I’m a huge fan of Liz Nugent’s previous 2 books and her third, Skin Deep did not disappoint. It’s dark and mysterious and the characters are interesting and twisty. This book stayed with me long after I finished reading. Highly recommend

I’m a huge fan of Liz Nugent. I’ve reviewed both her previous books here (Unravelling Oliver) and (Lying in Wait) and loved them both. Skin Deep has only served to confirm her place on my list of ‘must read’ authors.

'I wondered when rigor mortis would set in, or if it already had.’

What on earth! Liz Nugent has gained rather a reputation (in a good way) for her killer first lines and now we have another. Who wouldn’t keep reading on?

As a young girl, Delia O’Flaherty was a precocious child. She was a beauty; everyone told her so. Adored by her father who could see no wrong in her, she got her kicks by playing her parents off against each other and causing as much trouble as she could with her lies. Until one day it all backfired on her.

Cordelia as an adult hadn’t learnt from her mistakes. I didn’t feel that she had any redeeming qualities at all – she was completely self-centred, utterly selfish and only did something if it was for her benefit – I don’t think that anyone who came into contact with her ended up a better person because of it. For all her faults however, I couldn’t help but feel a slight grudging respect for her – and dare I say it, there were times (ok, just a few) when I couldn’t help but like her. What does that say about me for heavens sake!

As Cordelia grows older and can no longer rely on her looks to get her what she wants, her actions become ever more desperate and ruthless. She seems to be devoid of any feelings of empathy, remorse or shame for her actions but it is this aspect to her character that makes her so intriguing. I think it’s fair to say that the bad guys are always the most interesting of characters.

The story travels from Ireland to England to the South of France – whether the scene is set on the desolate Irish island of Inishcrann where sinister folklore tales occasionally interrupt the story or in the sunnier climes of the Cote d’Azur – each location is so vividly described.

Skin Deep is another fantastic book from Liz Nugent. I never fail to be impressed at how much depth and insight there is to her characters – many of whom you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near in real life. The one thing you never get from a Nugent book is unnecessary waffle or over description. Every sentence is carefully constructed for maximum effect. The prose is succinct and often brutal in its simplicity.

Skin Deep is a dark and quite disturbing read with a final denouement that chilled to the bone. The sheer callousness of the main character may be rather too much to bear for some. Me – I loved it. Another stunning book from this very talented author.

I really really really liked this book! I love a thriller and this is defiantly it!
I highly recommend this book to anyone who also loves thrillers!

Skin Deep is a dark, compelling story that takes the reader through many twists and turns before a thrilling denoument. Liz Nugent is a exciting Irish author and I look forward to reading more of her work.

A dark and twisted suspenseful thriller. Opening with socialite Cordelia fleeing the scene of a murder. Completely gripping.

Ooh I did enjoy this dark, unsettling and addictive book. It’s the sort of book that you sit down to read a chapter of and then before you know it two hours have gone by!

I really didn’t like the main character Delia, which is unusual for me. She is a very vain, calculating person who I was unable to feel much sympathy for despite all the hardships she faces throughout her life. Her obsession with her looks and the importance she places on her beauty made me further dislike her. The story is told from her point of view and I thought she was quite an unreliable narrator as I didn’t feel I could trust what she was saying.

This book follows Delia through her life from nine years old and the tension in the book gradually increases as the reader learns more about the type of person Delia is. There are quite a few chilling events in her story which further increased my unease as I was never sure what she would do next. I felt that I had to keep reading to find out more about her and to see what she’d do next.

Skin Deep is an utterly addictive book which gripped me from the start and I found very difficult to put down. When I wasn’t able to read it I found myself constantly thinking about it and plotting ways I could read a few more pages. A sure sign of a fantastic book!

This is the fourth book by this author but the first I have read and I can’t wait to read more from her. It would make a great book club book as there is lots to discuss which is why it’s was chosen for the Richard and Judy book club! If you like dark, unsettling and thrilling books then you’ll love this book!

Huge thanks to Georgia from Penguin for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

I’m usually a huge fan of Liz Nugent but I often find if I can’t identify with the characters on a personal level then I’m left feeling a bit empty. I found the characters in this rather deplorable with no redeeming features. I tried to enjoy it and persevered but wish I hadn’t, sorry.

Skin Deep, by Liz Nugent, is a deeply disturbing psychological thriller.
Delia O’Flaherty (Cordelia Russell) is the only girl in a family of three brothers born in the Irish tight knit island community of Innishcrann. Thoroughly spoiled by her father, Martin, at the expense of her brothers and, even, her mother. Disaster follows her throughout her life, affecting everyone she meets, never showing any remorse and doing anything within her power to achieve what she wants.
Is it nature or nurture? Or maybe both. Her father certainly molded her into believing she was the beautiful princess of Innishcrann. Filling her head with the island’s folklore, quite often ugly and harsh.
Liz Nugent portrays Delia’s character with skill, but gives her no redeeming qualities and at times utterly shocking the reader.
The story follows Delia from mainland Ireland to London and then abroad, as she moves from one community to another, destroying lives.
A very unexpected conclusion and more details about Martin’s live gives Deep Skin a shocking ending.
Recommended. Thanks to Liz Nugent, NetGalley and the Publishers the opportunity to read Deep Skin for an honest review, which I have given.

Is beauty only skin deep? In this case, yes!

This book is completely not what I expected and I mean that in the best possible way. It totally surprised me. The blurb doesn't even skim the surface of what this book is about. Where I was expecting some sort of psychological thriller, this is actually the story of the life of a woman who may or may not have been bad from birth, or maybe she was just a product of her upbringing. Either way, Delia O'Flaherty is one unpleasant, but utterly compelling, protagonist.

The book opens in the South of France where Cordelia, as she is now known, has a dead person in her flat. From there we go back to a childhood on a small Irish island where her father adored her at the expense of all others. She then tells her story to us in a most matter of fact way, despite some of the cruel and twisted things that she does.

I admit that when I started reading Skin Deep I wasn't at all sure it was going to be a book for me. The oddness of Delia's childhood, combined with the interspersion of folk tales, didn't seem like quite my thing and, as I said previously, not what I expected. But then this young girl's story drew me in, reeling me in bit by bit until I was utterly captivated by it. I couldn't help but be gripped by the way she lurched from life to life, wreaking havoc and reinventing herself along the way.

Delia has to be one of the most destructive, most uncaring, most inherently devious and twisted characters in a book that I have read. And yet, part of me still felt sorry for her at times, wanted her to have a better life, wanted to witness her redemption. This is testament to Nugent's writing that she was able to leave me with such divided feelings about this character.

I read Skin Deep with a kind of horrified awe. Delia has to be one of the most fascinating characters I have ever come across and this is certainly a character driven book. But the storyline is also inspired, clever, twisted and deliciously dark. It would make an amazing TV adaptation as I think it was very visual and the settings evocative, from the wilds of the barely inhabited island to the opulence of the French Riviera.

In short, read this book. It will delight and thrill you, sicken and shock you. It's fabulous!

I read one of Liz Nugent’s previous books called ‘Lying In Wait’ and I really enjoyed it even if it did occasionally make me feel uncomfortable. Since reading that one, I have kept an eye out for each book that she releases. Her latest book is called ‘Skin Deep’ and the paperback version is due for release on 15th November 2018 but I managed to catch sight of a review copy. Blimey oh riley if I thought that ‘Lying in Wait’ made me feel uncomfortable then ‘Skin Deep’ made me doubly uncomfortable and occasionally gave me the heebie jeebies. That said I absolutely loved reading ‘Skin Deep’ but more about that in a bit.
I can honestly say that I didn’t take to nor did I even like the character of Cordelia Russell. I didn’t trust her one bit and nor would I want to turn my back on her because knowing her, she would probably knife me in it. We first meet Cordelia when she is an adult, she discovers a dead body and does a runner to a restaurant, ,where she pinches somebody else’s food and then ends up in a cubicle snorting coke (and I don’t mean the drink). She is clearly a woman with issues but it isn’t immediately clear just what issues they are. As the book continues, we learn more about her background and what led her to become the person that we meet in the present day. I found the young Cordelia to be rather alarming to say the least and I would certainly have raised red flags or reported her to social services. She is a bairn, who lives with her brothers and their parents in a house miles from anywhere. Her father seems to have an unnatural interest and obsession with his daughter and places her on the an extremely high pedestal. She can literally do no wrong unlike his wife and sons, who can never do anything right. I would say that Cordelia starts to display some behaviours, which began to ring alarm bells for me- such as her sexualised behaviour around men and the fact that she is so secretive. Even as a child she likes to create divisions in previously strong relationships and has to make herself the centre of attention. Cordelia is vain, self obsessed, paranoid, crazy, delusional, a liar and just plain trouble with a capital T. I am struggling to think of one positive characteristic for her. That said, I did feel for her when she found herself in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people but even then Cordelia did something which took away any sympathy I had for her. Now I am not going to type any more about Cordelia as I don’t want to give too much away about her and her story and because she makes me feel rather uneasy to say the least.
Oh my giddy aunt, ‘Skin Deep’ is one seriously well written and fantastic read that had me gripped from the moment I picked it up until the moment I put it down again. The author’s writing style is such that you can’t fail to be drawn into the story from the first word and before you know it you are addicted to the book. That’s what happened to me anyway. I loved the author’s writing style, the storylines and the varied characters and I just had to keep reading to see if Cordelia got any worse and if she was stopped in her tracks so to speak. The book starts in such a way that is going to remain fresh in my mind for a long while to come and which ensures that I will never forget it. I loved the way in which the author writes such rounded characters that I began to think of them as real. Reading ‘Skin Deep’ is much like riding on a rather scary and very unpredictable rollercoaster ride with twists and turns aplenty and with certain moments that knock the stuffing out of you and leave you almost breathless. There were also times where I almost had to read through my fingers as I genuinely feared what was going to happen next. I found that I began ‘interacting’ with the book as I went through. I know it’s a work of fiction but if I am convinced by the storylines and by the characters then I tend to ‘live’ the story and it becomes real to me. It helps that I have a very vivid (some might say too vivid) an imagination.
To conclude, I have to say that I enjoyed ‘Skin Deep’ more than I enjoyed ‘Lying In Wait’ and I can’t wait to read what Liz comes up with next. When you pick up one of her books, you know you are in for a brilliantly written, psychological thriller that will keep you enthralled for hours. I must admit that as stated before certain elements did make me uncomfortable but I love a book that challenges my perceptions and my feelings. I would definitely recommend this author and her books to other readers. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

An enjoyable and compelling psychological exploration of a damaged woman, Delia, whom we first meet as a child living with her troubled father on a small Irish island. An accident leaves her an orphan and she is placed with well-meaning foster parents but nothing and no one seems able to save Delia from herself. The book opens with the body of a murdered man lying in her apartment and we are taken back in time to find out what has brought her to her present plight. I found the book a fascinating character study. We follow Delia’s trajectory, and soon discover what an unpleasant person she is, a sociopath indeed and a woman apparently devoid of empathy for others. She leaves a trail of destruction behind her but can only focus on how it affects her personally. It’s a chilling and twisted tale, powerful and disturbing and although some of the scenarios she finds herself in are somewhat far-fetched, overall I was happy to go along for the ride and eager to find out what happens. A tense and often surprising page-turner.

To an outsider, Cordelia Russell is a beautiful, posh English socialite, living a great life in the French Riveria. But all is not as it seems, Cordelia drinks too much, lives in a dingy flat, has no money and now has a dead body in her home. The story then goes back to Cordelia's childhood and we discover how Delia O'Flaherty came to be Cordelia and the destruction she brings to every aspect of her life.

Nugent has a talent for writing twisted characters. Cordelia is the perfect example of a narcissistic, cold, selfish person who will stop at nothing to get what she wants (and thinks she deserves). I felt the story was just a bit too long, I began to lose interest a small bit. Though having read Nugent's previous novel, Lying in Wait, the mystery isn't about the who but rather the why and that's why I wanted to keep reading to the end. And once the climax started to kick in, I was gripped again. If you're a fan of Nugent's previous work or love to hate the main character of a story, then you'll enjoy this

I enjoyed the book as, whilst the protagonist was mainly a pretty awful person, the backstory does give you some pause as to how much she was affected by her upbringing. I thought the brief chapters from the perspective of other characters worked well, though none of them brought a new angle to the story.

My first book by Liz Nugent, and I'm afraid it will probably be my last. I persevered with this so I finished it, but I didn't find it enjoyable.

Having loved Liz Nugent's debut, 'Lying in Wait' I was eager to read her latest offering. 'Skin Deep' didn't disappoint. Pacy and compelling, it charts the life of Cordelia Russell, a mysterious woman who we first encounter standing over the body of a dead stranger in her apartment in the South of France. What has led her from her simple childhood growing up on an isolated island off the coast of Ireland to her current life of faded glamour?

Great storyline with good strong characters. Very well written. I would recommend this book to anyone.

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 (and is nothing at all like my own!).

I read this book from cover to cover but never 'felt' for any of the characters. You reap what you sow and I think Delia got what she deserved!

A really interesting book about the intricate fabric of families, loyalty and deceit; intertwined with various perceptions of beauty and whether it really is only Skin Deep.
I enjoyed the book although I found some of the flaws in certain characters laboured. I guessed some plot twists but not others and overall am glad I read it.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

'Skin Deep' couldn't keep my attention, to me it took to long before the story becomes complete. There's a lot of introductions of characters in the beginning which each have their own (side of the) story to tell and there's jumping from present to past within these characters, which to me clouded my attention span.

The story is very graphic and describes some detailed events which could disturb some readers. To me, this was not the problem though. No it is not badly written or so, it's more the opposite! Still it didn't appeal to me.

There's loads of 5 star reviews out there, so this book must appeal to loads of people. So you might want to give it a try.