By: Kathryn Croft
ASIN: B074YGZTPB
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 10/25/2017
Format: Kindle
My Rating: 4 Stars (ARC) Your husband didn’t kill himself.’ Five years rebuilding your life.
Five words will destroy it again.
Mia Hamilton lived the perfect life with her husband, university teacher Zach, and their two-year-old daughter, Freya. But everything changed when Zach committed suicide on the same night one of his students, Josie Carpenter, vanished. Five years later, and Josie is still missing but Mia has finally found some happiness with new boyfriend Will.
Until one day when stranger Alison walks into her life and tells Mia that her husband didn’t kill himself.
Desperate to find out what really happened to Zach, Mia is forced to put her trust in Alison. But she soon discovers that Alison has her own agenda behind exposing the details of Zach’s death. Can Mia really believe anything Alison says?
Mia must decide how far she is willing to go to uncover the truth – even if she risks losing everything she loves.
My Review
Kathryn Croft returns following While You Were Sleeping (2016) with SILENT LIES — a twisty psychological thriller of big secrets and silent lies, with an ending you do not see coming.
As the novel opens to five years earlier, at a funeral. Zach. The husband of Mia and father of Freya. This is no normal funeral. There are angry people. A monster. Suicide. They were married for ten years.
People are asking her if she knew what her husband was up to? How could she have comprehended what he was capable of? She never really knew the man she married.
Presently we hear from Mia Hamilton. Her daughter now is seven years old. Mia owns a counseling business and is dating Will. He would like for them to move in together. She is not ready. He is the kindest man she could ever meet and so good with Freya.
She thinks someone is watching her. Her world as she knows will never be the same.
Mia is meeting a client, Alison Cummings (a young woman). She works from her home office. However, she tells Mia that her husband did not kill himself. Alison is Josie’s former roommate and Alison’s partner is Dominic Bradford. She says he is a violent man.
Alternating from past to present we hear from Josie Carpenter (past) and Mia (present).
Josie was a student of Zachs at the university. Dominic was Zach’s colleague. At the time he never believed Zach was capable of the things people said.
Zach’s parents (Pam and Graham) love their granddaughter and they even like Will. They think it is time for her to move on.
Mia has been unable to tell them for the last five years, that she does not think Zach was innocent. The evidence stacked against him was too compelling to ignore. They think he was just depressed and nothing to do with that girl.
But why would Alison say he did not kill himself, now five years later? Why would Zach risk his life and family for this girl?
Josie supposedly had an affair with her college professor. However, Zach committed suicide while in Josie’s apartment. Or did he? Innocent or guilty of an affair.
Josie disappeared. The police could never determine what happened to her. There was blood. Did Zach kill her, or what really went down that evening?
What does her former roommate Alison know about that night?` What did Zach do to that girl?
Who is telling the truth and who is lying?
Mia has fought so hard to start over and build a new life for herself and her daughter. Now she feels she is getting sucked back into the past. She will not involve Will. She will not allow Alison or Dominic to ruin it for her.
Mia has a strong feeling Alison knows exactly what happened to Josie. Josie is one troubled, messed up gal with a past of horrors; abuse, both verbally and physically. Zach sympathized. Alison and Mia— your feeling will change from the beginning to the ending.
“Who knows what is within us?”
Unreliable narrator (s) and red herrings. A tangled web of deceit and lies. From obsession, jealousy, suspicion, mental illness to justice. The author keeps you guessing until you are not sure if any character is trustworthy. Nothing is as it appears.
Do not ever think you have gotten away with something. Karma is a bitch. The silence and the past will come back to haunt you. You are not safe.
No real likable characters here. Not one of my favorites of Crofts; however, entertaining. Some readers may come away feeling a little cheated or let down while some may like the 360-degree twist.
If you have read Alessandra Torre's The Ghost Writer, you may see a similarity, with a different twist.
A special thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy.
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About the Author
Kathryn is the bestselling author of five psychological thrillers and to date she has sold over one million copies of her books. Her third book, The Girl With No Past spent over four weeks at number one in the Amazon UK chart, and she has also appeared on the Wall Street Journal's bestsellers list. With publishing deals in thirteen different countries, Kathryn writes full time and has just finished writing her sixth book, which is due for publication on 25th October 2017. She is now hard at work on book seven. After twelve years living in London, she now lives in Guildford, Surrey, the place she grew up, with her husband, their little boy and two crazy cats. Read More
