Books take us to places from the the comfort of our homes, they make us feel things and they invoke emotions in us.     If I'm truthful, the more a book makes me feel the better I like it.  If I was to rate a book purely that way Mary Kubica's Every Last Lie would be off the charts.    It absolutely did make me feel things but considering the subject of the book the feelings were uncomfortable and I disliked feeling the way I did.    More than once I needed to put the book down and get back into my own world, thankful that I could.

Clara is grieving the death of her husband Nick.  From the first page we know Nick dies, that we were privy to their last ever conversation.   Paragraphs into this book I was emotionally involved.    I don't even want to imagine how horrific it would be to lose a husband, let alone to lose him only days after the birth of your second child.   Clara's response, her fogginess, her denial was all too understandable.         Their backstory is revealed from Nicks perspective, in the weeks, days and moments leading up to his death.    Meanwhile, from Clara's perspective we see her becoming deranged by grief, coming unhinged by the snippets of information she's slowly uncovering in the hours, days and weeks following Nick's death.

This book was very cleverly done and so different from the only other title I've read by Mary Kubica.    Whereas the key to my enjoyment in The Good Girl was the totally surprising plot twist, the key to this one was the psychological suspense that triggered and continued to play havoc with my own emotions.   The way it challenged Clara (and reader) to ask how well one really knows their own life partner.    The ending may not be one enjoyed by all suspense readers, but it was definitely one I enjoyed.     I'd encourage you to read it, and find out for yourself.

Well done Mary Kubica and many thanks to Harlequin (Australia) and NetGalley for making it possible for me to read this free digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

“The police decided,” she says, as if the police are some all-knowing deity, as if the police never ever make mistakes. “They said it was an accident.”

It has been a goal of mine to read some Mary Kubica, noted as one of the better suspense writers in publishing. My first dabble into her writing was most rewarding. This mystery is littered with plenty of possibilities that will keep you guessing to the very end. For a tale that does not really go anywhere, Kubica writes in a way that will keep you turning the pages.

‘Everyone is sorry. So very sorry. But they’re also relieved it’s happened to me and not them.’

The story is told in alternating perspectives of Clara’s pursuit and investigation into the death of her husband and, her husband Nick and the last few months leading up to his accident. It’s riveting yet also sad to explore how grief can consume someone and totally mess with perspective to the extent that reality and fiction can become mixed. Being a new mother in itself and facing lack of sleep, unable to properly function, many can relate to alone. Mix into that, loss of a spouse at such a critical time and the ability to function would be almost certainly insurmountable.

‘I wish that they would put a Band-Aid on it so that we could all go home.’

This is an entertaining read that travels along at an easy pace with a somewhat, unexpected ending. This is a tale that needs to be slowly swallowed and savoured as it’s about the characters themselves, rather than the action. Clara is emotionally distraught in trying to ascertain the truth, and that accounts for unexpected questions in her search for answers. The way Kubica delves into her thought processes is uncanny and you are swept along this trail of speculation and supposition. Even with Nick, you will begin to feel disbelief, confusion, sympathy, pity and frustration, just to name a few. The dual narrative most definitely helped to build up the tension and backstory offering a real sense of suspense.

Kubica builds the tension gradually as Clara slowly unravels the crumbs of clues. Don’t enter into this read expecting high paced action or unreadable plot twists. This is a work of slowly peeling away the ‘onion layers’ to reveal precisely what transpired in the weeks preceding Nick’s death and how circumstances collided together to present an unmitigating fallout.

Who killed Nick, or did Nick kill Nick?



This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release

Clara has hit rock bottom. Dealing with a newborn, a demanding pre-schooler, ageing parents and money struggles is hard enough and Clara is having to face all of it on her own. Clara’s husband Nick has been killed in a car accident and there doesn’t seem to be anyone other than Clara concerned about finding out exactly how it all happened. True, Nick could be impatient behind the wheel. Also that Nick had been going through some business troubles – he owned his own surgery and it had been a big financial risk for him to branch out in private practice. Clara is certain however that Nick was not the only driver involved in the crash.

In the family car being driven back from her dancing class by her father that day was their daughter Maisie. Maisie isn’t telling what she saw, but little by little is revealing her new fears to her mother. Clara becomes more convinced that Nick was driven off the road, and her own investigations make clear to her that the most likely suspects are known to the family. Undeterred by the lack of useful assistance from the police, Clara pushes on through crushing maternal exhaustion to find out why it is that someone thought her loving husband Nick needed to be killed.

Your reviewer is new to this (incredibly popular) author so it was a reading requirement to find out (reasonably quickly) why it is that author Mary Kubica is in the ‘must read’ stable of so many crime and mystery readers. It didn’t take long.

EVERY LAST LIE is an immersive book of how far into discovery one determined mother is prepared to go in order to get to the truth and do the right thing by her family. Told by both Nick and Clara, it almost tells the story of two different couples, such is the variance in perspective from both husband and wife. Clara, as a new mother and now widow, is slogging through the worst time of her life in the present and Nick’s life is quickly unraveling in the days up to his death.

Kubica cleverly brings Clara to the brink of discovery then introduces doubt, never relenting in the sense that Clara is getting closer to real harm herself. It doesn’t take too long to be completely hooked and EVERY LAST LIE adds weight to each page as Clara struggles to come out from under what she realizes was her own ignorance – she simply did not know what had been happening in the life of her own husband.

Clara Solberg gets a knock on the day one day her husband has been killed in an car accident clara is left alone with her young daughter and her four day son.
Clara doesn't believe her husbands death was an accident so she starts to dig about in his life.
The book alternates chapters between Clara and Nick her husband, Nicks chapters start 2 weeks before the accident.
This book is a roller coaster ride with twists and turns a great ending.
Well done to the Author another great book.

Every Last Lie has a promising plot. However, I found the sudden switching between characters' points of view confusing, although this could have been due to the formatting of the Kindle edition I read. I felt that parts of the story were unnecessarily repetitive, while certain story lines were not satisfactorily followed through. Thanks to Harlequin Australia and Netgalley for the ARC.

Book blurb...
“The bad man, Daddy. The bad man is after us.”
Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon.
Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick’s death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out — and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit.
Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date — one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.
My thoughts…
Clara and Nick’s life totally consumed me and I felt for them both.
My only negative (and it is tiny) is the way Clara talks herself into some terrible states, but it’s understandable from a narrative structure point of view (as it is told in first person, which did make me relate to her and care about her and feel her grief).
There is some very powerful imagery, especially early on in the book. Then it ramps up to be more of a mystery - and I do love a good mystery. The way the author chose to write the story from alternating perspectives is fantastic and had me wondering all the way through the book just when and how the two events would collide. Such an intricate plot in many ways and all the threads were tied up in the end.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to readers of general and women’s fiction.

First off thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, what a review this will be. Not. I actually can't believe what I've read. I feel cheated out of a good story from what seemed like a promising blurb! The title, the blurb, the cover all felt like the makings of a rich story. What a nightmare this was. Slow.. waffled on and on and then literally nothing else happened. Nothing. I hate having to write bad reviews but also hate wasting my precious reading time on a book with no substance.

This book got my attention from the start. It was all very intriguing. So many lies. What was the truth? I would have given this book a 5, but the ending let me down. For me it was a bit anti-climatic. There were a lot of unanswered questions at the end too. I have loved all of Mary Kubica's other books, but this was my least favourite of them.

Having read all of Mary Kubica's previous book, I went into Every Last Lie with high expectations. I was not let down! Every Last Lie keeps you in suspense about what really happened to Nick they day he died, and what was the real cause of his death. This book had me hooked from the first page and I did not want to put it down once I started, I just HAD to know the ending! Absolutely brilliant and thrilling, the ending had my heart beating through my chest as we find out the truth.

Clare Solberg is home with her new four day old baby when the police knock on her door to tell her her husband Nick has died in a car accident. They tell her he was speeding and with the sun in his eyes, took a bend too fast, ran off the road and hit a tree. Fortunately their little girl Maisie survived with barely a scratch. Now Clare must face life as a single Mum with two young children.

Struggling with her grief and sleep deprived looking after a new born, Clare has trouble accepting that Nick's accident was his own fault. When Maisie starts having nightmares and talking about the bad man in a black car coming after her and her Daddy, Clare starts to believe that Nick might have been murdered.

This is a bit of a slow boiler with Mary Kubica ramping up the tension gradually as Clare becomes more and more unravelled and allows her grief to take over her emotions. The narration alternates between Clare in the present tense and Nick relating the weeks leading up to his death including all the events he kept secret from Clare and this works well. I was disappointed in the ending as I expected an interesting twist or revelation so the ending we got fell a bit flat after the build up to it. Still a good read but not my favourite by Kubica.

This was a good story, but I did find it hard at times to hold my interest as the story changed between the two characters. Well written though and I would look for more later by this author.

Mary Kubica is one of my favourite authors, meaning I had very high hopes for this book. I think that was my downfall - going into this book expecting so much. I haven't done that with any of her other books I've read and I've loved them all. If I went into this book differently I know I would have appreciated it more.

The main downfall for me was that the characters weren't developed enough for my liking. Maybe if they were developed a bit more would add some more depth and shock to the plot twists.

Don't get me wrong though, this book was still a solid four star rating from me! All throughout the book I was dying to know what was going to happen and I had no way in anticipating the post twists. It was written very cleverly. The build in the book was a good pace (not so slow that I wanted to put the book down but not super quick that I wasn't intrigued to know). I never expected the book to turn out the way that it did and I'm still trying to work out whether I wanted the book to end in the way it did.

Clara Solberg is tired, but happy. She has it all: a handsome, clever husband who loves her, their adorable four-year old daughter Maisie and a new healthy baby boy. Life is perfect. Until one afternoon, when a policeman knocks on her door to inform her that her husband Nick has been fatally injured in a car crash. Apparently, he was speeding around a tight bend when he lost control of the car and collided head-first with a tree. Miraculously Maisie, who was in the backseat, escaped without injuries. In the days and weeks that follow, Clara’s life goes from dream to nightmare as she tries to come to terms with Nick’s death and Maisie’s increasingly odd behaviour. The girl, who is still unaware that her father is never coming home, is having nightmares, talking of a “bad man” who is after them in a black car. The police are convinced that it was Nick’s speeding that caused the accident, but what if there was another car involved? What if someone wanted her husband dead? As Clara looks more deeply into her husband’s last days before the accident, she uncovers some inconsistencies. Is it possible that Nick has been keeping secrets from her?

“Nick was driving too fast. He took the turn too quickly. It's Nick's fault that he's dead.”

But was it?

Now this is what I call a real psychological thriller! With her new novel, Every Last Lie, Mary Kubica once again proves what a great writer she is. Using just the right bait, she widely casts out her seeds of doubt, inevitably hooking you, slowly reeling you in until you get totally trapped in her net of intrigue and there is no escape – you are captivated without any hope of escape and have to keep reading to the end. I bet she is a great fisherwoman!

I loved everything about this book, and was grateful that I started reading it on a rainy day off, when I could devour it in one sitting. Told from alternate viewpoints – Clara’s life in the present and Nick’s telling of the events leading up to the crash – I was absolutely riveted as the book slowly but inevitably broke my heart. With an eye for the small details that make up life, Kubica delivers characters that are so real they could be stepping out of the pages any moment and you would feel as if you had known them forever. I loved Clara as the new mother and grieving widow, and felt her pain as she is trying to adjust to her new reality. Her slow unravelling is so well depicted here, it is impossible not to feel her pain and confusion. Kubica also masters one of the most difficult arts – that of delivering a realistic child character. Maisie is a wonderful addition to the story, and I never once doubted her age – yep, here is a four-year old all right, tantrums and all.

After reading – and loving – all of Mary Kubica’s book, this is an author who is firmly embedded on my favourites list, and my happy dance on receiving her latest novel through Netgalley was fully warranted. Every Last Lie is a must-read for lovers of psychological suspense who like a slow-burning, character driven mystery where doubt is ever present and images shape-shift like colourful reflections of oil on water, distorting reality until it really messes with your mind. I was instantly hooked and loved the whole journey. Thank you for a full rainy day of reading pleasure. Highly recommended!