By Liz Nugent
Published by Penguin (15 November 2018)
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher
Publisher’s description
'I could probably have been an actress.
It is not difficult to pretend to be somebody else.
Isn't that what I've been doing for most of my life?'
It is not difficult to pretend to be somebody else.
Isn't that what I've been doing for most of my life?'
Cordelia Russell has been living on the French Riviera for twenty-five years, passing herself off as an English socialite. But her luck, and the kindness of strangers, have run out.
The arrival of a visitor from her distant past shocks Cordelia. She reacts violently to the intrusion and flees her flat to spend a drunken night at a glittering party. As dawn breaks she stumbles home through the back streets. Even before she opens her door she can hear the flies buzzing. She did not expect the corpse inside to start decomposing quite so quickly . . .
Skin Deep left me cold and shaking - with shock, horror, admiration, or maybe a combination of all three. Every so often, I’ll read a book and discover a protagonist I love to hate. Well Liz Nugent has, yet again, created such a character.
Delia is a monster, that’s the word that popped into my head first when thinking about how to describe her. She is manipulative, self-centred and dangerous. She makes her mark on everyone she comes into contact with. In fact, she leaves disaster and shattered lives in her wake.
Skin Deep is an in-depth psychological character study - a look at whether evil is created or inborn, nature or nurture. I won’t give the plot away, though Delia IS the plot and Skin Deep is as dark as you can get. We know from the start that Delia has killed someone, but who and why?
This multi-layered book is compelling and addictive, macabre and twisted, impossible to put down. It reads like a memoir, in the first person, getting right inside Delia’s mind, something that Liz Nugent does extremely well. I didn’t want it to end - and that ending really was a shocker yet felt totally appropriate.
Skin Deep provided great escapism from my life into someone else’s - and her life will be very hard to forget!
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