In her third stand-alone psychological thriller, Sophie McKenzie delivers a tale of the tragic consequences of blind trust and terrible secrets.

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About the Book

On holiday with family and her adoring fiance, Jed, Emily couldn’t be happier. But overnight, the idyllic trip turns into a waking nightmare when one of the group is found dead in what appears to be a terrible accident.

The devastated party returns to London to cope with their loss while trying to resume their normal lives. But new revelations shed a shocking light on the holiday tragedy and set Emily on a perilous journey to discover the truth about what happened.

Soon a terrifying series of threats and lies bring her face to face with the dark truths at the heart of her family – and into life-threatening danger…

{from the publisher}

My Thoughts

Emily is in Corsica on a family holiday with her sister, brother and her fiancé (who isn’t yet divorced) and his two children, college-kid Lish and 13 year-old Dee Dee, who whispers to Emily that she has a secret, ‘something she saw’. Emily never gets the chance to discover what it was. Dee Dee is found dead—poisoned by the headache powders meant for Emily. Was it an accident or is there something far more sinister beneath the surface of this blissful family union?

As with her previous novels for adults (Close My Eyes; Trust In Me), McKenzie once more shines a light on family dynamics in Here We Lie. This time it is an innocent girl whose suffering and ultimate death draws protagonist Emily into a world of lies and half-truths that eat at the life she thought she wanted. Categorised as psychological thriller, I would place this novel in the newly devised ‘domestic noir’ category: the suspense comes from wondering what is really going on behind what we learn rather than action or edge-of-your-seat thrills. That’s okay with me. These are the kind of novels I love.

The most interesting and believable character is Dee Dee. It was her diary entries that kept me reading even when it felt I’d been asked to suspend disbelief a tad too far. McKenzie writes teenage girl’s beautifully. For this reason I found the story gripping. Emily is a character who hasn’t really been tested, despite the tragic death of her parents in early life, and she comes across as a little too impressionable at times, particularly for a woman in her mid-thirties. She seemed to jump on information from dubious sources, ‘dubious’ possibly because some of story threads weren’t teased out quite enough for me to completely buy into her thought process. Some of these threads were misdirection which added to the suspense. For example, there’s a moment between Emily and fiancé Jed early in the book when you wonder if his reasons for choosing a much younger woman might just be a little creepy. I liked this subtle suggestion as it made me wonder for a while if the story was going to U-turn.

Here We Lie is an easy read with plenty to keep you guessing and I enjoyed escaping into this novel for a few hours. Readers of her previous books may notice some similarities in plot points; it doesn’t distract from the story but does mean that some of the twists don’t hold the surprise they could have. There are some nice deflections from the real story to keep you intrigued and have you looking for things that may not be there—which is rather similar to what Emily faces as she tries to find justice for Dee Dee.

If you like domestic noir and/or stories of everyday heroines forced to confront unsavoury and shocking truths about those they love, this is definitely one for you.

*With thanks to Simon and Schuster Australia for an ARC

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About the Author

Sophie is the award-winning author of a range of teen thrillers, including the Missing series (Girl, Missing, Sister, Missing and Missing Me), Blood Ties and Blood Ransom and the Medusa Project series. She has also written two romance series: the Luke and Eve books and the Flynn series, which starts with the novel Falling Fast. Split Second is her first teen stand-alone novel in seven years.
Sophie’s first novel for adults is the psychological thriller Close My Eyes.

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