Girl A: The Sunday Times and New York Times global best seller, an astonishing new crime thriller debut novel from the biggest literary fiction voice of 2021

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Girl A by Abigail Dean was the fifth book I read in 2021 and it ricocheted straight onto my books of the year list; it is that good.

Alexandria Gracie has escaped her parents, who have been shot dead after keeping Lex and her siblings in abusive captivity. When her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer. This was a big hit novel closely based on a real crime in which a nanny stabbed to death the two children she was looking after.I mostly keen on thrillers more than psychological fiction but it was still intriguing and heart wrenching novel which is beautifully written. The plot had the makings of something good, but sadly the incessant and unannounced switching of timelines that takes place on almost every page was not only frustrating, but made for a really discomfiting reading experience.

Each chapter is dedicated to one of the siblings, named in turn, starkly drawn by Lex’s observations, about their relationships, betrayals, guilt.

Anything could be Mystery Soup: cheese, coated in emerald fur, languishing away on the counter; a few scraps of fried chicken, in paper from the takeaway on the high street, which Father abandoned on the kitchen table; a year-old box of cereal, never unpacked from the move.