LIES SHE TOLD

5 stars out of 5

Quirky? You bet. Intense? For sure. Headed for the best-seller list? Crossing my fingers, because IMHO, it should be.

The description at NetGalley piqued my interest, and learning that it's a September 2017 selection of the Book of the Month Club prompted me to follow through and request an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. Happily, I got the nod, and, well, you already know my honest opinion. 

Now for a few details. Liza Cole enjoyed fame and fortune as the author of a best-selling book. But alas, it was fleeting; her most recent attempt was by most accounts a flop, and she's under the gun to produce something with the potential for success (or at least an outline thereof) within a month. She's also in a clinical trial of a fertility drug cocktail, a last hope that she'll finally get pregnant. Meantime, her husband David just isn't in the mood - it seems his best friend and law partner Nick has gone missing and in addition to being worried, he's buried in work as he takes on Nick's cases on top of his own.

It's hard to focus on writing, but Liza finally comes up with a new heroine, a woman named Beth. Unlike Liza, Beth has given birth to a still-infant daughter; like Liza, Beth is dealing with a husband who's lost interest (and, Beth believes, is cheating on her as well). Chapters shift from Liza's story to that of the fictional Beth, and - no real surprise here - it's not long before the lines begin to cross.

Then, two of the characters - one real and one fictitious - meet untimely ends. Beth has an angry confrontation with her husband's lover, who ends up in the East River. Liza's husband's partner's body is found, and to Liza's dismay, her husband is arrested for the murder. But are both Beth and David really guilty? Beth's motive is obvious - payback to the competition and her wayward husband -  but why would David want his best friend dead? Hmmmm. Maybe there's more to these women's stories (and the stories of the men they love) than we see at the beginning.

Nope, not gonna spill the beans. All I'll say is it sure was fun watching the plots thicken and unravel. Highly recommended!

Lies She Told by Cate Holahan (Crooked Lane Books, September 2017); 288 pp.