Strange Sally Diamond: A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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This is undeniably a harrowing, emotionally draining novel. There are chilling echoes of Emma Donoghue’s Room and John Fowles’ The Collector here. Nugent explores the awful consequences of a horrendous kidnapping, a tortuous, violent captivity.

Sally's Dad told her to put him out with the trash when he dies. He said that he would be dead so he would not know any difference. So when he dies Sally follows his instructions. He was 80 years old and small. She put him in a large garden trash bag and put it in the barn and carefully put it in the incinerator barrel and put some Petro over the top and set it going. She is now the center of attention from the media. I was the same age as 15-year-old Ann Lovett when she and her new born baby died in 1984 in a grotto in Granard. Her 14-year-old sister Patricia died by suicide a few months later. I still think about them often. What a cruel and vicious society we were. I like to think we have changed. Reclusive Sally Diamond causes outrage by trying to incinerate her dead father. Now she’s the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media, but also a sinister voice from a past she does not remember. Strange Sally Diamond has led a sheltered life and with her adoptive parents in the midlands of Ireland and when her father passes away she takes her request literally to put him out with the bins. She tries to incinerate him in the barn thinking that she has fulfilled his last request as he did say “ sur when I die just put me out with the bins” until she finds an envelope in his study that advises her to read after his passing. Sally’s life and what she believed she knew of her past and family brings horrors into her life that she could never have imagined.

Peter, Mark, Conor Geary, and Tom: these men really made my head spin! Author Liz Nugent expertly reveals their relationships with Sally; and, This was an absolute five-star read for me! Until the bottom dropped out at about 80%. I’m not sure what happened. It was almost as if a different author took over at that point. Everything became rushed, the storyline becoming so convoluted that by the time I reached the end I was hopelessly lost. Sally is socially defective. She acts like a deaf person because she doesn't want to talk to anyone. She also learns that people don't always say what they mean. She never cries. She does not remember any childhood memories before the age of seven. She loves to play the piano. She has PTSD from her traumatic past that she has no memory of. Someone from her past is trying to get a hold of her.

As far as I'm concerned this is the BEST Liz Nugent book I have read yet and I've enjoyed the previous two books I've read of hers immensely. This was a heart stopping , heart-breaking read and had me on the edge of my seat. A difficult subject but expertly executed in the hands of this experienced author. While it’s dark and disturbing, it is never graphic. This is an author that doesn’t shy away from tough subjects and a story that kept me up way past my bedtime. Great characterization, a smart and well thought out unique plot with lots of twists and turns to keep the reader on the edge of their seats. Strange Sally Diamond is a fabulous psychological thriller where the tension keeps getting ratcheted up in an intriguing manner.So, so good! Sally gets under your skin and worms her way into your heart. I didn't want it to end' Jane Fallon But this is not that kind of book at all. Nugent engages fiercely with Sally's mental illness. In fact, understanding it, and the trauma it grew out of, is at the centre of this story.