I did enjoy the book, it was a little slower than I normally like, but it did keep interested. We have Liza whose husband is worried about his best friend who is missing. When the body is found, her husband is charged. Meanwhile Liza, writes about a woman named Beth, whose husband is cheating on her, and she feels only way to keep marriage is to kill the mistress. So story goes back and forth, you have pay attention. So you do not miss out on anything, and you do get absorbed in both women's lives.. The thing that I disliked was ending, it has been done before, so I kind of hoped for a different outcome.

If you are a mystery writer you must have a very creative mind to workout the plot and to make the scenes feel realistic. In fact it might be possible to blend much of your real life back into your writings.

In addition you have just given birth to a gorgeous little girl but are not getting a lot of sleep. Is it possible that being pushed by a serious deadline for your lastest book and suspecting your husband may have been cheating it pulling you more into your imaginary life than you thought.

What happens when real life and imaginary life collide. Can the character you are writing about come up with a way to save you or will the stories and lies just take things deeper hold on for a fantastic ride by the end you may wonder what is real and what was just imagination gone wild. You won't be able to put the book down until you know.

Very good story.....Would recommend. Looking forward to reading more by this author.

Lies She Told is hard to rate. At times, it was engaging and interesting, but there really wasn't much of a mystery. It's fairly clear early on what happened, though the why is to be revealed, so there's not enough to make you want to keep reading. Honestly, the majority of the plot is given away in the blurb.

It takes quite a while to get started and the fact that there were more or less two story lines makes the whole thing feel even slower. It's a short book so it sometimes felt like two short stories spliced together rather than one cohesive novel. I would get interested in one woman's story and then it would stop and go back to the other for just long enough that I lost interest. Also, the real action of the book doesn't start until past halfway and there's not enough in that first 50% to keep the reader interested.

Some parts of this book remind me of The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. One woman is receiving the memories of another woman (in a way) and she's not sure why. But I felt that the reason behind the received memories was better in the Kearsley book. A lot of the reasoning behind this didn't make much sense. Or at least didn't seem very likely. Repressed memories? That's a bit of a stretch.

All in all, I liked the book enough to finish it in a few days but not enough to check out other books by this author. It was too similar to the whole Gone Girl trend but too farfetched to really compare. There's also very little shock because of what the blurb and the names in Liza's work give away. It also would have been nice if there was more of a denouement. It ends very abruptly. There's a decent amount to like about the book, but it still falls rather flat.

I received this book courtesy of Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Review to be posted on Goodreads September 1st and Amazon upon publication.

Unuseually for me I could not get into with this book. I have a rule of giving all books a fair chance by reading at least 50% of the content, but with this one I only got 30% in before giving up.
Maybe it was me. I hope it was and that many other people give this a try and prove me wrong.

This book was great. The 2 stories were intriguing. Loved how then ending kept me guessing!

Very good read. Definitely, keeps you turning the pages to see what happens next. The storyline is very disturbing. You reach a point where you can't tell what is real, and which person is living in reality. Is it Liza or Beth? What really happened and what didn't? Fun book.

I was excited to read this book and it did not disappoint. I liked the way the story was written and enjoyed it very much. I would recommend this book

It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction; in this case the lines between truth and fiction are so blurred that I had trouble discerning which was which and of course, this was the author's purpose! Liza and Beth: one is the mystery writer and one is the heroine of her newest book. But are their lives so similar that they have the same thoughts about their often-flawed husbands? Who has secrets to keep and how will they be revealed? This novel explores the obsession with writing, jealousy, love, grief, and really everything that makes up what we know as the "human condition." How far would you go to protect the ones you love? You may never know until you read this gem!

Liza is an author who has thirty days to write a romantic thriller that will put her back on the best seller list, whilst dealing with fertility issues, hormone implants and her husbands best friend who has gone missing. Interspersed with chapters from her novel, we learn about Liza and her main character Beth's struggles simultaneously.

Beth is a new mother, but when she discovers her husband is cheating, her perfect life is shattered and she must learn to deal with the consequences. Through the 'real life' story of Liza and her new novel centring around Beth and her husband's infidelities, Liza learns things about herself and her world that she could only have dreamt up in her fiction writing.

This story was predictable, unfortunately, because it was a really good idea. I enjoyed the writing style and sped through the story, which is why I have it the rating that I did. But it disappointed me that the story line was so predictable. There were a few narrative punches that I didn't see coming and that shocked me in an enjoyable way. But in general, the way the two stories mixed together and the way the book was written in general makes it an enjoyable read.

Cate Holahan does it again with Lies She Told! Told in alternating chapters between Liza's real life and her developing novel, this was a unique story that was hard to put down. With an unreliable narrator the story quickly becomes muddled between fiction and reality. A twisty, well written novel. Holahan is an author you simply don't want to miss.

I really enjoyed this book. At the start I found it hard to distinguish between Liza and Beth and then I realised that was intentional as one story was very much part of the other. The storyline is brilliantly written and has so many twists no turns in the plot right up to the end. It is all very cleverly put together and is definitely an excellent thriller.

Lies She Told
By Cate Holahan

Reviewed by Heath Henwood

A trilling book that was hard to out down, once I got started. The first couple of chapters were confusing though, switching between Liza and the character in the book she is writing Beth. Once I got my head around the continual swapping, the book made more sense, and hooked me in.

The characters are well developed and believable. The plot generally flow along smoothly.

The book blurs the line between reality and fiction as the characters try to determine the truths of the lives around them.

Liza Jones has thirty days to write the thriller that could put her back on the bestseller list. In the meantime, she’s struggling to start a family with her husband, who is distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. With stresses weighing down in both her professional and her personal life, Liza escapes into writing her latest heroine.

Brilliant story and a different way of writing, grips you from the start would recommend this book

Lies She told is based around the life of Liza a published and semi successful author. Married life is somewhat strained for Liza and husband David at the moment with an endless round of fertility treaments and Davids missing business partner putting a huge amount of pressure on the couple. However with a deadline to meet on her latest book Liza must come up with a new bestseller where fiction begins to blur into reality.
I was taken in by this book from the first chapter, I found the changing between Liza and Liza's made up character Beth an interesting concept in this book and it kept the storyline flowing nicely along. Lies She Told is a gripping tale by the talented Cate Holahan and I would recommend people who like suspense novels give it a try.

One of the few books written from a first person pov that I liked. You really have to concentrate when reading this book as it is very easy to get confused. I liked the story, the characters and how it unfolded. For me the story picked up speed after the murder. Very well written and I would definitely pick up a Cate Holahan book again.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for the copy

Thanks to netgalley for an advanced reading copy. I really liked this book. I liked the Widower's Wife by this author so I was excited to read her next book and I wasn't disappointed. The book within the book concept was unique and I thought it was an interesting way to unravel what was going on. I have to say that I mostly figured out what was happening pretty early on, but I liked the writing and the story well enough that I really couldn't put it down because I wanted to see if I was right and how it would play out. I look forward to reading this author's next book.

Excellent thriller. The story is told from the point of view of an author, and you are dropped into her book quite often, so it threw me at first. Then I kept getting lost, and having to flip back a few pages to see if I was in the book or real life. Loved it, though, and at the end, my reason for getting lost even fit in with the story itself.

Lies She Told is almost like a movie

Except that this is a book and you have to watch it in your own head. The story starts violently, leaving wonder what is going to happen next, only to realize that it is a work of fiction by the author and first person narrator Liza. So you read on, because Liza seems to be writing a cool book.

Now you have two stories side by side, you have Liza and her baby obsession; then you have Beth (the character Liza invented) and her obsession with her new-born baby. The both stories are compelling, it depict's a woman's struggle with family.

It is not a warm fuzzy feeling, because this is a mystery and thriller. Whatever soul seeking you are doing, this book is not for you. Because things start to get ugly by the middle, for both stories. I am amazed how the author could twist it so masterfully, I didn't see it coming!

Cate Holahan easily created a thrilling book that begged not to be put down. She created two separate stories being told on alternating tracks but still find their way to connecting to one another in a way you don’t see coming. She definitely took the idea of putting some interesting twists into her plot seriously so you will walk away with this on your mind for a while. It’s one of those you won’t want to put down as your skin will be crawling with the “heebie-jeebies” and you’ll be jumping at the sound of silence thanks to her sanity bending story line. It was such a compelling and psychologically twisted book, the kind that burrows into your brain to give you weird dreams only an episode of The Popples on Netflix will cure so your mind can calm down and return to simpler, more peaceful times.

If you go in knowing that you will be presented with separate stories being told by separate voices it should help keep things clear until the rollercoaster starts throwing you around one bend after another.

I love books that screw with your mental focus especially in a suspenseful and thrilling way.