Her Pretty Face by Robyn Harding

Author : Robyn Harding
Title : Her Pretty Face
Published : 2018
Publisher : Simon & Schuster UK
Pages : 352
Genre : Thriller

     Frances Metcalfe is struggling to stay afloat. A stay-at-home mum whose troubled son Marcus is a full-time job, she thought that the day he was accepted at the elite Forrester School would be the day their lives changed for the better. But after a disturbing incident at school leads other families to ostracise the Metcalfes, Frances feels more alone than ever. Until she meets Kate Randolph. Kate is beautiful, wealthy, confident, and powerful. And she just wants to be friends with Frances. But as the two bond, a startling secret threatens to destroy them - because one of these women is not who she seems.

     This is the second time I have come to sharing, the first was in The Party. A book I greatly enjoyed and dug down into that bit of your brain where all the creepy things live. So I was both happy and excited to jump into Her Pretty face. I have started to have a great operation for books that deal in secrets, that not only can make bonds stronger with those that hold them but in the blink of an eye can tear us apart and live us bleeding out on the cold hard ground. 

     When we come to make new friends how often do you stop and wonder if this person holds some deep dark secret that will one day nearly kill us all? Well, I suppose if you are a fan of mystery and thriller novels maybe you just do, but for normal people, this is not something that even twinkles at the back of there minds.  I like that Harding captures that slight awkwardness of making friends as adults. Maybe that it is something that doesn't really happen so often that we all seem a little desperate for it to work out. What in fact happens between being a child where friends come and go in the blink of an eye to being adult that makes it so difficult?

     There is something about these two women trying to balance so much, from there kids to there working lives. Both seem to have husbands oblivious to just how much they are juggling. So when each something of a kindred spirit in the other it is a chance to relax and just maybe be themselves around someone else. But as becomes all too clear one of these women is holding on to something far darker than the other.

     For the most part, there is no secret in the fact one of them has a very dark past. It is shown to us as the story moves between past and present events. What I felt Harding does very skillfully is made me believe that it could of in fact been anyone of the two. This author plays with us just as much as these two women toy with each other. And there is something to be found in that. Harding is a master manipulator, she successfully kept me guessing as to what was happening right up until the point of the reveal. In the case of Her Pretty face as I read more I started to become aware that the plot of this book does also parrel a real-life crime. And from my point of view, she managed to have a take on it that didn't feel disrespectful to that. At no point did it feel like she was picking at the bones of real heartache and grief.

     This was a book the reconfirmed my belief in this author. Each book of hers that I have read has been filled with secrets and manipulation.  She is forever building layers of tension into her story and moments the left me with those ah ha moments. This is a book of deceit and secrets and just what it takes to live with the sins of our past.