Fabulous plot which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to other fans of this genre!!

The premise to this sounded really good. Unfortunately, I struggled to get through it. I finished it but it took me awhile. I would give this writer another shot though with future reads.

This book had me rushing to get back to it. Very good read and holds your interest. I will be looking for more from this author. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Recieiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

The plot in this story was unpredictable which I loved. It held my attention from the very first page.( I hate slow burners) Val had me so engrossed in her book it was hard to seperate it from reality. It kept me guessing to the very end. Highly recommend

My first book by this author and I didn't expect to like it so much. The plot, characters and the ending, every bit suck me in. The plot progresses well, connecting everything like a web. The characters are engaging and the relationships among them made the whole book an exhilarating read. The ending is unexpectedly spectacular.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for approving my request to review this book.

A psychological thriller Only Lies Remain by Val Collins is a ride which you wouldn't want to get off in a hurry that is once you have got used to the pace. It took me some time to warm up to Aoife's story but boy, once I did, it wouldn't le go of me easily.

Aoife is looking for a job, her estranged husband has showed up at her door telling her that he wants to improve his relation with his daughter and wants to give their marriage another chance, not caring much whether Aoife wants it or not. Maura, her mother-in-law is suspected of killing her father-in-law whose dead body has just been discovered after years since his disappearance.

The characters are well developed and seem to be full of surprises as much as people are in real life. For example Aoife seems like someone who can be easily pushed around but eventually her character progresses through trials and tribulations and she develops into someone who is strong and can hold her own in the face of adversity.

I also liked the fact that Collins has used dialogue aplenty, something which I personally like a lot. So all in all a lot works favour of this bookif you are looking to pick it up.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ebook.

This is a semi-police procedural based in Ireland. I say semi because the police end of the investigation is not revealed directly but by the interactions between the family of the deceased. 

I did not know that this was the second in a series, and that was mildly detrimental to my reading of this in very subtle ways. It felt a little abrupt in the introduction of characters, which is obviously not the fault of a second book. Aoife is struggling to hold her life together. Her husband is of no help, he was depicted as the worst possible caricature of a petulant man-child. The way she dealt with that aspect of her life and her struggle to bolster her mother-in-law in times of distress makes her a lead character that one can root for. The distress is caused by a genuine scenario of the body of Aoife's father-in-law is found. He was thought to have left his family decades ago.

This last part is the core of the narrative. The story is very straightforward, and it is not hard to identify the culprit since most of the events point to that person. It is a fast-paced narrative, and some of the additional hurdles thrown into our leading lady's life as well as the investigation made the reading interesting. Overall, it was a decent read and has quite three-dimensional characters, it is just that I did not feel anything for the culprit of the piece and therefore was not invested. I would still recommend it to readers of the genre who are looking for a different location for a family-based mystery.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is solely based on my reading experience.

EXCERPT: '...I'll have to tell the boys tonight. '

'Tell them what?'

'Their father. He's dead. '

'Oh no! Oh, Maura, I'm so sorry. He'd come back to Ireland?'

Maura shook her head.

'Jason will be devastated. I know he always says he hates him, but deep down I think he hoped his dad would get in touch someday. If only so he could scream abuse at him for abandoning you.'

'But that's the thing, Aiofe. Danny didn't abandon us.'

'He may have sent you money, Maura, but he still disappeared without a word.'

'Not willingly. He was murdered.'

'What! When?'

'Fifteen years ago. Remember a few weeks back, a body was found in the grounds of that old house in the city centre? They just identified him as Danny.'

'But - I don't understand, Maura. How could Danny be dead for fifteen years? I thought he was sending you money every month.'

'So did I.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Everyone thought Danny Walsh deserted his family when his sons were young. But when Danny's body turns up fifteen years later and his wife, Maura, is implicated in his murder, accusations and old rumours surface.

Aoife rushes in to clear her mother-in-law's name. But why is it that Maura's story surrounding Danny's disappearance doesn't quite add up?

Aoife's investigation uncovers old secrets, long-held jealousies, and lies upon lies. With every new revelation, Aoife realises she doesn't know her family at all. Now her new boss is acting strangely, her best friend is more and more distant and her husband is no help at all.

With her support network crumbling and her family threatened, Aoife must race to keep one step ahead of danger before more innocent lives are lost. But how will she uncover the truth when only lies remain?

MY THOUGHTS: Only Lies Remain is a quick but intriguing read. The story is told over one consecutive timeline from the point of view of Aoife, Maura's daughter-in-law.

But just because the story is told in a straightforward manner, doesn't mean that the tale itself isn't complex. Every time I thought I had it sorted, that I knew who had murdered Danny, who was threatening Aoife, and why, the author would throw a spanner in the works.

There is an interesting mix of characters...Maura, disowned by her own family for getting pregnant out of wedlock, and despised by her mother-in-law for bringing shame on the family; Aoife, separated from Maura's son and trying to reconstruct her life but absolutely certain that Maura is innocent; Detective Maloney (or Moaney as Aoife's small daughter Amy calls him) who seems intent on proving that Maura murdered her husband; Cian, wealthy and unpredictable; Orla, Aoife's glamorous friend; and Father Jack,an old family friend of Maura's who now runs a halfway house. Maura's own mother-in-law is an absolute nightmare and she too is certain that Danny's fate is Maura's fault.

This is a well constructed story that certainly held my attention and kept me turning pages.

😊😊😊.5

#OnlyLiesRemain #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Val Collins is the author of the award-winning psychological thriller GIRL TARGETED and ONLY LIES REMAIN, both of which feature heroine Aoife Walsh.

She has lived in Ireland her entire life, and graduated from University College Dublin. She enjoys chocolate, going for long walks in the countryside, seeing as much of the world as possible, meeting friends, writing, and reading. In fact, she devours books at the rate of one per week, and her favourite authors range from Philippa Gregory and Sophie Kinsella to Lee Child and Linwood Barclay.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to VCB Publishing via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Only Lies Remain by Val Collins. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage

Danny Walsh was thought to desert his family 15 years ago. They were wrong .... someone stumbled over his remains today. The cops are looking at his widow ... Maura ... as the prime suspect.

Aoife rushes to her mother-in-law's side ... she doesn't believe for one moment that Maura killed or had her husband killed. But Maura's story is changing a bit.

Now she declares that someone she thought was Danny has been sending her money every month ... for 15 years. If Danny has been dead all these years .. where did the money come from?

Aoife decides that since the police don't seem interested in looking for any other suspect, she will investigate on her own.

But someone doesn't want her investigating. Threatening letters are delivered to her home. Her estranged husband doesn't want her doing anything. Her best friend has become distant ...has she also been threatened?

Not all is as it seems. There are years-old secrets, and no one wants to talk about what was happening in their area all those years ago. And then someone close to Aoife is murdered.

The characters are quite interesting, even though more than one of them had my hackles raised. The plot is complex, and unpredictable. Held my attention from the very first to the very last.

Many thanks to the author/ VCB Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime mystery. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

I wanted to like this. I started out liking it. Then it became tedious details that had to be explained over the last 10% of the book by the villain. This was one of those stories where a woman just bungled around making terrible decisions until the bad guy explained 15 years worth of crimes to her and then someone eventually saved her.

My first read by Val Collins, Only Lies Remain was an amazing introduction. A great psychological thriller, I came to expect the unexpected from this engaging read. I will be exploring more by this author and recommend you do to.

"it's not like I wanted to kill him. These things happen...... It was fate. His and mine. You can't fight fate. You just have to accept it"

A great mystery thriller that's keeps you guessing till nearly the end.

The remains of Danny Walsh is found 15 years after everyone thought he ran off. Who killed him and is it linked to money going missing at the bank where he worked? Who had been sending his wife money every month?

Aoife is caught in the middle of things. Trying to help her mother in law and having problems with her husband who does not want to give her space and work out their problems. Will she be able to figure out what happened.

Thank you to Netgally and VCB Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I didn’t read the synopsis before digging into Only Lies Remain, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Aoife from Girl Targeted had made a reappearance! I enjoyed seeing her character evolve in this newest installment.

To start, there are lots of characters in this book, and I went back to the first to skim through for a refresher on some of the repeats. I didn’t find that the previous story was necessary to read before this one either. You catch on quickly that Jason is a controlling jerk, Aoife does a lot of thinking out loud (which I find almost Sherlockian and classic), Amy is their child, and the rest of the bits just fall into place.

This style of writing is almost entirely made up of dialogue, and this time around I felt that I was missing some atmospheric context and less abrupt transition. Maybe because it was extra twisty?

And I do mean TWISTY. You never know who can be trusted in these books and that’s what makes them so compelling.

This book was amazing. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. It kept me thinking "what's going to happen next." And when I had to put it down I could only think about getting back to it. This book kept me at the edge of my seat. Highly recommend this book! This was my first book for 2020 and what a way to start of the year. #onlyliesremain #netgalley

I liked this book. It wasn't my favorite in this genre but it was definitely a page turner. But I think this book personally, will be a hit or miss with some readers. I really liked the story and it's characters.

Thank you Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of Only Lies Remain.

I had to give up on this book at about 35%... I hate to do that but I felt myself rolling my eyes at what I was reading and not enjoying it at all. There were so many characters and random things going on that it just seemed all over the place. Maybe if I’d read more everything would come together but my turning point was after reading an entire chapter that was pretty much a back and forth between Aoife and her friend Orla with different scenarios of what happened to her father in law. They were so detailed and over the top that I thought who in their right mind would have this conversation in real life??? I couldn’t even follow along...

Set in present day Ireland Ms Collins presents a second novel featuring Aoife as a protagonist who is on the descending side of a failed marriage and is the sole support of her only child and in the process of trying to get rid of her ex husband. He, on the other hand has found a sinecure In Aoife, moving in with her indicating that he will help care for their little girl and also allow time to try and work out their problems in an attempt to make the marriage work. In reality he continues with the conduct that caused the marriage to break up as he just lays around and gives orders to serve him.
Suddenly the dead body of her father in law appears dispelling the idea that he had deserted his family fifteen years ago. On top of her own problems with an ex husband camping in her house and no means of support available Aoife now has to attempt to comfort Maura, her mother in law who is plagued again with guilt over her own possible culpability or innocence in driving her husband away.
Val Collins takes Aoife through various crisis in her life. She gets a part time job and has a friend of hers developing a romance with her new boss. A handsome police detective calls on her charged with investigating the death of her father in law and continues to call on her obviously looking for romance. Her daughter becomes more and more precocious and at one point is seemingly kidnapped. She is returned, but carries a note warning Aoife to stop meddling in affairs that don't concern her or her daughter will be captured again.
The novel is entertaining and a good read but not an all engrossing novel. Sufficient to say that the book is worth while reading and enjoying with the idea of getting Val Collins' next book.

Aoife lives a somewhat scattered life. She has has husband that she wants to divorce come back and live with her and their daughter. She's trying to find work, because on reality she is a single mother. Her mother in law, Maurs can't get over her husband Danny abandoning her family fifteen years earlier. Then there's Jack the priest who doesn't seem to like Aoife. Yes it's a convoluted life. She's glad she has her baby, Amy to focus on.
When the police decide to focus their attention on the disappearance of Danny, things seen to change. Aoife sees it as a challenge. Her hand her friend Orla decide to see what they can find out.
The notes Aoife starts to receive make her rethink everything. If she continues looking for information she will be sorry.
Of course to add to everything is the murder of the girls that also disappeared during the time of Danny's disappearance. Could everything be connected?
A novel full of dark characters, fraud, murder, bank robbery, kidnapping. Everything you need in a great thriller.
The ending, oh the ending is spectacular!!