Fragile

Last time around, I wrote “The fork in the road is not just for the reader, it’s also written for the writer as she leaves behind a challenge. How do you ‘top’ this one?” when I read Hilary’s Never Be Broken.

I’m pleased to report that Hilary’s latest tops her last novel, but how? In a phrase, she achieved the challenge by writing a stand-alone, parking up her award-winning Marnie Rome police procedural series, and entering the shadows of the Gothic.

Though contemporary, Fragile has roots, sinews, tendrils that reminded me of the past, of a dream, because the writing has an abstract aura, part-imagined and part-nightmare. It also recalled a line from another book, another film - one that haunts many of us to this day, because “last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Set ostensibly in London, but with threads to Wales, we have rejection, redemption, horror and an understanding of the terrors of childhood and how they can reappear in adulthood. I don’t wish to detail the plot, because the narrative is best sampled without any clues as to the path Hilary will take the reader. The surety of the writer’s ability to engage the reader’s mind is at a counterpoint to the slipperiness of where the road leads.

Some will recall Manderley, in the manner that some will recall Starling Villas when the book is put down. The dream-like quality of the writing style should come with a warning, because in any dream there lurk monsters.

In word, creepy as hell itself - but with heart.