A complicated story, told in several narratives all beginning with an explosion in a building in Chicago which claimed over 500 lives.

What happens when something like this occurs is immense. The immediate tragedy is evident. The loss, the grief. Then comes the practicalities of life which involve those left behind. How do wives cope with untold secrets, of untold financial burdens, of marital secrets slowly unraveling.

The stories of the women left behind by this Chicago tragedy are complicated. They are also linked in unimaginable ways. Whilst slowly unraveling you do know where this is going, but the end is totally, absolutely unexpected.

Done with flair, handling emotions so very well this author is brilliant.

The Good Liar is the tale of three women whose lives have forever been changed by a building explosion in Chicago. It is a story told a year after the explosion with clever twists and turns that ultimately lead to an unexpected ending.

With the anniversary of the explosion occurring, there is renewed focus on the circumstances, victims and survivors. Each of the three women has a secret they are working to keep from being revealed. This story is told alternately by each of the women. Normally, I like this method of story telling, but I found the beginning of this book to be confusing. With the different perspectives, especially including the sections that are shown as the script of a media interview, it was difficult to keep the various women and their details straight. About halfway through the book, things settled in and the pace of the story picked up.

There were a few details that I found to be unbelievable, but overall this is a good, quick read that many readers will enjoy.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

People's lives can be complicated and complex and sometimes that includes lies that we weave which end up spiraling out of control.
Three women are unexpectedly forced to face these lies of their own making when an explosion completely destroys an office building killing hundreds of people. The various lies begin to unravel on the anniversary of the tragedy when a memorial and a documentary bring unpleasant truths to light.
There are literally so many twists and turns in this story. At times I had to put the book down in order to process and think about what I had just learned.
The only trouble I had is that I could not really connect with any of the three women. Then again, that may be one of the points of the book itself. Everyone has a dark side or an inner self that is less than completely truthful and definitely not one that we show to others.
I received a copy from Lake Union Publishing through Netgalley for free in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to netgalley for advanced reader copy. This book took a good 20% to get into, and just when I thought I was over it, the pace picked up. The story was unique and unlike other books I read, so I appreciated that. Although some of the characters were frustrating, it added to the story. This author is talented, and I will continue reading her books.

We share the lives of three women who are connected by an building explosion that leaves 500 people dead. Cecily who was running late and should have been on the 15th floor , Kate who was Cecily's friend was in the lobby and doesn't remember how she escaped and Franny, a young woman who was going to enter the building in search of her birth mother never made it inside. You feel so much for each of them but all is not as it seems. This story covers a year in their lives. From the day of the explosion to the 1 year anniversary. TJ is a journalist who is producing a film and a book. Much of the story comes from his interviews. These women all have secrets to hide and are dreading the anniversary. One of them is a very good liar. I enjoyed this book. It was so realistic and easy to read. I related to each of the women. The twists seemed minor and then really jumped you to a different level of disbelief. Great, Great book. I think all readers who enjoy suspense with great characters will love this story. I received this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Considering that THE GOOD LIAR revolves around three women bound together by a horrific tragedy, it's difficult to believe that -- according to the author -- the book is based on the storyline. In other words, "what happened afterward"?

Catherine McKenzie writes of strong, complex characters in all of her novels but the three telling/hiding their truth of the fatal day may be among the most intriguing yet.

As a reader who allows a story to unfold, rather than guess ahead to The End, I did question the honesty of Cecily, Kate, and Franny's voices along with their behavior and motivation. In fact, through twists and turns, the author leads you to speculate on what REALLY happened and why.

Yet Publishers Weekly (starred review) states the truth:

"Who the good liar may be, and what that phrase might actually mean, are questions that will resonate long after the book is finished.

Because this excellent, memorable, psychological thriller is not about the good liar, it is about the BEST liar.

Years ago, I read Spin by Catherine McKenzie. This was around the time I started exploring somewhat unlikeable and unreliable heroines, books with leads who are struggling with life and don’t have things all worked out for them. This was around the time I realized I could relate to books on a whole other level than just using them to escape. I have a fondness for McKenzie because of this, so I was excited to pick up The Good Liar to see what she’ll offer me with a few more books under her belt.

I wish I felt better about this book, but there were many parts that were predictable for me, things I saw coming as soon as it was revealed that there were secrets. This was a bit of a downfall for me, as the book set its foundation on these three seemingly different women and spent the majority of the time slowly dissecting how their lives inevitably cross due to a traumatic experience, but all the big details that were revealed during this unraveling were things I had pegged from the start. Reading through was like a big checklist, ticking off the situation I had already theorized, making the journey from start to finish feel less like a mystery unraveling and more like homework.

But I did enjoy the story. I enjoyed the characters and the writing. I liked that these three women were all dealing with this trauma, but also their own issues in their own lives that existed far before this all happened. It was very real and complex and difficult and I enjoy reading about these messy moments in their lives.

Even though I knew how it was going to end, I really liked how it all came together and how the events unfolded when it was finally time for everything to come to light. That somewhat redeemed the rest of the book for me and definitely increased my rating of it. That is how books like this are supposed to end, it was interesting and satisfying and some final twists that, though I had an inkling, were still a little shocking. I just wish I felt the same about the rest of it.

This book was an entertaining read from the get go ... BUT ... the ending left me frustrated and filled with questions. There was so much lost potential. Parts of the storyline were repetitive and implausible. Cassie’s character was never quite redeemed until the epilogue, which was too late to really connect with her. Started strong, but unfortunately didn’t cross the finish line.

Review An explosion in a Chicago building, stories of three women. Each lies about something. Each has secrets. Alternating narrators and time. Catherine McKenzie keeps the reader up at night. The reader needs to pay attention to details. I did find myself asking “What?” Clues or are they lies keeps the reader guessing until the end. Could there be a sequel set a few years later to find out what is happening in the lives of these women and their families and friends.
Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.

This book was full of liars!! And they were all very good at it. I thought the storyline was different and I liked that. The way the story unfolds was really great. I love when a book surprises me and keeps me guessing! Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really enjoyed this book! It's absolutely a psychological thriller - you never really know who to cheer for or who to despise. It centers around three women and the devastating aftermath of an explosion in a Chicago office building. One struggles with guilt, one runs away and one, well - she's just nuts.... or is she??

I was curious to find out how Catherine McKenzie had addressed that massive white elephant in the room: the maybe a bit too-close-for-comfort similarity to a real life, truly catastrophic event such as 9/11 was not that long ago. There were issues of good taste and decorum, but also the question of how moral it is for a writer to use such historical events, and real life details, as inspiration when they are still so recent and alive in people's memories, and especially when faced with the reality of survivors and family members of victims from the disaster, and their still raw grief. It would take a special sensibility to pull it off, I told myself, so let's see what Ms McKenzie did of it.

And then I received the press pack from the publishers, and read the above author's article. Being a writer myself, I recognised Catherine McKenzie's words and fully identified with them. Writers have to make choices which often may no be very popular, or ideas that might prove most difficult, or even impossible, to pull off successfully. We question our judgement permanently. 

I loved Catherine McKenzie's choice of departing premise for this book; to put it simply:

"The idea for this novel has been percolating in McKenzie’s mind for years and began with this thought: What if someone used a national tragedy to run away from their life? Later, she discovered stories about people faking their way into tragedies. And finally, she learned of a 9/11 widow whose divorce was about to be finalized right before the towers fell. From there, she thought what-if, and began writing THE GOOD LIAR. An irresistible look at ordinary people in extraordinary situations."

Half way through it, I already knew I loved how Catherine McKenzie went about telling her story. It begins by being a story of possibilities -- yes, catastrophic events happen. People are caught in them, and their aftermath. Suffering of some degree is inevitable. When these things happen, the frontier between the private and the public becomes, seemingly also inevitably in our day and age, blurred. The media and the public at large suddenly feel an entitlement to to your grief, an ownership of you and your story. And in the middle of all the horror, there will always be someone ready to take advantage, in any way they can, from some aspect of it. And this is the story Catherine McKenzie tells, very skilfully and with sensitivity, without once blurring the lines between a 9/11-type reality and her fictional universe.

The main characters, the three women around which the action centres, are all well drawn and fleshed out, very believable -- very real and alive. They are three women caught out by the events and by their own lives, and the lies they are all living in, and who try to resolve the conflicts they're caught in in the only way they can or know best.

Cecily, the main character, chooses to come clean, and thereby wiping her own slate clean. She's a very likeable character, and we understand why she did what she did. We get to see inside her head and her heart, and decide from very early on that, whatever she's trying to keep away from the public eye, it is not criminal or strenuously morally reprehensible. We forgive her lie of omission, because we understand it. We love her.

Kaytlin is a damaged woman, unable to deal with her past, with her damage, or with her present. She is a profoundly troubled and unhappy person, as a woman, as  a wife, as a mother. She once again succumbs to her unresolved mental health problem and, having miraculous escaped with her life, in an act of folly she decides to disappear in the aftermath of the building explosion.  Thus she places herself in a situation from which there is no come back, but which she tells herself is for the better and an act of real love. We understand her, but deplore her choice of action.

And Franny... well, while one feels slightly sorry for Franny for having been so blatantly rejected, we cannot possible like her, not even before we learn the full extent of her actions. She's the little sociopath in the basket, ruining everybody else's apples. And she's so well designed as a character that we absolutely hate her, and take everything she says with a tonne of pinches of salt. And then we understand that it all goes far deeper, and she is a full blown psychopath. We can't spare a single thought for her. 

But I do urge you to seriously think about this book as your next read. It's psychological and suspenseful, and pulls you in from the beginning. You're left hanging there, knowing there is something below the surface, and you try to figure those undercurrents out, but there's so much to consider. And you have to keep reading, just so you finally see your suspicions confirmed... or be completely bowled over by the last twist in the narrative.

the verdict:

Great commuting literature. Leaves you wanting to get to know everything about Catherine McKenzie's writing. The question now is, which of her titles do I pick up next...?

 
Genre pegging: General Fiction / Women's Fiction 
Verdict: a perfectly riveting, thought-provoking read
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥
Shelves: general fiction; thrillers;

Three women's lives are changed after a gas explosion destroys a building in downtown Chicago. A photograph of Cecily became a symbol of the tragedy. She was at the building to visit her husband who was killed along with her best friend. Kate survived the explosion but ran from the scene in a panic and reinvented herself in another city. Franny is an adoptee whose birth mother was killed in the explosion; she has become a spokesperson for the victims' families.

All of these women have secrets. All of them are lying about something. One of them is lying about something big.

It's a page turner.
It would be a great recommendation for people who enjoy Liane Moriarty.

I discovered Catherine McKenzie last year. I read 4 of her books so far, and I can say that I love her writings. I love how her characters always feel real to me. It could be yourself, your neighbor, your friend. They have their flaws, they’re not perfect. And it that way, they are.

Cecily, Franny and Kate, the three women pictured in The Good Liar, don't make an exception. There are a lot of twists in this story, a couple that I saw coming, but a lot that I didn't. At all. And that is what I love about Catherine McKenzie: she always surprises me.

Many thanks to the publisher for my e-copy through NetGalley.

I liked this story. Catherine McKenzie is one of my favorite authors but this book took awhile to pull me in.

Secrets, Lies, and Documentaries

A 9/11 type tragedy sets the stage for three very different women, the secrets they keep and the lies they tell.

October 10 marks the date that changes three women’s lives in unexpected ways. Cecily is the grieving widow left behind who inadvertently through a photo op becomes the poster girl for the tragedy. Kaitlyn is the thought to be recently deceased mother and Franny is the young woman vying for a life that is not her own. None of these women are whom they seem to be at first glance. Each of them are facets of the complexities of human personality even as they retain their own complexities. Societal expectations and the freedom to be our true selves are the major themes in this suspense thriller about women and their most intimate relationships. The reader will have to decide in the end if the lies told are justified when applied to the bigger picture.

McKenzie is a gifted writer with a knack for drawing out suspense generated through her characters and the lives that look so ordinary from the outside but belie something entirely different on the inside. McKenzie’s pacing is solid and it is virtually impossible to glean all the secrets before she wants them revealed. This is something I have come to appreciate in a suspense novel and the reason why this is the third novel by McKenzie that I have read.

BRB Rating: Read It.

Catherine McKenzie certainly chose the perfect title for this book - all three of the main characters are quite good at having secrets and lying to protect them.

A Chicago building explodes and forever alters the lives of Cecily, Kate and Franny. Cecily was supposed to meet her husband in his office, but was 5 minutes late. The building exploded as she was approaching it. Kate, Cecily's neighbor and best friend, worked in the building and her body was not found. Franny has been on a quest to meet her adopted mother, and lost the chance when the explosion occurred.

McKenzie tells the story through the points of view of these three women in past and present times. A documentary is being made about the impacts of the explosion with the approach of the first anniversary and the interviews and preparation for the documentary also draws out truths which are fed to the reader bit by bit.

The premise is quite believable, the story is well-paced and intriguing, the characters so real I feel I know each of them. And that's not even accounting for the many plot twists as the truth comes out. Well done, Ms. McKenzie, well done!!! A very enjoyable read indeed!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

In some ways, The Good Liar mirrors the all-too familiar headlines of our current times, but the back story explores the aftermath of grief through the lens of three women who all played a role in a horrific tragic event.

Triple Ten is the name given to the event: this was an explosion that ripped apart a Chicago building and left hundreds dead or missing. It’s now a year later, the anniversary of the event, and Cecily Grayson, who has, unwillingly, become the poster woman for the tragedy, is still unable to move on with her life. Then there’s Kate, a woman who’s working as a nanny for an affluent family in Canada. Finally, there’s Franny, a young woman whose birth mother died in the fire.

The Good Liar

Through these three characters (with published articles and the transcripts of interviews from a documentary filmmaker thrown in) it gradually becomes clear that all three women are lying to one extent or another. Slowly, the real stories of the relationships lost in the fire emerge.

A shiver runs through me, because that is how I feel now all the time, that nervous feeling like something bad’s about to happen, something I could avoid if I knew which event to skip, which route not to take, which call not to answer.

Cecily Grayson, now in therapy, a widow and mother of two, is the main character here, which is a good thing as she is sympathetic. At first, all we know about Kate is that she fled Chicago and hasn’t returned. Franny, who had just managed to reconnect with her birth mother, has become a permanent fixture in the family her deceased birth mother left behind. While Cecily and Franny run a foundation which dispenses compensation to the victims of the tragedy, there’s a slippery unease between them which is hard to place.

Through the plot, the story explores how we grieve, and how guilt combined with lack of closure disrupt the healing process. But there’s also the thriller element here, a streak of danger, a stench of psycho running through the narrative, and while the plot takes a long time to get there, we know that explosive confrontations will occur.

Cecily is the most convincing character here, and it’s easy to identify with her conflicting feelings of anger and loss combined with the shattered sense of security and safety. As always with domestic thrillers, we are left pondering the choices our characters make. Some of these choices are foolish, some are downright illogical, but then we all know people who constantly make stupid mistakes. I guessed the big reveal, which was a shame. Glancing over reviews on Goodreads, the book seems to be a big hit with fans. While I liked the lack of closure/guilt elements, the thriller/psycho aspect of the book stretched credulity for this reader.

Review copy

Who is lying ? That is the question in this thriller. It takes place in Chicago and shows the lives of 3 women effected by a fire. Lots of twists and turns and an unexpected ending. Smart read

The Good Liar by Catherine McKenzie centres around three women, Cecily, Kate, and Franny. The women are linked by a tragic event where an explosion ripped apart a Chicago building, where 513 people were killed. It’s coming up to the first anniversary of the explosion and a documentary is being made about the real people behind this national tragedy. But just how accurate are these individual narratives? Can any of them be trusted?
Character and plot are cleverly interwoven through a medley of narrative devices, where the reader gets to know each character before the narrative strands are expertly brought together until one twist after the other forms one huge knot.
The first character the reader gets to know is Cecily, a mother of two whose husband has been killed in the explosion. Her best friend also worked in the same building, and she too has been killed. Cecily’s point of view is told through first-person narration, where we learn what is usually considered to be one of her weak points (she’s always running late) actually saves her life. But what she’s actually doing at her husband’s place of work adds intrigue: ‘It was ten in the morning. Seems like an odd time to meet your husband at his office.’ Cecily is the poster girl of the documentary, and is portrayed as they grieving widow whose life was destroyed that day. But just how accurate is this portrayal?
The second character is Kate. Kate’s family believe she was killed in the explosion, but unable to cope with her life in Chicago, Kate has escaped to her homeland in Canada, where she’s working as a nanny to two young boys. A third-person narrative is used to drip feed in events of Kate’s past, and there are lots of edge of the seat moments when you think her past is going to catch up with her. But does it? Just what has she done to make her run away? And will she be forced to face her past demons?
The third character is Franny. Franny is the youngest of the three main characters and is part of the documentary alongside Cecily. Told in an epistolary style of narration, through questionnaire type recordings made for the documentary, Franny had only just been reunited with her birth mother, when her mother was also killed in the explosion. Franny fights hard to ensure her mother’s husband and her two half-siblings receive the compensation they are entitled to. But what’s her real story?
This novel is full of so many twists and turns I felt almost physically dizzy. The premise really reminded me of 9/11, and it left me wondering just how many real people, affected that day, have similar stories to the characters in Catherine McKenzie’s novel. This is the first novel I have read by this author but it certainly won’t be the last. Another 5 star review from Literature Love.
Thank you to Catherine McKenzie for such an enjoyable read, and thank you to Lake Union and Amazon for this Advance Reader Copy.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Liar-Catherine-McKenzie-ebook/dp/B073D5NK69/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523885046&sr=8-2&keywords=the+good+liar
I absolutely loved this book and couldn’t put it down. I recommend you stop what you’re doing and go and buy this book now!
As well as having all the elements of a four-star review, this book transcends its genre. The language is original and compelling; characters jumped off the page; and twists in the plot left me gasping. This rare and exceptional book will be put forward for Literature Love’s top 10 books of the year.


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