Girl A

Girl A by Abigail Dean is narrated by Lex, a 30-year-old lawyer who survived terrible abuse at the hands of her father as a child, along with her six siblings. The history of the family is gradually revealed over the course of the book, but its main focus is what happened after Lex escaped and led the police back to the house where the other children were still being held captive - and also, perhaps more importantly, how Lex deals with the death of her mother in prison, 15 years later, and what she has to do as executor of the estate.

I love a good aftermath book - and this one is excellent. The different timelines are woven together expertly, so that I was never skimming to get back to a particular part of the story (though some parts do devolve a bit into summary), and the gradual reveals at different stages are masterfully handled to keep the tension high. The prose itself is also very good, making it easy to concentrate on the book at a sentence level, rather than being overly keen to find out what happens next.

The various encounters Lex has with her siblings regarding their mother's death are intriguing and the whole thing is compelling from start to finish, with a very satisfying ending overall.