Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book by Liz Nugent, although I have enjoyed others by her.
I felt the plot line was rather thin and a bit too predictable and far-fetched in my opinion.

Rounded up 2.5

Skin Deep was a deeply unnerving ride. You're taken into the mind of a complete narcissist who will lie, cheat and do anything to live the life she thinks she deserves.

Delia was one of those characters I instantly disliked but was also compelled to read. Sometimes I felt sorry for her, only for that to be wiped away by whatever she did next.

I personally would say this is more literary fiction rather than a psychological thriller, which I've seen it advertised as. Mostly because, apart from the opening scenes and the ending, there isn't a whole load of thrills in it. Most of the time, we were just following Delia around, as she destroys her own life over and over again.

Did I like Skin Deep? I'll say I'm not sure. It is, however, a well-written character study of a narcissist that will both captivate and disturb you out in equal measure.

With thanks to netgalley and the author

Sadly I didn't download this title in time.

So can't really give a review

The cover suggests a shocking crime story, yet this book is just so much more. It's actually the story of one woman and her troubled life. She's utterly fascinating and equally repellant all at the same time in both her thoughts and behaviour, that I could not put this down.

Words have, temporarily, lost me. Skin Deep is a haunting, brutal read that focuses on a quite abhorrent character but which made me determined to keep reading to discover how we got to this point.
The book opens with a description of Cordelia Russell leaving her home to party and drink, then end the night returning to her home where there is a corpse. Of course that set up a ridiculous number of questions, to which we get answers…eventually.
Before we have our opening questions answered we go back in time to see the life of young Delia as she was known then. Much-loved daughter of Martin, Delia lived on a remote island as a child. Her relationship with her mother and brothers was less secure, and when her idyllic life is threatened she sets in place a catastrophic chain of events with a casual act of violence that hints at her character.
We follow Delia as she is taken in by a childless couple on the mainland. Determined to make something of herself, Delia’s chameleon-like changes come as little surprise. She could have had a relatively happy life, but for her ruthless need to do better and get the life she feels she deserves.
The pages following Delia as a young mother and her descent into alcoholism were hard to read. How anyone could be so cruel is hard to comprehend, but the characters around her are not entirely blameless. When she nearly kills her young son in a house fire her lack of thought for anyone other than herself makes her a difficult character to read about.
Moving into the times close to the present clearly illustrate the selfishness of this character. Though we might be encouraged to understand some of her behaviours, there’s so much that is unfathomable. It would have been easy to close the pages as Delia took us to the moments mentioned at the start of the book. However, Nugent focuses on the aftermath and so we come to learn the details of Delia’s story that she didn’t know. They don’t excuse her actions, but the brutality and sense that things could have been so different made me feel a little less judgmental of her.

Very atmospheric and chilling. Nugent writes such horrible characters so well but glad to know she is a lovely person herself! Memorable.

I really enjoyed this book and would read more from this author. May have been first but won't he the last.

Not quite sure how to review Skin Deep, the last 10% was so intense and I was hooked. And yet, the other 90% I did not completely connect to the book and the story of Delia, but that may be because I was listening to the audiobook and was distracted at times. Cordelia or Delia is one vile narcissistic woman, she was set on a pedestal from such a young age and she believed that she deserves to be there. However, all the actions she has taken in life were selfish and undeniably calculated. Every encounter, every conversation she tried to work it in her favour and to enable the best outcome for her.

I kept hoping she would have slight salvation, and I honestly thought she would, but I think Delia was too far gone for anything. She could not see past her own gains. Can you guess I wasn’t a fan of hers?

I did, however, love the setting of the book! From the isolated community of Inishcrann to the London, the French Riveria and Monaco. We follow Delia all through her life, seeing how she is destroying all opportunities she has in front of her.

The entirety of the book, we know that time is short, with an explosive opening of a murder, it is hard to see how everything entwined at first. It is not until the final 10% the present day, we finally see clearly what is happening and by then everything is too late. The final pages, we feel the finality of it, we feel coldness but there is no absolution. I feel no empathy nor do I feel elated with the outcome, I feel nothing. Maybe this is how it feels to be Delia.

I was so shocked with the present day when we see Delia in the final hurdle. The shock I felt when we learn about the “body” and it was upsetting especially when you read Delia’s thoughts, they were just plain cold.

That is not to say that Liz’s storytelling is sublime. She has created a character that you can vehemently dislike (I do not like the word hate) and still be invested in their story. I wanted and needed to end the story with some sort of completion. This is a very dark and disturbing story of how one woman can not see outside herself, she never quite thinks the world owes her a favour and she will own that. However, the pedestal she was put on from such a young age definitely hindered her in the woman she became.

Skin Deep is a book that will unsettle you and create such coldness around you. You will be lead on a story from nothing to the glitz and glam until the final fall from grace. It will make you feel many many emotions and who does not love a book that can make you express so much emotion. I mean you may think I didn’t like the book, you would be wrong but as I said at the beginning I found it hard to care, Delia just made life hard. The interludes from other characters, who all share our thoughts made for an extra layer to the book and just cement what we already know and think. It was just fascinating.

This is a fascinating story which tells the story of one characters life through all its horrific twists and turns.
At times it was hard going but in the end it was well worth it.
A good read.

The praise for this book is astounding so I couldn't wait to dive straight in. There was zero disappointment as a reader and the entertainment factor far outweighed anything sinister hiding between the words of the book! Another riveting read from Liz and all the positive reviews are nothing but true!

This book is very slow moving, it jumps between time frames and characters but it is very character driven and this leads to a great story. The story starts in the South of France where we meet Cordelia hanging around bars and then jumps back to a windswept island off the coast of Ireland where we meet young Delia and her family. Delia is adored by her father, a lot more than her brothers and even her mother. But a fire leaves her an orphan and here her story begins. From the island to an orphanage to Westport to London and eventually to the South of France we follow Delia and her relationships. She is beautiful but very flawed, extremely selfish and a master manipulator.
Cordelia/Delia is a very spiteful character that is very hard to like but still I found myself feeling sorry for her in places. She spends all her life trying to find someone who loves her like her father did. It is a very sad tale and bad things happen to most of the people she meets. But even with all that I found it impossible to put down until I found out what happens to her in the end
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Liz Nugent for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review

I haven't read anything by Ms Nugent before, so I didn't know what to expect. I did not however expect to be blown away by a well-written novel that kept me glued to each page until the end.
Recommended!!

Liz Nugent has come up with an atmospheric chilling, twisted and macabre thriller. This one is high up in the thriller list.

What can I say about Cordelia? You will love her and you will hate her. You will cry for her and cry at her with frustration! She is one character that really put me through it all. Something that takes me into a book, is loving or really not loving a character and I felt both for Cordelia! Who is Cordelia? Why is she the way she is? The psychological aspect of this really hooked me in this regard.

Another great book by Liz Nugent. I really did NOT like Delia yet I loved the story. Dark & disturbing and starting with a murder, this is a why-did-she-do-it book that keeps the readers interest until the very last page. Gripping stuff! I was really interested to read that the inspiration for the novel was the song ‘A Woman Of A Certain Age’ by The Devine Comedy. I recommend a listen !

I've been pushing off writing this review, because I genuinely don’t know where or how to start. Fantastic doesn't even begin to cover what a whirlwind this was. I'm writing this review more than a year after I read the book, and the story's still so fresh in my mind.

The narrator, Cordelia, is a raging sociopath.

That one line sums up the main character and the premise of the book, and that’s enough of a reason to read the book. So you might be wondering, what characterises a sociopath? Who is a sociopath?

A sociopath is someone who suffers from anti-social personality disorder, aka ASPD. Here are 7 standard traits[*]:

1. Doesn’t respect social norms or laws. They consistently break laws or overstep social boundaries.
2. Lies, deceives others, uses false identities or nicknames, and uses others for personal gain.
3. Doesn’t make any long-term plans. They also often behave without thinking of consequences.
4. Shows aggressive or aggravated behavior. They consistently get into fights or physically harm others.
5. Doesn’t consider their own safety or the safety of others.
6. Doesn't follow up on personal or professional responsibilities. This can include repeatedly being late to work or not paying bills on time.
7. Doesn’t feel guilt or remorse for having harmed or mistreated others.

So far, Delia is 7 for 7.

Here are 10 secondary traits[*]:
— being “cold” by not showing emotions or investment in the lives of others
— using humour, intelligence, or charisma to manipulate others
— having a sense of superiority and strong, unwavering opinions
— not learning from mistakes
— not being able to keep positive friendships and relationships
— attempting to control others by intimidating or threatening them
— getting into frequent legal trouble or performing criminal acts
— taking risks at the expense of themselves or others
— threatening suicide without ever acting on these threats
— becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, or other substances

That's 10/10.

In total, 17/17

Intrigued yet?

The basic storyline, without any telling spoilers:

As a child, Delia manipulates her father into killing her mother (thinks the latter is competition for attention from her father), manipulates her way into the home of a kind couple before attacking their daughter (bc that's competition once more!), and charms her way into being adopted by an elderly childless couple in a tiny village.

As a teenager/almost-adult/new-adult, Delia uses her "prettiness" to ensnare the most popular boy in her class, before dumping him for his more successful/richer brother who lives in London, manipulates/traps him into marrying her, loses her accent and reinvents herself to gain social power, does some unforgivable shit which may or may not involve arson and pre-meditated murder, and to escape all that she's done, flees to France.

(Please note that at no point does she regret her actions. She believes she was entitled to what she did because she's superior to everyone around her.)

Once she establishes herself in France under a false name, steeped in alcoholism, Delia goes on to perform more horrifying deeds, including but not limited to robbery, embezzlement, smuggling and of course, murder.

So yeah, as I said, she's a raging sociopath.

And the fact that this entire book is narrated by her, with her righteous justifications behind what she's doing, it's bloody fantastic. Liz Nugent is indeed a talented author, to have put forth this chilling style of thinking and narration which leaves ordinary readers like you and me simultaneously dreading what comes next, while hooked to the story.

One last thing: I love how Nugent captures that restlessness of living in a small town/cut-off island — of how you hear others doing great things/being hip-and-in in the larger cities (like in this story, London), while living in the suburbs/rural areas fills you with this sense of longing to move there.

I know not everyone feels/might have felt that way, but when I was younger, I used to feel similarly about "happening" places like New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong. It filled me with deep longing — I studied in a school where the most students were primarily rich, entitled kids who'd lived all over the world, and I always felt their lives were so much better for it — I didn't even have a passport at that point. I'm now older and wiser, and I understand that living in "cool" places comes with its own set of problems, and I'm just glad that I have what I do have.

I guess that's the difference between me and Cordelia — she never made do with what she had. But the most important difference is that she's a sociopath and I'm not. 🤣

A 5-star read, I recommend it to fans of Caroline Kepnes' You. Delia and Joe would be bloody good friends, methinks.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC! 💖

Note: [*] - These traits were taken from the HealthLine site.

What starts as a scenario with the mystery of a woman involved in a tragic incident in the Mediterranean morphs into an epic tale that I was not expecting.

Telling the story of Delia O’Flaherty in chronological order, Liz Nugent takes us through the highs, lows and even lower lows of an life filled with incident.

Skin Deep has so many themes going on throughout and the author doesn’t shy away from any of them. Delia’s relationship with her father is at the root of everything that happens in the rest of the book, taking in familial tragedy and scandal in Mayo, a remote island nearby, London and various Mediterranean locations.

The book comes back to the island frequently. No matter where Delia goes or how often she shifts personality, people eventually see her as an island dweller, as being different from the rest. She never forgets it herself, often calling back to people and places and events on the island.

Liz Nugent uses the long time period to hold a mirror to the inherent problems that Irish society had/has for generations. Country life is depicted as being full of secrets, shame, secret shame, gossip, drinking, fighting, feuding, classism and the domination of the Church, in ways that cut right to the bone.

The story is told skilfully, flitting along through Delia’s life, always informed by that unhealthy obsession that her father had with her, always putting her on a pedestal as a child to the detriment of the rest of the family. It leaves Delia with a cold personality, a sense of superiority, detached from feeling love properly and unable to confront her own issues.

I really liked the devices used in the narrative, like the short passages recounting other character’s perspectives on Delia and the old folk tales from the island told to her by her father. These all show the importance and the significance of family, motherhood and community to the people of the island. This becomes a microcosm for another unhealthy obsession with mothers and Irish society, deciding important things being the role of anyone but the mother as if they can’t judge for themselves.

The narrative is also a rip-roaring tale. You want to know what happens to Delia and how she ends up in the chilling prologue. Skin Deep is both a rush to read and a sprawling epic of modern Irish fiction, standing as a piece designed for us to look at ourselves as a people and as a society, to question our own history. It shows an Ireland that struggles on in a push for equality while attempting to shake off the shackles of tradition, custom, religion and shame.

A deeply riveting read. I was intrigued from the very first page and it was very different to the stuff I usually read. Will keep an eye on this author.

Could not put this book down. A chilling read which leaves shivers down your spine. Loved that in the first few pages we found out that the main charactet had killed someone but who and why remain a mystery until the end. This is what keeps you turning those pages!

I loved this book. I have always enjoyed Liz's work and this book did not disappoint. It was a crime story that is told from the protaganist of the murder, which i think was a good characteristic of the book. Nugent did it a lot of justice. The characters were very engaging also.