The Truth About Ruby Cooper is the spine-tingling page-turner of the year

Liz Nugent is in a league of her own with her dark new novel, The Truth About Ruby Cooper

If my sister hadn’t been beautiful, none of it would have happened.

Ruby Cooper and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode.

Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston.

Not that Ruby wants to think about the past, but it can’t stay a secret forever.

It's dark, twisty, gripping, and at times uncomfortable, but that's what makes the story so strong. This is the kind of book that gets under your skin, a book that you'll think about even when you're not reading it; one that seeps into your mind and lingers.

Like previous Liz Nugent novels, the protagonist isn't someone you're going to love (apart from Sally Diamond, of course), but that makes the book even more special. Ruby is one of the most complex characters we've met, but one with depth, and one you're begging to change midway through this infectious story.

This is a story about how one lie can tear apart a family forever. It's a story about jealousy, about the complexities of sisterhood, and the dark places people go to when they're competing for a parent's love.

The standout of this novel is the ripple of consequences Ruby and her family face over one lie, a lie that haunts their family for decades after it is told.

Nugent has perfectly crafted a story about the darker side of having a sister, which is a relationship we don't read about enough. Seeing Ruby take part in a competition with her sister Erin, one Erin isn't even aware of, is unsettling, but a refreshing take on sisterhood, which is often glamourised and fluffed up in the fiction world.

As tense and as uncomfortable as this book is at times, it is one that everybody needs to read this year.

Liz Nugent is undoubtedly one of the best authors on this little island. Her novels completely transcend any genre; her stories become almost instant number ones because they're simply otherworldly, and The Truth About Ruby Cooper is no different.

It is a story that'll break your heart, that'll frustrate you, and that we'll likely still be talking about for years to come.

Buy it here.