Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

So if any of you are avid fans of my blog, you might notice I’ve gone a bit ‘cold turkey’ on posts the last few weeks. Have I had something keeping me busy other than books? No. I have no valid excuse. The truth is more shocking. I’ve been having a major reading slump and DNFing books left, right and centre. This is something I HATE doing. With each new book I picked up, the hope I had was huge, 50 pages in and I’d be questioning the point of reading. It was a major crisis and I was starting to panic.

Then I remembered the HQ Crime event I attended and the amazing ‘sales pitch’ about Sometimes I Lie. I thought: this should be the one to save me.

And it was. My god, it shook away the mist from my eyes, the cobwebs from my imagination and I could feel my heart rate start to rise. I WAS BACK! All thanks to Sometimes I Lie. Anyway, enough about me, I should probably tell you a bit more about the book…

The book starts with a gripping front page which is the same as the blurb. We’re introduced to Amber Reynolds who tells us three things about herself: she’s in a coma, her husband doesn’t love her any more, and sometimes she lies.

It then opens with her lying in a hospital bed, in a coma and she can hear everyone around her. If only she could speak out. She can hear her husband, her sister and others. But who knows how she got there? The police officers advise her relatives that she was pulled from a car crash. Where was she going? Was she with anyone? She can’t remember. She wants to. And Feeney is going to tell us. But of course, she’s not going to tell us right away. No, like Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, we’re diving back into a diary to discover the past. But is the past all it seems to be? We know Amber lies…

We’re then flicked back and forth like a ping pong ball between the past, the present and the not so distant past – to give us the build up to the accident. That’s three different timelines. Have you ever seen three way ping pong – how would you keep track of who’s winning?! Feeney has mastered a complex plot creating a game for the eyes and brain, All you have to do, is keep up!

I love the different intensities that Feeney displayed through her characters in the contrasting time frames. You can really feel the passion a child puts into a friendship, the insecurities an adult feels when their job is under threat and the temptations of others when you believe your marriage is crumbling. The characterisation is flawless in this book and creates a setting that is packed full of suspicion, putting you on high alert for twists.

The twists? My gosh, they were wonderful. And they just kept on coming. You’ll feel your trust with characters shatter and then reform, you have NO IDEA who’s reliable. And for me, that’s my favourite part of a psychological thriller: I love knowing that the picture I’ve been drawing in my mind is likely to be scratched out in a few chapters and have to be redrawn a number of times.

I hope some of you have already read this as I’d love to talk about this book more and delve into the detail! I’ve kept this a ‘non spoiler’ review, as I always try to do, so that you can all experience this plot fresh and first hand.

It’s a real treat and deserves to be hyped up all over again and read by many!

Sometimes I Lie is out in paperback and eBook by HQ. It’s been out since last year and should get you in the mood for Feeney’s new novel: I Know Who You Are which will be out in paperback on May 16 2019!

*I received a free copy of this book at a publishing event and chose to review it here on my blog*

Until next time, Chloé x