Just One Lie by Ruth Harrow
Genre: Psychological thriller, Domestic thriller, Suspense
Read: 6th June 2022
Amazon
Published: 5th June 2022
★★★★ 4.5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Everyone has a secret. But not like Alison’s.
Alison loves being a mother which is why she is finding it so hard to come to terms with the recent loss of her baby daughter. She still has her young son Adam whom she adores, but the grief is always there…
Everyone can see she is struggling.
And they don’t know the half of it. Alison has a terrible secret she has never shared with anyone – not even her husband, Dan. She knows if he ever discovers what she did, her family will be destroyed forever.
But someone seems to know, because Alison gets a sinister message. And then bad things start to happen – her website is hacked, her business is sabotaged, there’s a fire in her home… then more threatening messages.
Alison is in no doubt that someone means to destroy her by exposing her to the world. But who? And why?
Can she discover the truth before it’s too late? Or is the terror that fuels her sleepless nights about to become all too real?
Just One Lie - a gripping psychological thriller with a mind-blowing twist. Perfect for fans of Sarah Denzil, K.L Slater and Sue Watson.
MY THOUGHTS:
Everyone has a secret. But not like Alison’s. And it all started with a lie.
So many people have said that this was a slow paced book, so when I read that I thought "oh no" as I hate slow burns. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn't think it was slow paced at all. It does begin with a build up that does, admittedly, leave the reader a little confused at first. Especially with the alternating narratives changing every few chapters and BOTH are in the first person, so it is easy to mistake the second narrative as Alison's...until there is a few words that hint at it being an entirely different narrator. Some of the chapters are titled with "Before" making them easier to identify but some of the others are not which makes it confusing. I found this to be a confusing inconsistency.
The main narrator is Alison and is told predominantly from her perspective When the second one stealthily makes their way into the story in the second chapter, we stop to wonder who this could possibly be. We are drip-fed information to lead us thinking we know where the story is leading and who the mysterious narrator is...but we don't. I was left scratching my head cluelessly until a light bulb went on in my brain and it all became comparatively clearer. Didn't it? But like all good psychological thrillers, JUST ONE LIE has us chasing our tails and second guessing ourselves all the way through.
Beginning with an intriguing prologue another unnamed person is swimming with their child in the warm waters of somewhere quite obviously abroad until fate deals them a deadly blow. And the reader is left wanting to know who, what, why and when this all happened. But one thing we learn throughout the story is that time is relative.
Alison Burnham thought she had the perfect life. She thought she and Dan had the perfect marriage and they were incredibly happy together...until Adam was born. It was a difficult birth and for a time, Alison and her son were separated with him being in the neonatal unit shortly after his birth. But it wasn't long before they returned home together and the perfect life Alison thought they would be enjoying crumbled. She spiraled into a postpartum depression and found caring for a newborn incredibly trying as well as the changes to their family unit. It wasn't until a year or so had passed that Alison finally found her feet and a new appreciation for her beautiful baby son. But her's and Dan's relationship had taken a battering and they found it even harder to regain that equilibrium again.
Eight years later, and Alison is now mourning the loss of their stillborn daughter she had hoped would get her and Dan back on an even keel again. Now they couple barely speak and when they do she finds Dan patronising instead of understanding. Having lost her previous successful career in marketing after Adam's birth, Alison has been through a few failed ventures to help contribute financially to the household while Dan works as an undervalued chef at a local restaurant. Now Alison has begun a career as a photographer specialising in maternity and family photos, an idea that formed during her own recent pregnancy. She takes on an employee, Rebecca, who thrives in being at the forefront of organising bookings and the photo shoots, an ability Alison can only admire and envy in equal measure.
But then strange things begin to occur. Her studio is broken in. The electrics short-circuit having been filled with water. Strange phone calls where no one speaks. Anonymous messages sent to her Facebook account. And then her website is hacked. And she has this strange sense of being watched. Is it any wonder that Alison has trouble sleeping? That she barely eats? But is it the mysterious happenings occurring now or the deep dark secret she has carried for so long?
Her behaviour becomes so erratic Dan believes she is falling into a depression again and instead of showing her understanding, Alison finds every thing he does and every thing he says patronising. But when she returns home one day to find he has done the unthinkable without discussing it with her first, she is livid. And to be honest, I thought she had every right to be. What he did was cruel, even if he thought he was doing the right thing at the time. Just because it was right for him doesn't mean it was right for Alison. But to go behind her back without telling her...well, that was just cruel. As if she hasn't got enough to contend with.
And then she gets a phone call from the school...Adam has disappeared whilst on a school excursion. Has Alison's greatest fear come to fruition at last?
Pretty much WOW! Despite the ambiguity and confusion with the failure to clearly separate the two narratives in the beginning, JUST ONE LIE is just one wild ride! It wasn't slow paced at all. I found it began with a relatively steady pace that offered mystery and intrigue, picking up quickly as I raced to turn the pages long into the night. Just when I thought I knew who the unnamed narrator was, I discovered I'd been cleverly hoodwinked.
Alison is not an entirely likeable character and she is clearly unreliable as a narrator as well. Do we believe her perception? Or is it all in her mind? Is she suffering postpartum depression again only adding to her grief? Or is she right to be worried? Does someone know her secret?
I didn't particularly like Alison much but I liked Rebecca. Dan was not a very understanding husband particularly with some of his actions. But Alison was constantly second guessing herself and throughout the entire book she just figuratively threw her hands up and declared "That's it! I've failed as a wife! I've failed as a mother!" What mother hasn't thought that at times? But she just goes on about it every time something went wrong or threatened Adam's safety...which in Alison's was just about everything. Including a harmless birthday gift of walkie talkies, thus thinking someone could hack the frequency and lure her little boy away. Seriously? She just got on my goat a bit.
However, regardless of how annoying she could be, I thoroughly enjoyed JUST ONE LIE. It was fun, fast paced and entirely intriguing and entertaining. I had fun trying to work out who it could possibly be and I was able to work out the anonymous narrator long before their identity was revealed.
JUST ONE LIE is a brilliant, fun fast pace read with all the thrills and chills and clever twists along the way to keep you entertained throughout. I did find it ended a little abruptly though and found that a bit of a letdown considering everything else had concluded nicely, only for it to end...just like that.
Still an intriguing read that I recommend for fans of psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators.
I would like to thank #RuthHarrow, #InkubatorBooks and #ZoolooTours for an ARC of #JustOneLie in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Just One Lie is her second psychological thriller with Inkubator Books.
Social Media links:
Website | Twitter | Goodreads
No comments:
Post a Comment