Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the Arc of this book.
At first i struggled to get into the book but once I did I enjoyed it and it was eventually an easy read. .
I found the book engaging and the ending very moving and I liked the character of Mia but like others I found Grace annoying, but did have some sympathy for her.
I would definitely recommend.
The only reason I am giving it 3 stars is I had trouble getting into it.

Heart wrenching, friendships and complex families. There were times when it was dangerously close to home. Took me a little while to get into this, but it soon picked up and had me turning pages for different reasons. There are some very profound insightful statements and I can see this one replaying over in my mind for a little while.

The story of a family who can't communicate with each other. An overbearing mother, a husband who has landed them in debt, a teenager who is rebelling and a younger daughter who is very much ignored.
A bit of a nothingy read, which left me disappointed and loathing all the characters apart from Mia who I just felt sorry for!

"Human beings are nothing more than layers and layers of secrets, she decides." This is the truth that this story dwells on. Grace and Patrick are married with two daughters Lilly and Mia. Grace has never told Patrick the truth of her past life, she has spent all her life trying to avoid her past. She is living her life through her daughter Lilly and spends her time pushing Lilly to great heights as she believes a good mother would do. Patrick has his own secrets, not least that they have severe financial problems which has meant that they had to move house into a house that is falling down around them. Lilly, although doing well in school, has her own secrets, mainly revolving around a secret boyfriend and her relationships with her friends. They are doing things that her mother definitely would not approve of. Mia has her own life, she is an odd little girl that suffers in school because she doesn't fit in with her class mates and her teacher has no clue how to handle her.
The book begins when Mia finds an old positive pregnancy test and Lilly lies about who it belongs to. Mias overactive imagination makes her think mad things relating to an archealogical site and a skeleton that has been found there. Lilly then becomes ill and all the stories begin to intertwine. There is a sense of doom hanging over everyone
I really enjoyed this book, the characters are fascinating and their interactions are very interesting. Fiona Neill delves into family relationships and explores them deeply. I really enjoyed Mia, she obsesses about subjects to a point where she is nearly living them and yet there is a great innocence about her. Her relationship with Tas and her pet eel Elvis are lovely. This book is a great read.
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I hadn't read a Fiona Neill title before, but I'll definitely be looking out for more. This title really got under my skin as there's so much lurking in the background and as the story unfolds it keeps changing direction leaving you a little off balance. None of the characters are hugely likeable, but due to depth in the way they are written, it's possible to understand how they've got to where they are and relate to their very human flaws. Difficult to put down and stays with you long after you've finished the last page.

Beneath the surface nothing is as it seems. The Vermuydens are one messed up family. Even their new build house is sick.
Grace, the mother, is so tightly wound it is painful to watch. Patrick is weak, and a liar, in debt to his unpleasant brother. Lily has to keep secrets in order to have a private life. The best character is 10 year old Mia. She repeatedly gets the wrong end of the stick, with serious consequences.
This is a dark tale, that evokes the mysterious Fens., and how they can be a treacherous place. Four stars.

As I'm trying out new genres, this is a psychological drama style. I was intrigued to read this book based on the blurb. This book focuses on the dynamics of the Vermuyden family.Truth, lies and secrets. A absolutely gripping and compelling story. An absolute must read.

This is a beautifully written book about a totally dysfunctional family who all have secrets. Grace had a rough and tragic childhood and is determined her two daughters will have the best chances but Lilly and Mia have their own ideas. Patrick is full of lies and immaturity and resents his better off brother. There is loads going on here and I loved the ending. It finished the whole story perfectly. Often an ending is rushed and unsatisfactory but this is rushed and breathtaking - literally. We hurt towards the denouement with genuine mystery.

I loved Mia - she is a dreamer with an imagination her teachers cannot cope with. Her school show and tell is one of the best scenes I’ve read in fiction in many years. Grace is captured well and her damage and its repercussions are slowly unravelled... This is not a formulaic story but has many voices, many elements and many twists to keep you engrossed. Recommended if you’re looking for a different read which is thrilling and has depth but also great story telling.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

This is a book that I found readable and I was considering it as a three star book but for some reason, I found the ending really moving and so it boosts it up to a four star book. It was an enjoyable and easy read. I loved the character of Mia and her quirky thoughts were very funny at times, and I found Grace very annoying, although again by the end I felt sympathy for her. Recommended.

This book is about a young family living on The Fens and the secrets that the keep from one another in order to protect each other.

The main character was Mia a ten-year-old girl who is clearly different from other children with her quirks and odd behavior that some people cannot fathom. She quite often has an almost second sense of things before they happen which can be disconcerting for her family.

I enjoyed this book and felt that the author managed to tell story from the view point of the different characters in a well balanced way. I loved Mia’s character and view points on adults and life in general.

This book appealed as it is set in a place I know from visiting family. The premise of the book is good and the writer keeps you engaged and intrigued as to what will happen. The secrets family's keep from each other are shown to be distructive and have far reaching results.

All about pressure and trying to lead lives/ambitions that we wanted to achieve, through our children. Gave me a very descriptive idea of what The Fens look and feel like never having visited.

I just loved the quirky yet precise way in which Mia [ the younger sister] thinks and acts in this novel set around a family living in the Fens. Mia worships her sister Lilly and, by keeping secret some of the things Lilly tells her, unintentionally adds to the problems that her family find themselves facing. Fiona Neill's excellent writing brings her characters vividly into focus and results in a novel that is not only thoroughly engaging but also eminently believable. Parts made me laugh out loud and elsewhere I found myself sharing the anger and heartache of the characters. Just a teaser to tempt you to read this. Throughout the book Mia keeps a pet eel called Elvis in a bucket by her bed! It's only at the end that she finds the urge to set it free irresistible. To find out why you'll just have to read this immensely enjoyable novel.

Beneath The Surface was a different kind of read to what I was anticipating and although I did enjoy it the ending fell short to what I was expecting.
The book is told in alternate point of views of the different characters and although this worked for the majority of the book it did require a lot of concentration, so this lead it to be a book that for me wasn’t easy to drop in and out of as it required it to be read in large chunks. This was a book though that made me question “do we really know what others in our close family think, feel and lie about”?
This book features the Vermuyden family, at the start we are going over the history of eldest daughter, Lily’s collapse at school, the impact it has on her and the rest of her family, as the book progresses it becomes a little fast paced but fades away again at the end.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Penguin UK- Michael Joseph for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

Beneath the Surface is quite a twisty turny book. I did not see the story coming together as you don't think that something you know is actually wrong. It is a quick read and having not read anything by this author before I would be interested in reading others.

I have to be honest that this was a slightly different novel to the one I was originally anticipating, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Beneath the Surface focuses on family relationships, and the fact that no matter how well we think we may know our parents, children, friends etc, there is always something new to discover.

Everyone lies, even if they appear to be the most honest person on the outside.

Lilly is everyone's golden girl, beautiful, bright and popular. When she collapses in an English lesson, her friends and family are distraught, their world turned upside down.

But this is only the beginning of their nightmare.

Told from alternate characters points of view, this is a novel that requires concentration, and I'm not sure the ending will satisfy all, but it's a good character driven novel nonetheless.

Thanks to Penguin Books for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.


This is a book about family dynamics, and how we think we know people well but people always have their own secrets.

Neill is very good at writing novels of this genre. Her writing is very easy to follow despite a few different character viewpoints. The novel flows nicely and keeps you reading whilst you try to guess everyone's secrets before they all come out! I would definitely recommend this, and other Neill novels, to friends.

I have to be honest, I struggled to get into this story and I am a very patient reader. I’m glad I persevered as the beginning payed out the historical trauma of Grace and introduced us to her own family, the middle got meatier and more intricate and twisted. I did get slightly bored again towards the end as I was getting impatient for the climax. Some of the tale I could predict, some of it seemed a bit far fetched. But nevertheless, I persevered and overall was did enjoy the book in the end, it was just so complex I felt it took a lot of concentration( better to read in 2 sittings rather than in 5 as I did as I had to flip back a few pages to refresh my memory where I left it) thank you to the author Fiona Neill, Michael Joseph and Netgalley for an ARC for an honest review.

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.

Grace Vermuyden had a chaotic childhood, determined that her two daughters will fulfil the dreams she’s was denied. She has built a strong, organised picture-perfect family so imagine what happens when the very foundations Grace has built are rocked to their core…

When her eldest daughter Lilly, her golden child, destined for great things falls ills and is hospitalised Grace’s carefully constructed life starts to unravel and so she begins the quest to try to revert her family life back to its normal. However, Mia her ten-year-old starts to link all the things that are happening to her family in her own unique way and tries to do the right thing for everyone with catastrophic consequences.

Each family member Grace, her husband Patrick and her two daughters Lilly and Mia all trying but without the others knowing seemingly all want the same thing, but they all have secrets and it’s those secrets that could ultimately destroy their family’s future.

This is the second Fiona Neill book and for me was a compelling read as the characters and plot are written with authenticity on the ups and downs of a modern family. Each character had their part to play in the unravelling of the story that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I would highly recommend to readers who enjoy family dramas.