I struggled to maintain an interest in the main character as she did not come across as very likeable, which meant I wasn't very interested in what happened to her.

Follow Alex - a high functioning alcoholic news reporter as she follows the case of a London serial killer. The killer may be using the dating site she uses and its all a little too close to home. This is a physiological thriller that will keep you guessing until the end.

Difficult story of obsession and addiction. Enjoyed the story but couldn't like the main character much she seemed to revel in her addictions. The ending was uplifting.

Great book following the story of Alex, a functioning alcoholic who works in TV. Having appeared drunk on tv on a live presentation a year later she is in the right place at the right time to pick up the reporting on what turns out to be a serial killer on the loose in her local area. The story takes us through why she left her previous life up north to move to London. A very good read with some twists and turns along the way. Really enjoyed reading it.

I Never Lie is a compulsive, easy read that I sped through. It is a book about addiction and its consequences, centering on the protagonist’s alcoholism.

The story follows Alex, a self-destructive reporter who fled to London from Manchester after a traumatic incident the year before. She’s covering the story of a suspected serial killer in London who’s killing women near her home, leaving the reader to wonder: is Alex a danger to herself – or to others?

The story is neatly structured between Alex and diary entries from the past; Alex is well-developed, even if her self-destructive behavior is sometimes frustrating to read; and all of the secondary characters are well-developed and seem like they could be real people. An enjoyable read.

Thank you to Netgalley for letting me read I Never Lie by Jody Sabral in exchange for my honest review.

this book was a but repetitive in places. was okay, nothing special. bit of a twist at the end. okay to pass time but wouldn't recommend it

This book had me captivated and I simply could not put it down, a tale of addiction and how we are all a little broken in our own ways. The plot kept me guessing until the end and was full of twists and turns! I’d highly recommend this book to friends.

This book was a super page-turner, I was hooked from the very first page and the pace did not let up. This book offered something really different in the way of the plot from many other crime books out there at the moment. So if you fancy something a bit fresh this is a book for you.

A TV journalist is battling an ongoing alcohol addiction, trying to hide it from friends and co-workers. At the same time, she is trying to relaunch her career as a TV Reporter. She gets her big break when a woman is found dead in a park near her own home and follows the case all the way through.

What I really liked is that her character is incredibly real and flawed. She has a messy life and is trying to look like she has it all together on the outside. So she is not a picture perfect person and it presents a very real message of how not all alcoholics are living on the streets, drinking cider out of a paper bag.

The plot rolls along and it gets so interesting as more bodies show up and a person of interest is on the news with everybody looking for her. Nobody knows where she went. But the ultimate best bit of this book is the twist at the end. I had a tiny inkling it may be coming but it really did throw me a wobbly. Something that really gets the jaw-dropping!

This is a great read for both crime and psychological thriller fans as it really is a solid blend of both. Well worth grabbing to enjoy! I read this really quickly as the pace did not let up and I just had to know more! 4 stars from me. Loved it!

Are you in the mood to read a book from the point of view of a thoroughly unlikeable alcoholic who spends most of her days in a haze in the grip of her addiction? Alex South is meant to be a crime reporter, but unfortunately she's got a bad rap because she can't stay sober. Given (not sure how in the world she managed to get the job) the chance to report on a serial killer in the neighborhood close to where she lives, Alex discovers that she knows all the women who are dead.

I'm not sure exactly how to classify this book. It's not a detective mystery, it's not a psychological thriller (unless you count the fact that Alex is delusional about herself), and it's not crime fiction. The prose centers mainly on Alex promising herself to detox and then proceeding to drink away. How she manages to actually do any on air reporting defies belief. She's not even remotely a "functional alcoholic" because she misses work, passes out, and has blackouts. I couldn't stand her character. It was obvious where this was going and I won't spoil it in case someone who reads it doesn't guess right off. How she could even manage to look presentable to go to work is beyond my ability to buy as well. The woman drank almost non-stop. I guess you could say I don't have any empathy for Alex and you'd be right. There wasn't much to get from this novel and I was disappointed with the pace and the revelations. The "pull it all together" epilogue at the end made me want to throw my Kindle AND Alex across the room!

I do thank NetGalley and Canelo for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. I really don't like reading books with unreliable, nearly psycho narrators who have major issues, so I need to be more careful when reading the blurbs and selecting the titles.

Not a comfortable book to read.

I have broken one of my cardinal rules as a reviewer, I looked at the reviews this book has received on Amazon to see whether I’m doing my usual “little boy sees Emperor wearing no clothes” and yes, I am. I’ll now explain why I found the whole story so exhausting and unfulfilling.

“There’s a man in my bed. Shit. It’s not what I was expecting. They usually gone by now, but this one, well he’s different.” I should have guessed just from these opening words that this book was going to test me on several subjects, alcohol, trying to get pregnant regardless of who the man is and sleeping around. Gosh! This makes me sound so Mother Grundy!

Let me try to dig myself out of this very deep hole by giving a summary of the story. Alex South left her boyfriend of many years after suffering a miscarriage. She moves to London and starts working for the UKBC bureau. After a disastrous broadcast when she was so drunk she couldn’t stand up, she’s given a second chance when a body is discovered in London Fields. She’s asked to cover the story as it unfolds, especially as several more bodies of women are found with the same MO and in the same area.

This could have been a very good thriller because there are so many suspects, both male and female. However, you must wade through page after page of Alex’s alcoholic blackouts. Sipping vodka from a water bottle and talking about detoxing her body and coming off alcohol.

None of the characters is memorable. They all one dimensional. You very quickly work out who the killer is going to be, which then leaves you scanning the rest of the book to see if she can stay sober for just one day.

I think the author, Jody Sabral has been particularly brave having her main protagonist an alcoholic. She doesn’t pull any punches about her behaviour or how she behaves while trying to hide her drinking. I just can’t find it in my heart to have any feelings, either good or bad for her, nor for anyone else trying to find the killer. In fact, if there was one reasonably good portrayal of a character, it was that of the killer. You could almost feel empathy for them, just not enough to rescue this book only getting two stars from me.

Bluebell

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Unfortunately, I could not get into this book. I had high hopes, but it just did not capture my attention like I had hoped.

A suspenseful plot, an authentic setting and an unreliable protagonist guarantee that I would read 'I Never Lie' and it didn't disappoint.

Fast-paced it moves between Alex a TV journalist's point of view and diary entries of a recovering alcoholic whose dark issues become apparent as the story unfolds.

Alex, a London based TV journalist, is on the precipice of career success. She moves to London to further her career but also because personal life implodes, and now threatens to impinge on her career.

Alex is an alcoholic in denial, and it makes her vulnerable in all area of her life. Someone is murdering women in London, and Alex's involvement seems serendipitous but is she in danger?

Alex is challenging, her constant denial of her alcoholism is tedious but authentic and an essential catalyst to the thriller's plot. The plot is well- executed with twists, some of which you may not see coming. I enjoyed trying to work out what is real and what is part of Alex's alcohol delusional state.

The final twist is a little disappointing for me; I imagined something different. However, full of suspense it does answer the questions raised by the plot.

Written by a TV journalist, the setting is authentic and absorbing and makes the perfect backdrop both for the murders and Alex life's disintegration.

Originality, cleverly built suspense and realistic characters are evident in this thriller, even if using an alcoholic as an unreliable protagonist is popular in many psychological thrillers currently.

I received a copy of this book from Canelo via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book but sadly found I was disappointed by the end. Alex, the alcoholic journalist is the main character and I found her thoughts and actions very repetitive. I felt the book concentrated more on the alcoholic addiction side rather than the actual plot. I wanted to know more about the investigation but found it mainly concentrated on alex's next fix of alcohol. Sadly it struggled to keep my attention.

This book is about a television journalist called Alex who is a functioning alcoholic. She split with her ex Greg the year previously after having suffered a miscarriage. She is obsessed with getting pregnant again, not really caring which stranger makes her pregnant. When women's bodies start turning up close to where she lives she knows that this is the chance she needs to get her career back on track after she had a rant whilst drunk, live on television. Whilst investigating some leads she finds that she has a lot of connections to people of interest in this case.

I was really looking forward to this book but unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations. My main problem with it was that it was far too repetitive. Everyday she tells herself that she is going to detox and not drink anymore and everyday she fails. I understand that this is probably the reality of being an alcoholic but I don't need to keep reading it. In fact the alcoholism takes over a lot of the book. I feel a bit frustrated because I believe this book had the potential to be so much better than it was.

I Never Lie is an intriguing novel and to me was a unique novel too, following the life of a female drunk – I’ve read plenty where the alcoholic has been male. She did have a great life until alcohol destroyed it, living in Manchester with her boyfriend and was expecting their child – Now she is alone, having constant one night stands, trying to get pregnant again after she miscarried her child the year before.

Throughout the book, there are also diary entries from someone who knew Alex in 2017. These entries felt quite creepy at times and I was desperate to know who they were from and what part they played in the murdered women plot.

The book is a little predictable as I’d worked out the culprit way before the ending, but it didn’t take my enjoyment away from the story. It is a good psychological thriller with a great cast of characters that I found I had a love/hate relationship with.

A very interesting read, I struggled to warm to the main character though, there was just something about her, the story flowed very well and I feel came to a satisfying conclusion

This is the first book by Jody Sabral that I have read but judging by how much I enjoyed reading ‘I Never Lie’, it certainly won’t be the last book by this author that I read. I really did enjoy reading this book but more about that in a bit.
I can honestly say that I did not like nor take to the character of Alex South one bit. The beginning of the book sees her waking up to another of her one night stands. It transpires that she is desperate to become pregnant and doesn’t care who is the father. She is also a journalist, whose career nosedived when she went on screen drunk and had an epic rant into the camera. Alex is an alcoholic, who has relapsed several times over the years. She drinks alcohol with the same frequency that I eat cake and sweets (that’s a lot in case you were wondering). She trots out the same excuse that she will cut down or she will stop but she never seems to actually do just what she says she will. It wasn’t until further on in the book that I realised that part of her alcohol addiction is her way of coping with the fact that she suffered a miscarriage and the break up of her relationship. That said that doesn’t wash with me. I am a bit hard in that respect. Alex wants to get her career back on track and when a body is discovered in a park nearby, she sees it as her way of getting her career back. The crimes begin to throw up some startling coincidences or connections that Alex just can’t explain. Not surprising for a woman, who drinks like a fish, gets hammered (drunk) and she literally has gaps in her memory. Now that is frightening for me because literally anything could happen to her in her drunken state and she wouldn’t know. On more than one occasion Alex has woken up next to a strange man in her bed and she doesn’t even know their names, let alone their histories. She seems to play Russian Roulette with her health but it doesn’t seem to bother her because she certainly doesn’t change her behaviour.
I have to say that this is one of the most original books that I have read in a fair while because it deals with a character who has memory lapses and so she has no idea if she has committed an awful crime or two or if she is innocent. I was hooked on this book from the moment I got to the bottom of the first page. I had no idea which direction this book was going in and it certainly kept me guessing all the way through. I became addicted to reading this book and the pages just flew past in a blur as I wanted to learn much more about Alex, if she carried on on the path to self destruction and if she really was guilty of a crime. The twists and turns just kept a coming and there were certain moments that I was so unexpecting.
This is a really well written book. The author has a writing style, which catches your attention and draws you in like a fisherman reels in a fish. The chapters are written in two different ways. There are chapters written about events as they happen in the present day and there are chapters written in the style of diary entries of the previous year, which go a long way to explaining why or how Alex is the way she is. The chapters interlink really well and the story flows seamlessly.
In conclusion I have to say that I really enjoyed reading ‘I Never Lie’, even if I wasn’t too keen on the main character. I would definitely recommend this book to other readers. I can’t wait to read what comes next from Jody Sabral. The score on the Ginger Book Geek is a well deserved 4* out of 5*.

Jody Sabral has given us a really clever book, with a completely different angle. Her protagonist is Alex South, a TV journalist whose career is at rock bottom thanks to an on-air rant because Alex is also an alcoholic. High functioning, but an alcoholic nonetheless. Then one morning a woman’s body is found in a park and the park is in the vicinity of her East London home – which enables Alex to be there fast, and to report on events together with her producer and cameraman. This is the third body to be found. As these events unfold more bodies are discovered and Alex (and her team) is the go-to girl for TV reports.

The plot unfolds from Alex’s point of view present day and diary entries from the previous year. What is fascinating about this is that we are able to witness her struggle with alcohol; her conviction that she is dealing with her drinking; her vows to ‘detox today’; and her belief that she is hiding her problem. She is not dealing with the memory loss or her memory lapses, blackouts and panic attacks. She is not coping but is required to be alert and functioning on camera.

It is like a manual for self-destruction but so sad to witness.

I don’t want to call it brilliant (it doesn’t feel enough). It is heart-rending in a way but it is compelling reading and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Many, many thanks for this book.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

This is a disconcerting, unnerving book which covers the unfolding events of several murders from the viewpoint of Alex a TV news journalist and an alcoholic.

You are soon drawn into her world of one night stands, drink and how she struggles to keep control so that she can prove what a top journalist she is, she deserves to make it big because she is good; she just made one stupid, awful mistake.

She wants to be a mother and ‘the clock is ticking’ she’s obsessing, the drinking isn’t helping, so she’s been using on-line dating it’s much simpler.

Then there’s a murder, the third in a few weeks, just up the road from where she lives. There are similarities but the police won’t confirm it’s a serial killer. This is it, this is the break Alex needs, this is how she can prove to everyone that she is back and better than ever. If she can just keep the drinking under control but of course she can, can’t she?

We follow the murder investigation from this unique viewpoint of TV news reporting. It’s insightful and interesting how Alex, and her producer Audrey, take what information they have and make news from it.

This is a gripping story which keeps you turning pages and keeps you readjusting your thoughts on what is happening and why. It’s the why that drives the storyline. Although the focus may seem, at times, to be too much on alcoholism it is necessary for the storyline. It’s a twisty plot that moves along at a fair pace with an intensity that will keep you thinking, speculating and will astonish you with it’s conclusion.

It’s a well written book, knowledgable and well researched with characters that are, in the main, quite likeable. Perhaps surprisingly so, as alcoholics are not generally written with the empathy and understanding that Jody Sabral manages, you can engage with what’s happening and why. It is well worth reading.

The layers is this book would make for a terrific book club read. Whether that, your own personal enjoyment or chatting about it with friends I Never Lie will make for plenty of interesting deliberation.

I am thrilled to be part of this Blog Tour and would like to thank the author, publisher and Ellie Pilcher at Canelo for bringing me on board.

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I started this book really not knowing what to expect. But I do like myself a thriller on the odd occasion and hadn’t read one for a while so figured this was my chance. I loved the fact that this book brought alcoholism to the readers attention. I know in a roundabout way you read a lot about wanting the next drink or Alex wondering when she was going to get her next drink, but that in a nutshell, this is the way an alcoholic thinks so it was only natural.

This had me hooked from page 1 and I couldn’t put it down, I felt myself wanting to follow Alex’s journey and really hoping that she will get sober, (don’t panic no spoilers). For this fast-paced psychological thriller I’m giving it 4/5. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will definitely read another of Jody’s novels.