Keep Her Sweet by Helen Fitzgerald
When a middle-aged couple downsizes to the countryside for an easier life, their two daughters become isolated, argumentative and violent … A chilling, vicious and darkly funny psychological thriller from bestselling author Helen FitzGerald.
Desperate to enjoy their empty nest, Penny and Andeep downsize to the countryside, to forage, upcycle and fall in love again, only to be joined by their two twenty-something daughters, Asha and Camille.
Living on top of each other in a tiny house, with no way to make money, tensions simmer, and as Penny and Andeep focus increasingly on themselves, the girls become isolated, argumentative and violent.
When Asha injures Camille, a family therapist is called in, but she shrugs off the escalating violence between the sisters as a classic case of sibling rivalry … and the stress of the family move.
But this is not sibling rivalry. The sisters are in far too deep for that.
This is a murder, just waiting to happen …
Chilling, vicious and darkly funny, Keep Her Sweet is not just a tense, sinister psychological thriller, but a startling look at sister relationships and they bonds they share … or shatter.
Keep Her Sweet is published by Orenda Books. The eBook is out now, the paperback on 26th May.
About the author
Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and adapted for a major BBC drama. Her 2019 dark-comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in the Literary Review, Herald Scotland, Guardian and Daily Telegraph, shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award. Her most recent title Ash Mountain was published in 2020. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband. Follow Helen on Twitter @FitzHelen.
Review
‘Keep Her Sweet’ is beguiling from the offset. It was so compelling that I stayed up till 2 am to finish and boy was it worth it. That ending! What did I just read?! It's funny, it's surreal, it's dark, it's taut, it's captivating, and it's has ‘a rabbit caught headlights’ moments, but most of all it addresses real issues. Ones that readers will be able to identify as relating to them but slightly exaggerated to highlight the absurdity of it all. It covers family breakdown, addiction, sibling rivalry, jealousy, sibling love and the worst of these may be - betrayal and it's an echo that reverberates through the pages! It is truly addictive and I am now so grateful to my normal family. Well, it's not that normal as the MIL lives with us haha...
The Moloney-Singhs are one messed up family. Penny and Andeep have moved to the country now that their two children have flown the best. But alas - Camille (The Second Born) has returned and is actively not searching for employment or really interested in anything. Asha the eldest daughter is on house arrest with an ankle tag as she had an affair with her married pastor and became a stalker and hit him over the head with some coffee thing! This leads to a lot of tension and Camille asks that they do family therapy - enter Joy (The Queen) in her 70’s a British ex-pat in Australia with a love to fixing broken families. Oh, this is not going to be easy!!!
I think the only character which I liked was Joy! Hardly any redeemable features between the lot of them. But then I don't think you are supposed to like them, however Helen manages to tease out the good and bad in these horrible people in such a relevant manner that you begin to emphasise with them and even root for certain characters. Whatever your feelings towards this messed up bunch they hold the reader's attention, I was truly fascinated. However, I think I might be emphasizing with a character no one else is… But that the joy of narratives like these is that it is subjective and if everyone felt the same then the author would have failed in their job and that's not something that Helen would ever do!
Give it a try readers!
