Back at the start of the summer, I won a copy of Lying to You by Amanda Reynolds on twitter and I've just taken the time to read it. The front cover gives you a good idea of what is inside : "You think you know the truth about that night. But what if your husband is ... Lying to You?"
Mark is a teacher and is told to take on teenage rebel Jess to try to get her through her final exams. She is not an easy child to get on with - wilful and provocative, she loves goading him, but he seems to be having a positive influence on her. Until the night of the end-of-year ball, when they end up having sex. Did she consent? Did Mark prey on her? That's what the courts decide and he ends up in jail.
Ten years later, Mark is out of prison and Jess has to return home for her mother's funeral. Picking through her mother's things and trying to deal with the paperwork is bad enough, but there are also the occasional run-ins with Mark and his wife, Jess, for her to deal with. Luckily, she has a brother, Will, who is around to help out.
Mark doesn't really seem to do a whole lot besides walking the dog ! Luckily, this gives his wife the chance to frequently read his online diary of what happened back then. Throw in some counsellor reports on Jess, who is training to be a psychologist, and you have everything you need to finally get a clearer picture of what went on that night.
The book is written from multiple viewpoints and is not always chronological, so you spend a lot of the time piecing things together and changing the way you feel about the characters. I found some of it a bit over-the-top. Did Mark's wife really need to have an affair with Jess's brother? Other things seemed unlikely - would Jess really have ended up inside the church for the funeral? - but overall, it's an enjoyable and interesting read. I wasn't a huge fan of the end, which seemed to tie everything together too nicely, but I did like the layout of the book, with various narrators bringing in their own viewpoints as the novel progressed.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £8.99
- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Wildfire (26 July 2018)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1472245172
- ISBN-13: 978-1472245175
Sounds an intriguing book and enjoyable read - my sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteSounds very topical. Whether it was consensual or not, he was in a position of trust, and having sex with a minor. Don't know if I would want to read it, but it sounds thought-proviking.
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