Mira Books
September 05, 2017
426 pages
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They built a life on lies
Sutton and Ethan Montclair’s idyllic life is not as it appears. The couple seems made for each other, but the truth is ugly. Consumed by professional and personal betrayals and financial woes, the two both love and hate each other. As tensions mount, Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her.
Ethan finds himself the target of vicious gossip as friends, family and the media speculate on what really happened to Sutton Montclair. As the police investigate, the lies the couple have been spinning for years quickly unravel. Is Ethan a killer? Is he being set up? Did Sutton hate him enough to kill the child she never wanted and then herself? The path to the answers is full of twists that will leave the reader breathless.
J.T. Ellison's Lie to Me leaves readers unsure of who - if anyone - they can trust . The way the story is told from who is narrating it to the jumps between the past and present not only add to the uncertainty of just what is really the truth but serve to increase the tension, as well. It is hard to even be sure which characters you like because no one seems to have quite the same view of anyone else. This person thinks that person is nice and sweet and naive while this second person thinks they're calculating and manipulative.
Some may be lying, some may be trying to implicate (or exonerate) someone else, but some are also telling the truth as they see it. In Lie to Me the author does a fantastic job using all of the different sides of her characters - the different parts of themselves they share with different people - as well as the different way people see each other; the things one person notices and latches on to versus what a different person focuses on. It makes the characters that much more believable and easier to relate to - while also leaving you less sure of, well, anything.
The narration changes made the story even better. Those different first person insights really show us what the characters is thinking, as opposed to what another narrator attributed to them.
Lie to Me was a thriller that kept me guessing right up to the very last sentence and was full of multifaceted characters and complicated histories. This novel really used all of who each character was, their pasts, their secrets, their hopes and their fears, their relationships with each other to build a mystery that is satisfying and unexpected.
digital review copy received from publisher, via NetGalley
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