relationships fractured.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4 solid stars!

The novel begins with Dom's eight year old daughter, Bay, moving in with him and his partner Anna and their two young children, Nell and Iris. Many years later at age 15, Nell is approached by a modeling scout while visiting an art gallery. Nell is thrilled about this, but Anna is concerned about how it could affect her schooling. She shares her reservations with Dom but he insists it will help to pay for Nell's college. As things progress, Nell becomes defiant and rebellious. This tears up Anna who adores her family so much.

The story is told in three parts and in three POV; via Anna, Nell and Bay. Told from past to present, we learn a lot about how truly troubled Bay is. The turbulent relationship between Nell and Bay has many ups and downs and in the end a shocking discovery is made.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and could really connect with certain parts of the story since I currently have a teenage daughter. This was a very well written family drama and although it might not be for everyone, it did resonate with me and I would recommend it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for my ARC and for an honest review.

I was given an ARC of this book for an honest review. Thank you Net Galley

This story took me back to the time of raising my daughters. This is a blended family so I could relate. They were girls as I also had girls and remembered the fighting and sibling rivalry. These girls have dark secrets about each other and their Mom Anna tries to keep them all happy. Nel the oldest gets a modeling job at the age of 15 and that affects the whole family. The story of a young girl modeling takes you down a path that is disturbing and difficult to read .
I enjoyed this book but not as much as I thought I would.

I loved this and finished it in three days! Pacy, dark and a bit creepy but in a very convincing way - I liked how well developed the characters were. My only criticism is that the ending felt a little rushed.

The Pretty One is a family drama about Anna, who is married to Dom, and their 3 daughters, 2 of which are teenagers, Bay and Nell. Bay is smart and serious, Nell is adventurous and beautiful. That alone would be enough for any pair of teenage sisters to bicker but these two have some serious sibling rivalry happening. Both fighting for their parents attention, love, loyalty and respect. When Nell is singled out for her beauty, Bay struggles with both losing her sister's attention as well as all the extra attention Nell is receiving from so many others. This leads to both of them spiraling out of control until the explosive ending!
This was a quick read and was very emotional, heavy and dark. Issues of physical, emotional and sexual abuse are brought up in this story. But it also speaks of empathy and forgiveness and the love of family.
Great writing and a really good book!

This book is described as “a dark, emotional and absolutely gripping page-turner.” Please believe the “dark” and “emotional” adjectives if you are considering reading this novel. For those who are uncomfortable with rather explicit sexual content, you may want to pass on this offering.

In "The Pretty One," the author has stripped away the façade of a relatively happy, blended family to reveal the dark underbelly of serious dysfunction. Anna and Dom Hart seem like typical middle class parents with two daughters, Nell and Iris, complete with a house in the English countryside. Both are maintaining a fragile detente in their relationship. Dom is dissatisfied with his lot in life; Anna has sacrificed her dream for her own career; and both have had to accommodate their family and home life to include Bay, Dom’s daughter from his first marriage. Add in Anna’s neurotic mother and you have a cast of characters that are intriguing and, for the most part, unsympathetic.

Nell, at age 15, is “discovered” by a booking agent for a modelling agency. As she embarks on this path, the underlying tensions in the family rise and eventually reach the breaking point. Stoked by Dom’s greed and desire to experience success vicariously through his daughter and haunted by Bay’s passive-aggressive jealousy, Nell soon finds herself swept away into a world of parties populated by lecherous, older men. I have no personal knowledge of the teen modelling scene, but given the prevailing cultural climate, the author’s description of the manipulation and exploitation associated with this field is both believable and horrifying.

As the storyline slowly progresses through first person accounts by Anna, Nell and Bay, many themes of emotional and physical abuse are revealed. Co-dependency is rampant within this family and huge mistakes are made under the guise of love. There is some redemption in the conclusion, which seems a bit rushed after pages and pages exploring past and present drama.

For all of the above reasons, I found this book an exceedingly challenging read. In a paradoxical way, my discomfort with so much of the content also reflects the author’s skill in evoking strong emotional responses through her writing. Overall, this was not a pleasant reading experience and one I don’t recommend.

My thanks to the author, Bookouture and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing a digital ARC in exchange for an independent, honest review.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

Twisty and dark, The Pretty One explores the complicated relationships in a blended family and the secrets you sometimes have to keep to maintain the peace. Anna is proud of her three daughters, Bel (from her husband Dan's first marriage), Nel, and Iris and the strong ties between them, but she doesn't know the truth. Nell's foray into the ugly world of fashion starts the slow untangling of the lies the girls are living and the compromises Anna has had to make for the sake of her family.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

My first time reading one of Clare Boyd’s books and from the blurb sounded really good. It starts off slowly and draws the reader in and when you think something big is going to happen, the story just keeps going. I was a bit disappointed with the rushed ending but that’s my only criticism. I would like to read more books by the author again.

Gripping and unputdownable!

I was enthralled from the first few pages and couldn't stop. The story is very cleverly written; with tension building up with each chapter.

Through 3 different characters and flashbacks, the reader meets the Hart family, quite ordinary from the outside. Anna and Dom the parents, Nell and Iris their daughters, and Bay, Dom's daughter from a previous relationship with an abusive and cruel woman.

However on the inside, things are not easy and happy as they seem. The sisters do not love each other as much as one would think, Anna is not the fulfilled wife she pretends to be, Dom is not as detached as he seems.

When Nell gets singled out in a museum to sign with a model agency, their world starts unravelling and all the past secrets catch up with them, forcing each of them to face the truth and their feelings.

This book brilliantly delves into the intricacies of the family dynamic and relationships. The characters have lots of depth and the psychology of them all is wittily brought to light. Manipulation, guilt, jealousy, love, suffering; this novel has got it all.

I can only recommend you read this book and a full review will be available on publication day on my blog http://agjbooksandgems.com.

Thank you Net Galley and Bookouture for the advance copy and thank you Clare for this great story.

3-4 stars rounded up

When Bay was eight her father Dom brought her to live with his new family of partner Anna and half sisters Nell and Iris. Fast forward nine years and Bay is now 17, Nell is 15 and studying for her GCSE ‘s when she is approached and signed by a modelling agency. The story is told in dual timelines between then and now and by Anna, Bay and Nell.

First of all, I would not classify this as a thriller but as a psychological family drama. It is an intriguing examination of family dynamics and sibling rivalry in particular. As time goes on the family becomes increasingly fractured, relationships are tested and strained. From the start of her introduction to the family Bay changes the dynamics which she utilises to the maximum. The characterisation is a strong element in the storytelling. Bay is a fascinating character and you see that she has multifaceted with some facets being extremely unpleasant to say the least. Anna is a pleaser, she desires to keep the peace at all costs and is obliviously blind to the truth which becomes very destructive. Dom is a waste of space, he sucks out the oxygen and some of his responses simply make you angry. The modelling world that Nell enters is portrayed as a corrupt, unsavoury and very murky world and it’s almost like Nell has to become dead inside to cope. It takes a toll. As the storyline progresses there is growing tension, you become aware of the depth of some cruel actions and manipulation and disturbing revelations surface. The novel is well written, the premise and plot are good and the relatively short chapters keep the pace reasonably quick.

However, I find it slow initially and it takes a while to settle into the novel and become absorbed. Although the pace is gripping in places there are areas where it slows because of the depth of the storytelling; there’s some unnecessary minutiae of family life which I think slows the momentum.

Overall though, this is a good examination of a broken dysfunctional family.

With thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the arc for an honest review.

Thank you so much for the advance copy of this book. I wanted so badly to love this book but it just wasn’t in the cards. The subject matter in this book was very disturbing, but something I thought I could get past. Not sure if it was the subject matter, the character development or pace of the book but something didn’t quite come together? I was hoping more from the mother character in this book and then the realization she has in the epilogue didn’t fit with the beginning of the book, nor seem realistic. Thank you again for the advance copy.

The Pretty One by Clare Boyd was a disturbing yet compelling read. A family drama that revolves around barely-held-together relationships, sibling rivalry, secrets, loss of innocence and repressed trauma, the plot of this novel was, literally, a parent's nightmare and quite uncomfortable to get through.

Anna, Dom and their children Nell, Iris and Dom's daughter from his first marriage, Bay, live a seemingly pleasant life. Though on the surface everything looks hunky-dory, it is obvious from the get-go that all is not well between Bay and Nell. The family is held together by Anna's unconditional love and hard work. When Nell receives an offer to become a model, against her better judgement Anna agrees, as Dom convinces her that the pay would help secure Nell's future. From then on, things go downhill. Will Anna be able to resolve the cracks developing in her family or will their family end up broken beyond repair?

The story is said from the POV's of Anna, Nell and Bay. Anna is your  typical housewife/mother. The author goes on and on about Anna's chores and her concerns about each member of her family. While initially I felt this was pointless, as it just dragged out the story, it also made me realise that this was actually Anna's entire existence - her chores, her taking care of everyone, her endless worrying about her mother and each of her children - to the point that she had lost sight of her own dreams and ambitions and her chance at true love. It was quite disheartening to see that despite all her attempts at loving her three kids equally, she failed to see how troubled they actually were, until things got worse.

The plot was extremely well-crafted with well written characters. I sympathised deeply with Nell, simply hated Bay and sometimes just wanted to shake Anna and ask her to 'Open your eyes and see, woman..!!!'
The story maintained a slow pace, building up tension with each page; the ending was, however, a bit rushed. I am not complaining, though, since Anna deserved her happy ending after all that drama.

A big thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! This book has certainly opened my eyes. A little slow to start but then I was hooked
The Pretty One touches on the family dynamics of a blended family, sibling rivalry, mental health issues, wanting to follow your dreams no matter what the cost, giving up your dreams and hopes for other people. This also touches upon the corruption and exploitation which can take place within the teen modelling world and the dangers some young models are placed into by their bookers/agents.
I had many feelings whilst reading this book and despite some of the characters behaviour I couldn’t help but feel for them as Clare has so cleverly written their history and personality.
I don’t want to write too much as I do not want to leave spoilers but I will say I highly recommend this book
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this arc

So emotionally charged from beginning to end. A story chronicling the pain and passion of trying to blend a family, loving people who try and fail to love in the right way. The rise and fall of success in the modeling world and a moms vigilance to protect her daughter. Failing to see what's going on in her own home. Gripping and couldn't put it down. Haunting me are the unanswered questions, and I want more.

Most mothers realize that they are only as happy as their least happy child. This is what drives Anna in hew quest to make her blended family as happy as possible. With little support she comes to realize that her balancing act is not working and wonders how will she keep them all close and safe. When one of the girls is singled out for her beauty what will happen to the other two? Secrets abound in this domestic family drama.

Great author and great publisher. These two combinations make for a great family drama book. Draws you into their interesting lives and leaves you holding on till the end.

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an early release if this book.

Anna has a lot on her mind. She has welcomed her husband's daughter from his first marriage wholeheartedly. She wants Bay to feel at home and very much a part of the family.

Nell and Iris have taken to Bay, their step sister. Anna is always protective of the girls and doesn't differentiate amongst them.
But as the girls grow up Nell wants to pursue modelling and the one decision changes their paths. As Anna tries to find a way to balance the emotions, lots of relationships are tested. In the end, love does find a way.

A story that warms the heart. Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC

Thank you Bookouture and Net Galley for an early release of The Pretty One. The characters in here were narcissistic and it made for some cringing reading. The father was a waste and the one daughter thought she could do whatever she wanted at 15, mind boggling. After having said that, I did enjoy parts of this book. It was a very fast read. The ending was a good one.

What happens when you tell the truth and no one believes you? Because you are the stronger one, you must be the bad one, right? So no way you are telling like it is. You are treated to punishment, while the frail one is getting the cuddles.
What good does it when someone says sorry and meaning at that specific moment, but forgetting all about it soon after and it starts all over again?
How many times can you find it in your heart to forgive that person, put your arms around them and say you love them to get it thrown back in your face once more?
You share something with them and they are jealous. You don’t share and they feel left out.
Forgetting all those things is what is on your mind. The only problem is that you pick the wrong things to lose yourself in and you know it, but it needs a devastating event to turn everything around and upside down.
It felt like the worst thing, but was it really?
A dark story with some shocking revelations and lots of manipulations. Sometimes you forget how cruel people can be …
A very enjoyable read with a peek behind the scenes of the life of models. 4 stars

Thank you, Clare Boyd and Bookouture

I've never read anything from this author, but this blurb and cover caught my attention.

I enjoyed the short chapters, which kept the pace active, making it a page turner. I always enjoy books set in the UK, as well. I don't generally like first person POV stories, as few authors can do it well. Thankfully, that wasn't the case here. It was the best POV for this tale, as it allowed the reader to truly feel a part of the events.

The storyline and characters were well crafted. I wasn't as crazy about Bay as I was Nell, but it did work for the book. Some parts, including the ending, felt a bit rushed and like the author was trying to hurry up and tie it together.

If you're a fan of family dramas, you'll likely enjoy this book.