Tell Me No Lies by Lisa Hall
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I’m sorry, I’m clearly in the minority here, but this book was not for me, despite it being an easy read. One of my least favourite tropes in a film or soap opera or drama is when a character tries to tell someone something important, but gets interrupted and doesn’t finish doing so – and this book is full of it and it’s so frustrating.
Unfortunately I thought that the who and the why of the mystery was so obvious from their first appearance that I continued to read assuming there would be a twist at the end, but there wasn’t. Several other plot strands are thrown in but are ultimately unrelated to the main plot or are just left hanging and there is a lot of unnecessary repetition of information. Many of the characters are presented as stereotypes (the husband-with-a-past, the nicotine-and-alcohol-soaked-cougar publisher, the militant PTA leader) and I lost count of the number of times people behaved completely unreasonably, blushed for no good reason or were greeted with “a peck on the cheek”.
All of this, plus a couple of continuity errors, and I found the book incredibly frustrating, but I am grateful to NetGalley and Carina UK for the opportunity to read the ARC.
juliapalooza.com 