Title: LASTING DAMAGE
Author: SOPHIE HANNAH
ISBN: 9780340980668
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 438
Source: Private Copy
It’s 1.15 a.m. and Connie Bowskill should be asleep. Instead, she’s logging on to a property website in search of a particular house: 11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge. She knows it’s for sale – there’s an estate agent’s board in the front garden.
Soon Connie is clicking on the ‘Virtual Tour’ button, keen to see the inside of the house and put her mind at rest once and for all. She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room, in the middle of the carpet, lies a woman face down in a pool of blood. In shock, Connie wakes her husband Kit. But when Kit sits down at the computer, he sees no dead body, only a pristine beige carpet in a perfectly ordinary room…
Official Summary
20 May 2026
I found this one while visiting a second-hand bookstore in Warner Beach, and it turned out to be another wonderfully intricate thriller from Sophie Hannah. As always, Hannah weaves an incredibly complicated tale that feels slightly confusing at first, but once the pieces begin to fall into place, it delivers a brilliantly plotted and deeply satisfying conclusion.
Connie is convinced that her husband, Kit, is cheating on her. After discovering an address saved on his satnav, she becomes obsessed with finding out why he has been there. When the house connected to the address goes up for sale, Connie visits the estate agent’s website to take a closer look — only to discover what appears to be the image of a brutal murder taking place inside the property.
The problem is that no one believes her.
The police cannot find any evidence of a crime, and Kit becomes increasingly concerned by Connie’s behaviour, suggesting that she may be imagining things. But Connie is determined to uncover the truth, even as those around her begin to question her sanity.
Hannah does an excellent job of drawing the reader towards Connie by sharing her fears, doubts, and growing uncertainty. The further you get into the story, the more unreliable Connie appears, leaving you constantly questioning whether she really witnessed a murder or if her suspicions are spiralling out of control.
From the very beginning, Connie comes across as emotional, impulsive, and increasingly erratic, while Kit remains calm and rational — the apparent voice of reason. It creates an unsettling dynamic where you are never quite sure who to trust. How do you believe a narrator when there is absolutely no proof of the crime she insists she saw?
Just when the story starts to feel almost too tangled, Hannah expertly pulls every thread together and delivers a fantastic ending that I genuinely did not see coming. While this one does have a slower start, the payoff is more than worth it. A cleverly constructed psychological thriller that rewards patient readers with a truly memorable conclusion.
Also by Sophie Hannah
NO ONE WOULD DO WHAT THE LAMBERTS HAVE DONE
You think it will never happen to you: the ring of the bell, the policeman on the doorstep. What he says traps you in a nightmare that starts with the words, ‘I’m afraid…’
Sally Lambert is also afraid and desperate enough to consider the unthinkable. Is it really, definitely, impossible to escape from this horror? Maybe not. There’s always something you can do, right?
Of course, no one would ever do this particular something – except the Lamberts, who might have to.
No one has ever gone this far. Until Sally decides that the Lamberts will…
About the Author
Author bio from the author’s site
Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story, The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.
Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999, she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001, she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
I have had a lot fun reading so far this year and if I keep up the pace, I should easily reach my Good Reads goals. How are you doing with your goal, are you on track? Thank you for visiting the blog. Until next time… Happy Reading!
