Title: Sometimes I Lie
Author: Alice Feeney
Publisher: HQ

Synopsis:

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.

Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it’s the truth?

My review:

Sometimes I Lie begins with our main character, Amber Reynolds, waking from a coma after an accident – she is conscious but can’t communicate or move in any way. She can just hear the nurses and her visitors – her husband Paul and sister Claire. We jump back in time to ‘then’, before the accident, and see events in the run up to the night of Amber’s accident.

We also see scenes that feature a young girl, Prin, and her cousin who has come to stay. Throughout it all we are wondering who has been hiding things, if Amber’s husband has been betraying her, how reliable her friend Jo is – and, in fact, how reliable Amber herself is, considering she has been in a coma and might not be remembering things correctly. This adds a real sense of confusion and doubt which only adds to the mystery.

The characters within Sometimes I Lie all have their faults. No one is perfect but I quite liked the way that most of the characters couldn’t easily be categorised as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (some exceptions permitting!). One of the characters I felt was too over the top, to be honest, and too much like a pantomime villain at times but it wasn’t too much of an issue.

The plot is easy to read and addictive, with lots of surprises along the way. There’s some shocking parts that give this book a very dark undercurrent, and no one is quite as they seem. Some parts are a little hard to believe, but then again this is a psychological thriller so I wouldn’t expect it all to be really realistic.

There are some powerful twists that seem to come from nowhere and hit you in the face, leaving you a little confounded at times! If you fancy something easy to read and very twisty, Sometimes I Lie is a good option!

Rating: 4/5

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