The Lies You Told

I enjoyed Blood Orange so was keen to read this follow up. There was a lot going on in the novel and in the life of Sadie, the protagonist. Her husband Andrew has apparently been unfaithful to her, whilst treating her very cruelly and finally kicking both her and their 10 year old daughter Robin out. They had been living in the USA so Sadie and Robin flee back to London and move into Sadie’s childhood home, which has been untouched since her mother’s death. The house is the subject of a complicated legacy to Robin from Sadie’s mother due to their estrangement when she married Andrew and gave birth to Robin. It is clear that in addition to this rift, Sadie’s mother had never wanted to be a mother and had resented having to bring her up after the early death of Sadie’s father. The last thing that Sadie wants is to move back into the house and send her daughter to the same school that she was so unhappy at, in accordance with her mother’s will, but she has no alternative. She very quickly needed to get Robin settled at school and try to resume her career as a criminal barrister in order to supplement the small income which she and Robin had inherited along with the house. The mothers at Robin’s school did not at first welcome Sadie, although they expected her to join in with PTA events, and their daughters were unkind to Robin. Due to a recommendation by Zora, a solicitor and childhood friend, of Sadie a QC at Sadie's old chambers offers her a junior role in the case of a school teacher accused of grooming and sexually assaulting a 15 year old pupil and she has no choice but to accept, even though it means struggling with after school care for Robin. After some unpleasant confrontations with the head of the PTA, there is a sudden about turn in the mothers’ treatment of Sadie and their daughters’ indifference to Robin, after it was revealed to them that Sadie was an “old girl” of the school and not just an interloper. A couple of the mothers then befriend Sadie, offering to help out with after school care and Robin quickly becomes very friendly with their daughters.The book alternates between the trial that Sadie is assisting with, alongside her growing friendship with Julia and Nicole, which seems to be moving very fast, almost against Sadie’s better judgement. Her desperation to be able to do a good job in the court case and provide for Robin, and her guilt at having had to separate her from her father without explanation lead her to ignore her feelings of disquiet. She is also relieved that Robin is finally happy and accepted at school and doing well. There are some twists and turns in both narratives which lead to a tense ending and a final twist. As with Blood Orange, I found myself getting irritated at some of the decisions made by Sadie, whilst also seeing why she made them. I can’t say more without giving away spoilers other than to say that if you enjoy court room dramas and characters with flaws, you will enjoy this book.

In this book Sadie returns home to the UK with her daughter after separating from her husband in the US. She has inherited a house from her mother on the condition that her daughter, Robin, attends the same school Sadie did - and passes the exam to get into the high school. The school moms are horrid to both Sadie and Robin, and not just because Sadie has to work for a living. Amongst all the school drama Sadie is involved in a criminal case in court about a teacher accused of raping a student.There was a lot going on in this book - the marriage break up, the conditional inheritance, the school drama, work and an additional mystery involving a school girl this really grabbed my attention at the beginning... but I found it a bit repetitive and how many tests do these kids have??? And they get their grades the same day!! At the end I felt everything came together in a very neat way... too neat for the nature of the story. I enjoyed this book when I started reading but was fed up of it by the end. A common problem when you have so any characters that are just not very nice!

This was just brilliant, a great thriller that kept calling me a fool for thinking I’d figured out what was going on…only to realise I’d been escorted down a cul-de-sac of wrong direction in amazing writing style.The characters were all people that you can recognise, which made it all the more chilling in that it really highlighted the whole ‘you only ever see what people want you to see of them’ thing.After reading this, Blood Orange and It Ends at Midnight have gone straight on my wishlist

I loved this book, read it in a couple of days, to coin those rinsed out phrases, 'I couldn't put it down' and 'a real page turner'. I was sad, furious, incredulous, shocked, amused and that was every few pages!.Credible, fully rounded characters, twists and turns and oh, the ending...This would be a fab TV series.

I read the first book which was brilliant, I can't believe this was written by the same author. I find it incredulous that this was on the Times Best Sellers... which is why I read it. The first 300 pages were total dirge, I hung on in there as one of the author comments on the back of the book said she couldn't put it down, I thought based on this something had to happen to pull it back into something half way decent. There was nothing complex or compelling about this book, it could have been written by a 10 year old. Literally the worst crime book I have read, unequivocally!