Title: Seven Lies
Author: Elizbeth Kay
Publisher: Sphere
[Synopsis]
It all started with one little lie . . .
Jane and Marnie have been inseparable since they were eleven years old. They have a lot in common. In their early twenties they both fell in love and married handsome young men.
But Jane never liked Marnie’s husband. He was always so loud and obnoxious, so much larger than life. Which is rather ironic now, of course.
Because if Jane had been honest – if she hadn’t lied – then perhaps her best friend’s husband might still be alive . . .
This is Jane’s opportunity to tell the truth, the question is:
Do you believe her?
[My Review]
Seven Lies starts with the narrator, Jane, telling the story of ‘seven lies’ she told her best friend Marnie. She hints at deaths and tragedies to come, which only interested me more (as bleak as it sounds!), and we are taken forwards and backwards in time, to the day they met, through to relationships they’ve each had, family issues, and the various incidents that prompted these lies from Jane.
Jane herself is such an interesting character. She seems to have many pyschopathic traits (I guess she probably is a pyschopath) but, if so, she’s a likeable pyschopath! I found myself really warming to her, despite uncovering more and more of her ‘unhinged’ thoughts and feelings – and actions, let’s not forget – about certain matters and people. She’s a master manipulator who appears to only want the best for Marnie, so perhaps some of that was rubbing off onto me as the reader too! We spend all of the novel in Jane’s head, seeing things from her point of view entirely, and the more the novel continues, the more we see things become more and more twisted. We never know whether to completely trust what Jane is saying, because we’ve known from the start that she has no problems with lying. Who is she addressing in Seven Lies, and would she be lying to them too?
Seven Lies is definitely dark and disturbing, with plenty of shocking moments throughout – some of which felt guiltily satisfying to me, too. I don’t want to give too much away but I really liked how Elizbeth Kay ended the novel; it felt just right to me and I finished it with a satisfied smile on my face. After this electrifying debut I’d definitely read more by Elizabeth Kay!
[Rating: 5/5]
Many thanks to the publisher, Sphere, for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review.