Luckily for me, psych thrillers/psych suspense/domestic noir/accessible lit/ psychodrama (all labels that have been attached to me) stories have been in demand since the days of Daphne du Maurier, Henry James, Patricia Highsmith and Barbara Vine. And once again with his story we ask ourselves – are some truths too damaging and traumatic to be revealed and healed? Sally Diamond has been raised in a rural farmhouse with overprotective parents and little socialisation.

I loved Sally Diamond, one of the most interesting characters I have read in a long time and I loved how her character was developed as the story unfolded. Several years later, I had an encounter with him that creeped me out so I’m glad now that I never pursued that project. Nugent has explored two different forms of trauma and abuse here; Sally's was the more straightforward of the two.In the flurry of public attention that follows, ranging from concern about Sally’s ability to function on her own to outraged theories that she must have murdered her father and was trying to dispose of the evidence, a secret about Sally’s past is revealed. As she begins to discover the horrors of her early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time - making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say. This book grabbed me from the very first sentence and when a book does that, you just know it's going to be a good'un. In this darkest of stories, there are surprising twists and turns, there are the odd chinks of light, hope, and humour, we learn just how much a human being can endure. Sally’s mother was kidnapped aged 11 and held in a house in Killiney, where she was raped repeatedly over 15 years, giving birth to Sally and to a boy, Peter.

The book opens with Sally Diamond and her adoptive father laughing about putting him out with the trash when he dies.Liz Nugent has written a haunting and poignant tale with a full palette of emotions, one that won’t be easy to forget any time soon. It won’t be easy because, with the secrets, there are people from her past complicating things further and possibly threatening her physical and mental well-being. Reading 'Strange Sally Diamond' has been tumultuous from an emotional perspective and I mean that in a positive manner.