#BlogTour ‘Out Of Her Depth’ by Lizzy Barber

About the book…

‘Out Of Her Depth’ by Lizzy Barber  is an evocative thriller set in the heat of a Tuscan summer.

For headstrong Rachel, it is the chance of a lifetime: a summer job in the Tuscan hills, receiving room and board in exchange for her services at the luxurious Villa Medici hotel. It’s not long before she finds herself drawn into a cosmopolitan crowd of friends for whom money is no object, and allegiances can change with the toss of a coin.

When she asks her new friend Diana to help her win the affections of the handsome and charming Sebastian, she thinks she might finally have a chance to become part of their world, but when she discovers that Diana may have intentions of her own, she begins to learn the real cost of friendship. And when Sebastian begins to focus on the sweet and innocent Valentina, Rachel discovers there may be an even higher price to pay.

The suffocating heat, the blinding wealth, the beautiful people: it soon becomes too much, and Rachel finds herself not just out of her depth, but drowning in lies . . .

Hugest of thanks to Courtney at Ed PR for inviting me to review Out Of Her Depth for the paperback release blog tour, it was an absolute pleasure to find another favourite author to start following!

I agree with Lesley Kara’s cover quote, this novel is simply sublime, you dive into it headlong without any backward looks at your shaming tbr which is annoyed, once more, for you picking up a new arrival over them.

Rachel (great name for a protagonist) is a character of contrasts-she represents her school’s best hopes at developing a foreign language department, her mother thinks she has ideas above her station, and her absolutely adorable dad has her back, no matter what. This is a friendless girl, the one others like to be around so that they look better in comparison. So when her teacher offers her the opportunity of a summer in Florence, before she heads to Cambridge, here is a chance to re-invent herself and immerse herself in some actual culture.

Her arrival in Florence is disappointing, comparing the guide book enticements to real life is always going to have that element of artifice, and then, when she arrives at Silvia’s Villa Medici, she feels even more unnerved by the gorgeous guests and high class lifestyle.

Friended by Diana, whether she wanted to be or not, Rachel finds herself swept up into a world of parties, excess and an ever increasing worry about feeling out of her social class comfort zone. Meeting Sebastian, for whom she is a complete novelty, she falls desperately in love. And there begins a love triangle, Diana, whose entrance to the gilded throng is ensured by her birth, Sebastian, who is trying to kick back against the reins of his classist family, and Rachel, trying to keep abreast of them all.

This is a novel of time slips and contrasts-you have Rachel, on the cusp of womanhood plunged into one of the most celebrated hearts of European culture, seeking enlightenment and a sense of belonging.

And now, in the present time, 20 years after an unnamed, cataclysmic event which landed Sebastian in Italian jail, Rachel is everything she despised, a woman with missed opportunities under her belt, not married, teaching kids who don’t even see her, and worst of all, she has proven her mother’s prediction of amounting to nothing correct.

You are so swept up in the Rachel of then, that you don’t want the Rachel of now to be an unreliable narrator, you want her to have all the wonderful things which the likes of Diana took for granted.

Flying under the radar is all she seems to be aiming for, a life of inconsequentiality, and yet, the girl who took that first leap to another world is still in there. So when Sebastian is freed after a retrial, suddenly the freedom which she has fought so hard to maintain has swiftly become another imprisoning.

Full of yearning, betrayal, jaw dropping moments and a beautifully rendered Italian summer which forever alters the lives of these 3 bright young things, ‘Out Of Her Depth’ succeeds as a portrait of social class barriers, entitlement, friendship and toxic relationships wrapped in mystery about who did what to whom. And, most importantly, why.

About the author…

Lizzy Barber’s critically acclaimed debut novel ‘My Name Is Anna’  (2019) won the Daily Mail First Novel Competition. She read English at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and is Head of Brand and Marketing at the Hush Collection, a boutique group of restaurants.

Lizzy has a lifelong love of Italy, spending childhood holidays on the Italian coast, and living in Florence, aged 18
to learn Italian. Lizzy returns to Tuscany every year and got married near Fiesole, where Villa Medici in the book is located.
She always knew the shadowy streets and intense beauty were ripe for a thriller.

Links-https://www.lizzybarber.com/?msclkid=4126da8fc57c11ecaca79c70682a5724