Hey!

I just finished reading Such a Strange Little Girl by J. A. Baker.

And it follows a woman writing to the childhood friend she left behind, trying to make sense of how it all went wrong.

The theme is a powerful one often explored in thrillers: are some people just born bad, or are they made that way?

Here are the ones that sit with that question best.

Born Bad Thrillers

Don't Let Her Stay by Nicola Sanders

Joanne is settling into quiet family life with her husband Richard and their new baby when Richard's estranged adult daughter, Chloe, moves in with them. From the first day, it is clear Chloe means them harm.

In Don't Let Her Stay by Nicola Sanders, the menace is there from the very start, and the question of whether Chloe was simply born this way runs underneath all of it.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Three foster sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, are pulled back into their past when human remains are found beneath the foster home where they grew up.

In Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth, we get the other side of the question: how an abusive childhood shapes the people the three women grew into.

Keep It In The Family by John Marrs

Mia and Finn buy a run-down house to turn into their dream home, until they find something in the attic that ties the place to a horrifying history.

In Keep It In The Family by John Marrs, the evil is inherited, handed down with the house itself.

And the newest addition to the list:

Such a Strange Little Girl by J. A. Baker

Blake and Lucy were inseparable once, two girls bound by secrets, dares, and a friendship that ran deeper than blood. Then came the day everything shattered, and it was easy to point the finger at the strange little girl who never quite fit in, the one who always watched a little too closely. Years later, Blake's life is falling apart, and the only way she can think to put it back together is to write to Lucy and finally face what happened between them.

Such a Strange Little Girl by J. A. Baker is a psychological thriller.

Baker's writing is dense and heavily stylised. The prose is flowery and ornate, with a simile on nearly every page and a vocabulary that reaches for the literary. Oddly, for all that ornamentation, the descriptions that ground you in a place are thin, and early on, I had little frame of reference for where Blake actually was. This was not to my taste; the imagery slowed the story down for me more than once. But this is a real style with a real audience: if you love lush, ornate writing that lingers on every image, there is plenty here for you.

We follow Blake in a single POV, with flashback chapters from an unknown narrator. There is one timeline, and a good half of the story is told through the letters the two women exchange. The pace is a slow burn, as the women reminisce about their childhood, telling each other things they both already know. If you like a slow, literary unspooling and you are happy to sit in the mood of a book, this structure will suit you.

Blake is a passive character. The book is built around the letters and the slow surfacing of the past rather than around her driving anything. For me, there isn't much plot to hold onto, which is worth knowing going in. Readers who come to a book like this for voice, interiority, and atmosphere rather than for forward motion will mind that far less than I did.

At its core, the book is asking whether people are born bad or made that way. This was the part that I enjoyed the most. It's an interesting premise that the book explores.

There is no romance and nothing spicy. There is swearing. There is some graphic violence, though it is brief.

The tone is bleak, and deliberately so. This is a dark, heavy book about unpleasant people doing ugly things to each other, and nobody comes out the other side better for it. That relentlessness was a downer for me. But bleak, no-redemption character studies are exactly what some readers want from dark fiction, and on that front, the book commits fully.

So, what about the ending? (No spoilers, obviously)

The ending did not work for me. It does close the story off, but after such a slow, heavy build, I was hoping it would land with more of a punch than it did. There is a long denouement where we learn about the fate of the characters in detail, which I always appreciate.

Such a Strange Little Girl by J. A. Baker is a dark, slow, intensely literary psychological thriller about whether people are born bad or made that way. It wasn't quite for me, but if you love ornate prose, a patient slow burn, and bleak character studies with no easy redemption, this one was written for you.

Latest Updates

• Cape Fear premieres June 5 on Apple TV. The psychological thriller has Javier Bardem as Max Cady, the killer coming after the family of attorneys who put him away, with Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson, and Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg producing. The talent alone has me curious.

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

— Diego Dunne

P.S. Let me know how I did today by replying to this email.

P.P.S. I would love to hear your recommendations for thrillers you loved. Reply to this email, and I’ll add them to my TBR list. Thanks!

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