Having loved everything I’ve ever read by Liz Nugent, I cannot thank Rosie Safety enough at Penguin Random House for sending me a surprise copy of The Truth About Ruby Cooper. I was thrilled to receive it and it is my pleasure to share my review today.

If you click on the titles, you’ll find my reviews of other books by Liz Nugent too; Unravelling Oliver, Lying in Wait, Strange Sally Diamond, and an interview with Liz here. 

The Truth About Ruby Cooper was published on 12th March 2026 and is available for purchase through the links here.

The Truth About Ruby Cooper

If my sister hadn’t been beautiful, none of it would have happened.

Ruby Cooper and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode.

Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston.

Not that Ruby wants to think about the past.

But it can’t stay a secret forever.

My Review of The Truth About Ruby Cooper

Ruby Cooper is envious of her beautiful older sister Erin. 

I am at a total loss to know how to review The Truth About Ruby Cooper. It’s an outrageously brilliant book that delivers blow after blow to the reader as Liz Nugent lays bare the machinations of family, of addiction and of delusion. I’m sure it will be an affecting, possibly painful read for some. I thought it was superb.

The style and structure of the novel cleverly draw in the reader. The different first person accounts ranging over many years feel as if the narrator and the reader are in an intimate confessional with the character speaking directly to the reader, making that reader part of the narrative – not always willingly. The impact is to instil a raw and visceral response that leaves the mind reeling. My reactions to the characters, especially Ruby, were completely controlled by the author. 

Ruby is a deliciously oxymoronic creation. She deserves our pity and our wrath, our support and our rage. She raised so many questions in my mind about the effect of nature versus nurture and left me wondering just why she truly behaves as she does. I wanted to hold her and comfort her. I wanted to slap her hard and I wanted every aspect of her life to achieve the right outcome. It’s so hard to explain further for fear of spoilers, but I don’t think a book has ever enraged me quite as much as The Truth About Ruby Cooper and the people I met there. And what people they are. They are vivid, flawed and human. Liz Nugent KNOWS humanity and displays the knowledge unflinchingly and brilliantly here. 

And the themes of The Truth About Ruby Cooper are equally like a punch to the solar plexus. Truth and deceit ripple under aspects of sexual, emotional and familial support and abuse. Individuals’ perceptions, delusions and addictions are uncovered with consummate skill so that whilst we may rail against some of the characters (with the odd exception but I’m not going to spoil the story for others) we can understand them too. Equally, Liz Nugent does not shy away from the impact of mental health or societal expectations, so that this is a multi-layered and totally engrossing story.  

The Truth About Ruby Cooper is an absolute triumph. Readers may well be divided over whether they love it or loathe it, but I defy any reader not to have a deep and lasting response. I have a feeling it is going to take me some time to get over meeting Ruby Cooper. She has thrown me off balance completely and left me feeling as if I’ve been hit by a truck. If you are familiar with Liz Nugent’s writing you’ll understand what an impactful, ensnaring and affecting story this is. The Truth About Ruby Cooper is not to be missed, but be warned – you might not be the same after reading it… 

About Liz Nugent

Apologies to Liz but I couldn’t resist this photo!

Liz was born in Dublin in 1967, where she now lives. She has written successfully for soap opera, radio drama, television plays, short stories and animation for children.

Liz’s first novel Unravelling Oliver was published to critical and popular acclaim in March 2014. It quickly became a firm favourite with book clubs and reader’s groups. In November of that year, it went on to win the Ireland AM Crime Novel of the Year at the Bord Gais Energy Book Awards and was long listed for the International Dublin Literature Prize 2016. She was also the winner of the inaugural Jack Harte Bursary provided by the Irish Writers Centre and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Dec 2014. Her second novel, Lying in Wait, was published in July 2016 and went straight to number 1 where it remained for seven weeks. Liz won the Monaco Bursary from the Ireland Funds and was Writer in Residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco in Sept/Oct 2016. In Nov 2016, Lying in Wait won the prestigious RTE Ryan Tubridy Listener’s Choice prize at the Irish Book Awards.

Aside from writing, Liz has led workshops in writing drama for broadcast, she has produced and managed literary salons and curated literary strands of Arts Festivals. She regularly does public interviews and panel discussions on all aspects of her writing.

For further information about Liz, visit her website . You’ll also find Liz on Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook.