I read this author’s book The Night She Went Missing last year, and I thought it was decent, but veered into some outlandish situations. I am very impressed by this year’s offering, and feel like she has stepped up her game a bit and written a strong domestic suspense novel.
I Love it When You Lie is a March 2023 release from MIRA Publishers
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, see disclosures for more detail.
About the Book:
The Williams women don’t just keep secrets…
They bury them.
The three Williams girls are as close as sisters can be, and they also share one special trait in common: each of them has a man in her life that she could do without.
Tara, the pastor’s wife, has been stealing money from the church and would prefer that her husband stay out of it. Then there’s June, who would do anything to have a baby of her own, even if her husband is dead set against it. Clementine, the youngest, is entangled in an affair with her professor, a man whose behavior she’s starting to seriously question. Their sister-in-law Stephanie, an outsider, knows all the family dirt and is watching the three of them—and the men in their lives—closely.
When the woman who raised them, their beloved Gran, dies on the eve of her eightieth birthday, the Williams sisters return home to the Appalachian foothills to bury her. But their grandmother won’t be the only one they’ll put in a grave this weekend…because now someone has gone missing in the dark Appalachian woods.
And if Gran has taught them anything, it’s how to get rid of a good-for-nothin’ man.
My Thoughts:
I gave this book 3.5 stars
Three sisters, Clementine, Tara, and June, each with their own dark secrets and issues, come together after losing their beloved Grandmother. Also included in the mix is Stephanie, their sister-in-law who is married to their brother, and Lottie, the teen daughter of Tara. From the beginning, we know that one of the men involved with these women is missing, but we don’t know what happened or what they are covering up.
Often when I read a book with family secrets I am underwhelmed with said secrets and wonder why they just don’t come clean. Not here. These are some dark doozies that the women are hiding, and as the story unfolds, more things come to light. I appreciated the author’s willingness to step into areas that other thriller writers might skate around: religion, subtle racism, grooming, white collar crime. And the strong point is that she avoids making these subjects into stereotypical rants. For example, Tara’s husband is a pastor and he isn’t the caricature of a pastor that one would expect, nor is Tara a stereotypical pastor’s wife. Yet the author also doesn’t denigrate them or their roles in the process. This is a delicate balance and really made the story a cut above for me.
There were some clunky parts that didn’t really feel as strong to me, particularly the grandmother’s past and the sheriff’s attitude towards the family, as well as the investigation into the missing person. That could have been left out or presented on the front end of the story and then showed how everything unfolded without all of the back and forth. The sheriff and his family were definitely caricatured characters and that didn’t fit as well with the rest of the book.
Overall, this was worth reading and was more of a domestic suspense novel than a straightforward mystery, but it delivered a worthy reading experience for me.
About the Author:
Kristen Bird lives outside of Houston, Texas with her husband and three daughters. She earned her bachelor’s degree in music and mass media before completing a master’s in literature. She teaches high school English and writes with a cup of coffee in hand. In her free time, she likes to visit parks with her three daughters, watch quirky films with her husband and attempt to keep pace with her rescue lab-mixes.
Social Links:
Author Website: https://www.kristenbird.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kbirdwrites
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristen.bird.writes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristenbirdwrites/
