Fragile by Sarah Hilary

Good morning, everyone! Today I'm part of the Random Things tour for Sarah Hilary's latest, Fragile!

Nell and Joe are on the run, living rough. But one night, Joe takes off with another woman. Nell followed him, saw him leave with her, saw him disappear into a building, and that was it. 

Determined to find Joe, Nell manages to get hired on as housekeeper at the house where she last saw Joe. But there's no sign of him. In fact, it's just a man living in a house filled with boxes and dust. But Nell's new position gives her an opportunity to dig further and the secrets this house holds are darker than she'd expected. 

As Nell searches for traces of Joe, someone else is searching for Nell. 

Sarah Hilary breaks from her DI Marnie Rome series with this taut and suspenseful stand alone!

Nell has secrets. Secrets she's trying to escape.

She grew up in a foster home where she made herself useful. Cleaning, helping with the little kids, that sort of stuff. From her perspective it wasn't a happy existence, but it had its good points. Namely, Joe and Rosie. 

But something happened to Rosie. And Meaghan, the woman who fostered them, isn't going to forget. 

In her attempts to hang on to the things she cares about—in this case, Joe—Nell lands herself in a situation that isn't what she expected. 

Teasing out truth from lies, staying one step ahead of the Meaghans of the world, and, above all, taking care of the things that are important to her, take all of Nell's energy. 

Interestingly, though, we're given both Nell's and Meaghan's perspectives in the narrative. And while the beginning of the book sets up Nell as our heroine and Meaghan as the bad guy, that set up becomes murkier as the story takes off. 

This is twisty—and somewhat bleak—psychological suspense of the highest order!

Fragile is available now in the UK.