My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟(4 stars)
Publisher: Penguin
This is my second read by Liz Nugent and I was, again, pulled in and couldn't look away. I was sure that no one could supplant Lydia of Nugent's Lying In Wait from her throne as Character I Most Dread. Delia, now she shares it with Lydia.
The summary is perfect and just scratches the surface of what awaits the reader. The fact of the body in Delia's apartment at the outset comes full circle in the end but in between is the story of the path of her life and the destruction she's wrought in her wake up to that moment. I can't say I was in any way sympathetic to her but she was a character worth reading about. There are POV chapters for some of the main people she's interacted with or crossed in life and were very well done. With a character like Delia, having a counterpoint to measure her veracity and also see how others saw her was invaluable. Delia also relates the wild stories of Inishcrann that her father told her and those were well done also. Still the parts that I found most heart-rending were the letters to Delia from James.
I chose this as my weekday book during a very busy week but think it's also a good weekend book. I had to put it down often but I didn't want to and couldn't wait to get back to it. Perfect for reading on vacay. Nugent is on my must read list, so I'm giving all the recommendations.
Summary: The deliciously sinister new novel from the No 1 bestselling author of Richard and Judy Book Club pick, Lying in Wait'
'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?'
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 . . .
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