4.25 STARS

"Lies She Told" by Cate Holahan is a unique and intriguing suspense thriller that is basically two stories in one. And while both stories are equally fascinating, in this particular case, truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

As suspense crime novelist, Liza Jones, struggles to meet the deadline for her latest novel, the troubles in her personal life overflow into the fantasy life she’s created for her characters. And as such, sometimes it’s difficult to differentiate between the two—both for Liza AND for the reader. Still, I found the story to be compelling.

While not perfect in its execution, overall, the story pulled me in and held me captive right up until the very end.

This was a unique and intriguing read that starts out by following two distinct storylines with the point of view switching between Liza (the writer) and Beth (her made-up character).  The book starts out slowly as you become acquainted with the players, but the pace picks up quickly as both Liza and Beth find themselves in complicated situations.  Both characters were well developed. It was easy to identify with Liza’s yearning to be a mother and with Beth’s distress at the state of her marriage. The partial mirroring of the two plots – Liza’s story and the story she was writing – led to a blurring of the line between reality and fiction. The path to the story’s resolution was peppered with suspense and twists that kept me turning the pages.  It was an enjoyable read, however the ending didn’t feel “right” to me – not so much in terms of the killer’s identity but more in that the factors that led to the killer’s actions seemed a bit far-fetched to me.

"...the mind has two ways of dealing with trauma. One is to bury it deep within the subconscious. The second is to fixate on the injury, burning every detail into our mind in an effort to avoid similar circumstances in the future."

"Blurring fact and fantasy is my trade. I am a con artist. A prevaricator. I make up stories." Liza Cole is a writer of mysteries working hard on a novel that she hopes will put her back on top following the dry spell after her first novel achieved great success. She's having a hard time due to hormonal fluctuations from her fertility drug treatments and with her husband being distracted by the fact that his partner at the law firm has gone missing. She's got one month to impress her editor. As she writes of Beth, a new mother, whose husband is having an affair, the lines between fact and fiction become blurred. Are the experimental hormones that Liza is taking responsible for her increasingly erratic behavior -- or is it something else?

This novel is quite interesting in structure as the chapters alternate between Liza's life and the thoughts and actions of Beth, the character in the book. It can be a bit disconcerting until you get into the rhythm of it and become familiar with each of the characters' stories. I liked this device and it made the story more suspenseful and fast-paced as it built to a climax and the ultimate revelations. Can't say I liked either narrator or even trusted their truthfulness in relating their thoughts and actions, but it was a compelling read. Who REALLY did WHAT to WHOM?

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this e-book ARC to read and review. I recommend it and will definitely look for the past and future books by this author as she was new to me.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Liza writes romantic suspense murder novels and though her first novel sold very well, she hasn’t had a big one again. She is writing about an affair and a murder that comes from that affair. The chapters of this book go between Liza’s life and writing to Beth’s life, the main character in her story, whose husband is having an affair. The lines begin to blur between her novel and her own life when there is a murder and things are way too similar.

I loved the concept of the story line. Liza struggles with trying to work out the points of her story but you can tell there is something more going on in her brain. Beth had fertility struggles and has a baby. Liza has been struggling with her own fertility problems. Her husband is obsessed with his missing partner. Beth’s husband has an affair with a cop he is working with. They all go hand in hand. There were a few times that I was more interested in the fictional story line than Liza’s own story and it dragged a bit. But this was a quick, easy read with a very interesting outcome. I would definitely read more books by Ms. Holahan.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted"

This was a very good read! I do not want to give any spoilers because this book twists and turns until the satisfying ending. There are two parallel stories: Liza and Beth. Liza is a struggling mystery novelist, writing her latest book about Beth. The author skillfully wove and separated the two stories, one fact and the other fiction. It was a clever take on a familiar storyline and held my interest throughout. I will definitely look for more from this author!

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. Very thrilling and suspenseful book. Lots of twists and turns that will keep you glued to this book!!

Thriller writer Liza Cole (though I initially kept wanting to call her Liza Cody) is under pressure. A lot of pressure. Her publisher is pushing her to deliver her next novel. She's struggling to get pregnant, undergoing experimental fertility treatment. And on top of everything her husband David's best friend and law partner, Nick, has mysteriously disappeared, leaving David distraught and distracted.

The unusual structure alternates between Liza's narrative and chapters of the novel she is writing, in which protagonist Beth, a new mother, discovers her husband is having an affair - with explosive consequences. (Liza was told that the protagonist of her last, critically-panned, novel "lacked agency". It's not a criticism that can be applied to Beth.) But where does fact end and fiction begin? As secrets old and new begin to emerge, the line between imagination and reality becomes increasingly blurred.

This novel-within-a-novel structure, stories bleeding into one another, reminded me a little of Morag Joss's excellent The Night Following - although the two books are very different in tone.

It did take me a while to get into, as I got used to the parallel storylines. But once I was grabbed, that was it - I had to keep reading.

There were a couple of things (I won't say what) which in hindsight seem blindingly obvious but took me a shamefully long time to notice. So I guess maybe they weren't that obvious after all. Hiding in plain sight, perhaps.

I did wonder how childless Liza managed to know quite so much, and write quite so convincingly, about the minutiae of life with a new baby. Research is one thing, but it read very much like experience.

A very intriguing and very, very cleverly constructed story; the sort you immediately want to go back and read parts of again in the light of later revelations. I love it when that happens.

I will say I was struggling a bit with this book as I was getting confused between which was the real story she was writing. but once i got my head round it I was hooked and couldn’t put it down.
I loved the writing it is so well written. This is my first book by this author and it will not be my last.
It is like you are getting 2 books in one story it so well done. A great suspense novel, that will keep you guessing. So many twists and turns.

Try this one for a twisty tale that will keep you guessing. It's a story within a story- told in alternating chapters. Liza is writing a novel about Beth but Beth's story sort of mirrors Liza's life. Write what you know? Well, in this case, is that a good idea or is it reality? It's hard to review novel like this without spoiler but Holohan will keep you guessing as to what's really going on with Liza and her husband and what happened to her husband's friend Nick. There are little clues along the way but also twists and turns. Very clever plotting. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I liked this book a lot. I was a little confused about the different point of views at first but quickly caught on. It would have been helpful for the author to label each chapter with the person who was speaking, but it may have been done intentionally to further blur the lines of reality and fiction. Very good!

WOW!!! This book really got inside my head and took me for quite the ride!! Mystery, romance, suspense, more twists and turns than expected, this book has it all!

Cate Holahan brilliantly pulls off a book within a book and fills each with flawed, utterly believable characters who grow in depth with each turn of the page. It is the story of a, so-far, one hit wonder romance/suspense novelist, Liza, who is under the gun to produce her next book at a time when her personal life seems to be falling apart. She and her, never home and when home not 'present', lawyer husband David are trying to have a child together, and Liza is part of an experimental medical trial that has her hormones off the charts. David is consumed with his missing law partner and best-friend, Nick, and has grown so distant that Liza wonders if he is having an affair. To take her mind off her personal problems, Liza throws herself into her writing, hoping to make her 30-day deadline. When Nick's body is finally found, David is arrested for his murder.

Meanwhile, Beth, the lead character of Liza's new book and in many ways Liza's alter-ego, is a new, anxious, exhausted mother seeking more attention from her lawyer husband, Jake. Convinced he is having an affair, she begins to follow him, and before she knows it, she has literally killed off the competition!

Each story is told in alternating chapters, and the suspense quietly builds in each story until it explodes in a glorious ending! There are so many blurred lines (part of the author's plan) that one must pay close attention to each story as each gives clues about the other.

I found this creative, well-written, and well-executed. This was my first reading of Cate Holahan's works, but it certainly won't be my last!

Many many thanks to Netgalley and publisher Crooked Lane Books for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this book!

Reality vs. Fantasy
Where is the line drawn? Liza can't seem to figure that out.
Liza, an author, and her husband, a lawyer, lead an average married life. Except her husband's best friend and "partner" has gone missing, and hasn't been found. Her husband refuses to accept the fact that his best friend may be dead and won't rest until there's a body for proof.

Beth, new mother and stay-at-home-mom, finds out her marriage isn't as stable as she thought. She's being put on the back burner just six weeks after giving birth to their "miracle baby", and for a coworker no less. But he hides it so well! Or so he thinks. Beth attempts to confront him about it, but of course gets stood up. Her vision shifts to a new focus: revenge.

Liza blurs the lines between her childless life/rocky marriage and Beth's, her main protagonist in her new book, and ultimately throws caution to the wind. This story is about love and a lack thereof, and reminds us of why close family and friends are the first suspect in a murder.

I did enjoy this book, but only about halfway through. Liza, the main character, is intriguing, and her friend Chris is a hoot. They're what BFFs are made of. However, the reason that I thought this book was less than great, even though I enjoyed the story overall, was the way the chapters were set up. It took me a bit to grasp that each time the chapter changed, it was either a chapter number or Liza. The story jumps back and forth between the "real" characters in Liza's life, and then back to Beth's (the fictional main character in the book Liza is writing about) fictional life.

This was an interesting way to go about the story, sort of a different kind of feel to it. But, I think that it ultimately hindered the experience of the story in the beginning. I knew the story was about Liza and her fictional characters that she's writing about, and how the lines blur between fiction and reality before I started reading. I just didn't expect it to be in that way.

Overall, the story is a strong and solid 4/5 stars, and I would purchase this for a friend that's also interested in thriller/suspense genres.

This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn't a bad book - but still I felt disappointed. There was a lot of build up about the "lies she told" but it was really obvious to me. I kept waiting for the "AHA" moment and it didn't really come. However, it also wasn't a bad ending; I think it was built up wrong. Still, I enjoyed reading the story (and the story within a story).

The truth can be darker than fiction.

Liza Cole, a once-successful novelist whose career has seen better days, has one month to write the thriller that could land her back on the bestseller list. Meanwhile, she’s struggling to start a family, but her husband is distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. As stresses weigh her down in her professional and personal lives, Liza escapes into writing the chilling exploits of her latest heroine, Beth.

Beth, a new mother, suspects her husband is cheating on her while she’s home caring for their newborn. Angry and betrayed, she aims to catch him in the act and make him pay for shattering the illusion of their perfect life. But before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s tossing the body of her husband’s mistress into the East River.

Then, the lines between Liza’s fiction and her reality eerily blur. Nick’s body is dragged from the East River, and Liza’s husband is arrested for his murder. Before her deadline is up, Liza will have to face up to the truths about the people around her, including her own. If she doesn’t, the end of her heroine’s story could be the end of her own.

My Thoughts: In alternating narratives, we enter the worlds of Liza and Beth, and, at first, it seems as though Liza is simply creating a romantic suspense novel, even though she readily admits that her fiction is often based on composites of people and events in her own life. She says “to be a writer is to be a life thief. Every day, I rob myself blind.”

Sometimes events in her fictionalized world definitely mimic her life. She is worried about her marriage and she is on fertility drugs that render her emotional. And sometimes she has memory issues. Could she be mixing up events? Does her real life look too much like the fictional one? Could she have done something dreadful, and then forgotten about it?

It doesn’t help that both Liza’s husband David and fictional Beth’s husband Jake are liars…and probably cheaters. Or is everything skewed by Liza’s version of the truth?

I couldn’t stop reading Lies She Told. I loved going back and forth between the worlds of Liza and Beth, and trying to decide the truth of what had actually happened. Did David kill Nick, or has Liza done it and forgotten? Have all the actions she has attributed to Beth been her own? Is she even writing a book? Then we discover a buried secret from Liza’s childhood, one that definitely changes everything we thought we knew. An unputdownable book that earned 5 stars.
***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley.

5/5 - check out my review here: nikkisnovelniche.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/review-lies-she-told-cate-holahan-2017/

I literally devoured this book in a day. I skipped over my quotes section in my review because I wanted to know what happened so badly that I didn’t even stop to highlight anything lol! This book may have claimed the top spot for me for best book of 2017…. This story has everything you would want in a mystery – plot twists, suspense, red herrings, and complex characters. Lies She Told is also unique as it is basically a story within a story. Cate Holahan does a fantastic job of sucking her readers into both stories while keeping the story-lines distinct so we don’t get lost along the way. I think that is what made this book so engrossing, you become involved in both Liza and Beth’s lives and want to know their outcomes. You become doubly invested in the book because there are double the characters and situations you would normally encounter in your typical mystery.

Overall, I found this book to be well-written and well-paced and incredibly hard to put down. I guarantee readers will have some sleepless nights as they’ll want to devour this book in one sitting as I did!

Recommended to all fans of mystery/suspense novels, this is an addictive, plot twisting, binge-worthy read that will have you at the edge of seat the whole time.

Thank you to NetGalley for an uncorrected proof in exchange for an honest review.

**Review will be posted on Amazon on September 12th***

This is a strange book but I have to say, I enjoyed it.
Liza is an author and is trying for a baby with her husband David. The book she is writing is about a couple who have a young baby and are having marriage difficulties.
The chapters flit between Lisa's story and the character in the novel she's writing, who is Beth.
It got quite confusing at times but I think I understood everything!
This is a really different book and I've never read about an author and her partner, and then her characters as part of one story.
I think it worked as I did enjoy reading it, and it will definitely be one I remember.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane publishers for sending me an advance copy.

Liza is an author who had a break through debut novel and is trying to get back to her previous glory. At the same time, she and her husband are dealing with infertility issues and the disappearance of his best friend and business partner. The book bounces back and forth between Liza's life and the story she is writing about Beth, a new mother who is dealing with an unfaithful husband. Both stories felt too similar, emotionally, in pace, and emphasis resulting in a somewhat monotone read. I would have preferred if the book had focused more on Liza's story with less emphasis on the book she was writing. I think that would have helped accentuate what was a good concept instead of distract from it.

*3.5 stars

Liza Cole is a romantic suspense writer facing a deadline for her latest book but unfortunately she is distracted by her struggles with an experimental hormone therapy for infertility that seems to be giving her intense migraines and episodes of forgetfulness. Her husband David is less than sympathetic because he is distraught over the disappearance of his best friend and law firm partner, Nick.

Chapters of Liza's new book about a young mother with a cheating husband alternate with what is going on in Liza's own life. This is confusing at first and it takes until the last half of the book for the story to really take off. Up until that point, the book was going to get a 3 star rating from me but the last half redeemed the story in my eyes. Some nice unique plot twists there. I did still feel that the dual story lines were confusing but there was a purpose behind that.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this new thriller.

I loved this book! It was such a well done psychological suspense and I did not want to put it down.

Lies She Told is about Liza, a once best selling author who has struggled with her last few books. Her editor doesn’t seem to be very impressed with her newest idea, but she gets him to agree to give her 30 days to submit a first draft. As she writes, she is distracted by her relationship with her increasingly distant husband, David, who’s best friend and business partner, Nick, has gone missing. She is also on an experimental fertility hormone that has some difficult side effects. She starts to write her new book about Beth, a new mother who suspects her husband is cheating on her and goes to drastic measure to keep him.

“To be a writer is to be a life thief. Every day, I rob myself blind.”

The story is told in alternating chapters of Liza’s life and her book. I really loved this! There are definitely parallels between Liza’s book and her life. However, I also thought that Beth’s story, while inspired by Liza, still felt like it’s own plot. It was almost like reading two different books that gave clues to each other. Including a story within a story is not a new narrative device, but I thought it was done really excellently here.

While I don’t think the conclusion to the mystery of what happened to Nick is really that surprising, there were still enough little twists to keep me guessing. We don’t know if Liza’s hormones are making her forgetful or if there are other things going on. On the other hand, we see exactly how crazy and manipulative Beth can be. While neither of these two characters were particularly likable, I thought both of them to be sympathetic and compelling.

Overall, I really enjoyed Lies She Told. I loved the writing style and the alternating chapters made me never want to stop reading. I definitely recommend this one to fans of psychological suspense. This is my first book by Cate Holahan and I am now anxious to try out what else she’s done.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 4 Stars

An interesting premise. The story goes back and forth between the narrator's perspective who is a romantic suspense author and her main character's narrative. The author's herself becomes involved in something out of her own books. Very far fetched but held my interest. 3.5 stars