Stella is an eight-year-old high achiever who has learnt to read books many adults would struggle with. Her vocabulary and ability to question things puts her ahead of her peers while isolating her also. Charlotte, her mother, is pregnant with her second child when she decides to stay at home to spend more time with her. This is when things start to go wrong. She gets rid of her nanny, Blanka who she didn’t rate anyway only to discover days later that she has committed suicide.

Out of guilt Charlotte strikes up a relationship with her mother, Irina who in turn seems to have an unhealthy hold on the family as we see Stella change from a fussy eater to one devouring meat. Her mannerisms change as she morphs into the dead nanny using specific phrases and writing in Armenian. Pete appears to be the perfect husband and doting father, albeit he is hardly there. He is ecstatic however that his once shy daughter is making friends and behaving normally.

In the second half of the novel Echlin introduces the idea of the supernatural; Is Blanka haunting Stella and if so, why?

This is one hell of a psychological thriller; on the one hand is Charlotte an overprotective mother who refuses to have her daughter diagnosed as her friends suggest or is she justified in her concerns and need to protect her. At times we buy into Pete’s diagnosis that it is down to her hormones, but how sure are we? One thing for sure it put the heebie jebbies up me and I felt that icy chill at the back of my neck.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication. What a year 2025 will be.

This is a really compelling story where you don't know who to believe or what on earth is going on! It makes you question everything! I like books with an unreliable narrator and this story definitely has that!

I found it intriguing and very absorbing.

Part thriller, part supernatural, part horror and part domestic drama! “Clever Little Thing” tells the story of eight year old Stella, whose body appears to be inhabited by the spirit of her dead babysitter, Blanka. Nobody believes her mother, Charlotte and in desperation, Charlotte turns to Blanka’s mother, Irena, for help.

I really enjoyed this book, I had absolutely no inkling how it was going to turn out and Helena Echlin wove in lots of hooks to keep my attention and keep those pages turning!

It’s ok to be different and a mother always knows her child best!

4⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Helena Echlin and Headline for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Stella is a clever, little thing. Bright, gifted even, with a precocious interest in flight, she reads way beyond her age level but unfortunately her gifts don't extend to getting on with other children. All of this changes when her babysitter, the stolid refugee from Azerbaijan dies suddenly and Stella starts to take on Blanks's personality.

This is certainly an original read. In many ways it is a satire on modern life especially parenting. It is cleverly plotted and keeps you reading. I'm not keen on anything supernatural so it wasn't a wow for me but it's well crafted, very readable and many people will love it I'm sure. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Stella is one of those children who is clever and gifted but hard work. Her mother Charlotte has a hard job with raising her and trying to keep the girl ca;m and at peace.

I loved this book. It is dark creepy and just brilliant.

The drama that Stella brings keeps everyone on their toes but when her behaviour changes it causes a lot of concern for everyone invloved.

This is a well written and fabulous read.. it kept me up most of the night as i just had to know what was coming next..

Seeing the blurb quote from Ashley Audrain got me excited, I was hopeful for something like The Push, The Perfect Child (Lucinda Berry) or Baby Teeth (Zoje Stage).

I love a good troubled child thriller.

I will say I think the blurb goes into too much detail, revealing a good chunk of the plot. I wish I hadn’t read the blurb. However, once I got into the uncharted waters there are some very unexpected twists and turns.

It’s a story of mother Charlotte and her daughter Stella. Stella is different, social awkward while academically gifted, a Clever Little Thing. The family must follow the rules that keep her calm or risk an earsplitting, despair inducing ‘freak-out’. Almost over night Stella behaviour starts to change unrecognisably.

There’s a lot of motherhood and pregnancy anxiety, not my favourite, but this book kept me reading.

To impossible to say how much more I would have enjoyed without the spoilers from the blurb. It’s a very good, unusual book, though not quite at the level of the three classics of the genre I mentioned at the start.

Thanks to Netgalley and Headline