Beneath the Surface: The closer the family, the darker the secrets

A real pager-turner and I thoroughly enjoyed a fast paced read. Each of main characters and their complexities came to life vividly.

In this book we meet the Vermuyden family: Grace and Patrick and their two daughters, Lilly and Mia. Grace has had a troubled childhood and has carefully ordered her life to give her daughters the security she never had, but when Lilly inexplicably collapses in school, the order of Grace's world begins to disintegrate, and the past comes back to haunt her.The book tells the story of the family as they seek to discover what lies behind Lilly's illness amidst a great deal of gossip and speculation from the local community. In the process, many secrets are exposed, particularly in relation to Grace and Lilly.I enjoyed this book. Each of the characters is flawed, but they are also likeable and true to life. I particularly enjoyed Mia's quirky eccentricity and her unique way of looking at the world.It took me a while to get into this book, but by the time I was a quarter of the way in I was gripped and read the rest in a couple of days. It's the first of Fiona Neill's books I've read, and I'd be interested to read more.

This novel is a truly well-written account of dysfunctional; familial relationships and their consequences for each member. "Beneath the Surface" is a book resistant to a single genre categorization as it is partly a crime fiction novel as well as a social commentary and family drama based on the -many- secrets and lies that lie at the core of disrupted parent-children relationships.The four main characters are all the members of the Vermuyden family originally living in Cambridge and now relocated somewhere on the edge of the Fens. The story sets off when 10-year old Mia finds a well-hidden positive pregnancy test in the garage of their new household. Mia's older sister, Lilly, tells her that the test belongs to her and urge her kid sister to keep quiet about it as her parents, Grace, and Patrick. Grace is a strict, demanding mother with a troubled past which she managed to keep secret from her own family and Patrick is a quiet man who, nevertheless, has a few problems of his own. Things will escalate when Lilly suffers a seizure in her school that sends her in the hospital for nearly a month. Grace will soon realize that her daughter is living a kind of double life which is also the reason behind her illness. There are bits of information scattered on the text concerning the Anglo-Saxon history and the role of the -pregnant- women in that era. Furthermore, the author inserts the hint of supernatural involvement in the plot, adding to the mystery.Neil adopts a mixed third-person narrative style as we witness each character's thoughts on the same chapter alternately. The pace of this novel is a bit slow but the reader never feels bored as Fiona Neil's prose is excellent and there are a lot of stimulating insights on the thought process of the protagonists which help us to identify more easily with the characters. The secrets and lies that torment them are revealed gradually and only in the, redemptive and highly-satisfying, finale we can see the whole picture and understand the characters struggle. In a way, the main protagonist is Grace as it is her character that carries the most hideous personal history, marked by a lack of love by her mother and the loss of her little brother, but Lilly is equally important as it is her who seems to know the most about her parent's secrets.This is not your typical crime novel and you should be warned that "Beneath the Surface" is a character-oriented book that is not focused on its strong plotline but rather on the interaction between the members of Vermuyden family. It is a sad story but in the end, there is perhaps a glimpse of hope for Grace and her daughters, as they seem to reach the long-awaited atonement. I would recommend it to all fans of literary crime fiction who enjoy books written by Stuart Turton and Kate Atkinson and also to those who love reading a well-written fiction novel.

A story about a dysfunctional family with a paranoid hyper mom Grace, a meek debt ridden father Patrick, daughters Lily and Mia. A routine life till Lily was struck down by an episode of fits in class. She survived, and stress was found to be the cause of the brain short-circuiting. Mia on the other hand had her own theories. The whole story was to see how this family functioned and to find out the reason of the fitsMy first book by Fiona Neill, I liked the book in most parts. The reasons and secrets in that family made me doubly curious to get to the end. The mystery was present at every corner, Mia and her theories enhanced it. An archeological dig and discovery of graves caused her to link the events in the most interesting manner. At some points, I believed it too.The rest of the characters peeked in all the chapters, but it felt they needed to be given more substance. They felt ghostly, I wanted more of an interesting backstory. Past always has an effect on the present and the future, this book brought it to light in a subtle way.The whole book got a special oomph due to Mia. She was one of the most interesting characters I have read in recent times. Her analysis and arguments were so logical that they bordered on illogical. She was different from any child I have known. All my love for this book was for Mia.Overall, the book captured me, and I had a fun evening with it.

This was a wee bit different to my usual reading material. I spent the majority of the book wondering where exactly we were headed and it turned out to be nowhere I had thought of. I feel a bit protective towards Mia and wish I could revisit her in a few years time just to see how she is doing. She is certainly the stand out character here. A slow, brooding sort of read that somehow manages to be gripping.