The Lie - C.L. Taylor - 4*

The Lie
C.L. Taylor

****

No Spoilers

I know your name's not really Jane Hughes...

Jane Hughes has a loving partner, a job in an animal sanctuary and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She's happier than she's ever been but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist.

Five years earlier Jane and her then best friends went on holiday but what should have been the trip of a lifetime rapidly descended into a nightmare that claimed the lives of two of the women.

Jane has tried to put her past behind her but someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won't stop until they've destroyed Jane and everything she loves...

The Lie takes you into the realm of what really being a friend is like -- for me this was a real hard hitter that strikes you where you feel it. If any of you have had a friend, or a group of friends, then you know what it is really like, having the bitterness, the harshness and the backstabbing between 'friends'. C.L Taylor has manipulated that in writing and it really takes the rawness, the realism of how far a friend will go for revenge. How what you think is perfect, flawless and fun on the outside is really growing maggots, seething and hateful on the inside. 

Jane Hughes, is living a lie, she is someone she is pretending to be, running away from a burdensome past that is just starting to catch up with her after five years, and it's someone who really wants her dead.

The P.O.V is told in Jane's perspective, and it alters between present and past, it is done well, all merging in at a fast paced read that keeps your interest piqued and your mind on edge. At times it might be a bit off-kilter but it has reason, all being woven together for sharp edges and twisted turns. Truly a roller coaster as you ride along the pages, chapter by chapter. You really start to see how four best friends can really fall apart in front of you, how perfect lives may seem on the outside but really they are all just screwed up, wanting everything to just be involving them.

Out of the four friends, I didn't really care for any. I thought Leanne was trouble right from the word go. I disliked Daisy and Al, well she was in the grey area for me. As the story progressed and we learn what really happened in Nepal. 

At times the events seemed a little disjointed, sometimes quite predictable but still quite a page-turner and intense. You spend a lot of the book deciding if you can trust any of them, including the main protagonist  who at times was an unpredictable mess who didn't know where she was going. I give this book four stars for a concept done well, if at times predictable and messy. Four stars for the writing and the way the tale was told, the writing was fluid and I do like a good British book. Plus, added bonus for having new age technology involved, like Facebook and social media, it adds a grittiness and realism back to novels in the now.

The lesson learnt in this book is that you really cannot trust anyone, sometimes not even yourself. And friends, the friends you look to for comfort, for ease in times of need, are they really helping you, or are they just helping themselves, feeding off of your unhappiness just to make them feel better as a person? It really does make you think.