Desperate to enjoy their empty nest, Penny and Andeep downsize to the countryside, to forage, upcycle and fall in love again, only to be joined by their two twenty-something daughters, Asha and Camille.
Living on top of each other in a tiny house, with no way to make money, tensions simmer, and as Penny and Andeep focus increasingly on themselves, the girls become isolated, argumentative and violent.
When Asha injures Camille, a family therapist is called in, but she shrugs off the escalating violence between the sisters as a classic case of sibling rivalry … and the stress of the family move.
But this is not sibling rivalry. The sisters are in far too deep for that.
This is a murder, just waiting to happen…
Chilling, vicious and darkly funny, Keep Her Sweet is not just a tense, sinister psychological thriller, but a startling look at sister relationships and they bonds they share … or shatter.
I'm delighted to be hosting the blog tour for Keep Her Sweet today. Many thanks to Helen Fitzgerald, Orenda Books and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me and for my advance copy of the novel.
As a sister and mother, I've participated in and witnessed sibling rivalry more times than I can count; sometimes merely niggly and on other occasions, rather more vicious. However, next time my daughters are arguing with one another, I will remember Keep Her Sweet. Helen Fitzgerald's latest is described as a darkly funny novel – and indeed it is – but really this macabre tale of a dysfunctional family should be considered uplit! Everybody's families are weird and messy but few are as screwed up as the Moloney-Singhs...
There are three narrators in the book; the chapters following The Therapist and The Mum are in the third person while those entitled The Second-Born are told from her first person perspective as she records events in her diary. Readers are given a centre-row seat as their family falls apart and it feels a little like the worst excesses of reality TV – it's as if the Osbournes at their most troubled have moved to Ballarat. It does mean this is a deliciously addictive read and although Joy's observation at the start of the book that 'Unhappy families always cheered her up" may be a little unkind coming from a family therapist, there is probably more than a grain of truth there; these are truly awful people but Helen Fitzgerald writes with such piercing wit, I raced through the pages to discover what they would inflict on one another next.
Penny is The Mum and at first I could sympathise with her and Andeep's predicament; their plans to enjoy their empty nest are scuppered by the return of both their daughters and since they've downsized and have no money, it's no wonder tensions run high. However, she is an alcoholic whose self-centred neediness means she plays her daughters off against one another, and as she spirals into despair, is unable to be the parent they actually require. Meanwhile, I initially felt sorry for Andeep and even after his behaviour sparks further turmoil, I could still understand why he'd made his choices. He struck me as a middle-aged man seeking an ego boost, particularly as he clearly still pines for his career as a stand-up comedian. Penny's opinions of his act suggest he isn't actually very good and later in the novel we learn just how awful he is with a description of his act which is so gloriously offensive, it brought tears to my eyes. He may not be as blatantly damaged as the rest of them but as the story progressed, I realised what a terrible person he is too.
Asha is the most chillingly flawed member of the family and her moods are dangerous, particularly for her younger sister, Camille. Indeed, it's after Camille claims she broke her nose while playing netball that they agree to try family therapy. Asha's violent behaviour has led to her being forced to move back home but it becomes obvious that she has always been mercurial in temperament. Childhood incidents were passed off as kids being kids but they're actually rather darker, and even early examples of her rage hint at what comes later. She obsessively sticks to her beliefs with religious fervour and is scarily demanding and brutally unstable.
Camille seems to be the more normal sister and is undoubtedly one of the more likeable characters in the book but there is often a sense that her first-person perspective doesn't reveal the true story of her own role here. Even from her biased viewpoint, however, it is evident that she taunts her sister and her own behaviour impacts the toxic dynamics of this family too. As the furious relationship between the sisters descends into unhinged madness, just who is most at fault no longer matters because what we witness is so shockingly awful.
Poor Joy, the septuagenarian family therapist who honestly believes that family is everything, despite the issues she has with her own daughter, tries her best with the Moloney-Singhs but not all books conclude with a happy ending and really she is always fighting a losing battle here. However, the poignant subplot that follows her own desperate attempts to support her daughter mean that the astonishingly dark conclusion left me raising a glass to her (not containing goon sack wine, obviously!)
There is nothing sweet about Keep Her Sweet and yet I loved it; with its pitch-black humour, startlingly vindictive characters and compulsively twisted plot, this perceptively cruel and bitingly witty novel is a stand-out read. I highly recommend it.
Keep Her Sweet will be published by Orenda Books on 25th May 2026. Purchase directly from the publisher's website, from bookshop.org, Hive, Waterstones, Kobo or Amazon. Please support independent bookshops whenever possible.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
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Thanks for the blog tour support x
ReplyDeleteAlways love Helen Fitzgerald's deeply flawed characters and dark yet humorous stories.
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