Two young women painting one mural almost a century apart. Mysterious disappearances and racial prejudice in a small southern town. Well put together though somewhat predictable.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which had two main characters, Anna and Morgan, in different eras. The story goes back to the late 1930's when the US Post Office murals were created. Diane Chamberlain describes the expertise required and the process involved in creating the original artwork.

In 2018, the mural in Edentown, NC needs to be restored. Morgan has to quickly learn the differences between creating and restoring artwork. She also wants to discover why she was selected for the job.

The other underlying themes concern racial tensions in a small southern town and the expectations the "town fathers" have about trusting the capabilities of an attractive female artist from the North.

Big Lies in a Small Town is the latest book by Diane Chamberlain. All the fans of Ms Chamberlain will love this story and anyone who hasn't read her, this is a great novel to start with. As usual with Ms Chamberlain's work, my only regret is that the story ended. I could have continued reading more about these characters for a long time. I was given an early copy to review.

Thank you to Netgalley, St Martins Press and most of all the Author Diane Chamberlain for this ARC.
This book went to the top of my favorites! I absolutely LOVED it. I love the way it was written chapter wise from one protagonists point of view "then" to the second protagonist point of view "now".
I loved the characters, the setting and just loved the story and how it all came together.
And the Authors notes were very interesting as well.
I will definitely be following and reading more from Diane.

Big Lies in a Small Town is an accurate title. Very big lies, pretty small town.

What interested me about this book was the idea of post office murals. The book takes us through the process of both the mural creation and its eventual restoration later on. I am not well versed in visual art forms at all, other than having an admiration for great pieces. The way that the author wove the information and history into her narrative is truly great, and it kept me reading the entire time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery with alternating time lines and narration styles. Highly recommended.

Big Lies in a Small Town captured my interest from the very beginning. I was equally caught up in both stories - Anna's and Morgan's - and loved the way the story alternated back and forth between them. It made me think about family relationships and friendship, about how some people are able to overcome a rough childhood, and about starting over. I think this book would be a great book discussion title. I want to share it with family and friends.

Morgan's life has fallen apart. She has been arrested for a crime she didn't commit and has served a year of her time. Her future prospects seem slim and she wants nothing to do with her past. Everything changes as the daughter of a famous author, Jessie Williams, comes to her with a lawyer and says that she will be released on parole if she can complete a restoration of an art mural, for her late father's gallery opening in two months time. Though reluctant and surprised, Morgan wants her freedom and agrees, though her knowledge of restoration is non existent. She begins her work through the help of Oliver, but so little is known of the original artist of the bizarre mural, Anna Dale, that Morgan sets her self on a journey to find out more about her and learns more about her self in the process.

The novel takes us through the racism, sexism and bigotry of the 1940s in the South, in which Anna is painting her mural, all while intersecting it with the trials of modern times and Morgan's journey. Big Lies in a Small Town is different from anything I have read and it had me hooked the entire time. I found myself really connecting with the characters and their stories.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this novel.

I have always enjoyed this author and this new book does not disappoint. The history between the characters are interesting, I did anticipate the ending as it happened. I will recommend this book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This story is told by two narrators, Anna Dale in the 1940’s, and Morgan Christopher in the present. We begin with Morgan, a former art student who is now in prison for her second DUI, which resulted in an accident leaving a young woman paralyzed. Two women arrive to meet with her, and they have a fantastic offer for Morgan. She is being released on parole, with the condition that she restore a mural for an art gallery grand opening. With release from prison and the promise of $50,000 at the end of the restoration if she meets the deadline, Morgan readily accepts.

Once in Edenton, North Carolina, she learns that she is to restore the mural Anna painted for the post office in the 1940’s. Anna had won a contest to paint the mural as a depiction of the town – the cotton mill, the fishery, the peanut farms and the famous Tea Party the town is known for. But as Morgan starts the restoration, she hears the rumors that Anna had gone mad after finishing the mural and went missing. The painting’s strange symbols of violence lead Morgan to find out more about the mystery surrounding it.

I have to say that I liked the storyline of Anna and the past much more than I did the storyline of Morgan and the present. Anna decided to take the job for two reasons. First, it was a great opportunity for a budding artist, and second, her mother had just committed suicide and Anna was alone. Unlike Morgan, Anna is a strong personality with a can-do attitude, who was kind and did what was right. Morgan just seemed to have a woe-is-me attitude, which didn’t endear her to me. Perhaps it was also that Anna’s storyline was much more interesting and attention-grabbing. Anna had to deal with the town’s resentment of her for many things: being a woman, being an outsider from the north, being kind to blacks in a segregated community. Morgan dealt only with her own insecurities, and it became tiring after a while to hear her complain.

Overall, it’s a good story, well-paced with good character development, even if it was a bit predictable and the ending hurriedly tied everything and everyone together. I would have loved to have seen the mural as part of the cover.

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I do no say this lightly, but this was one of the most powerful, brilliant books I have ever read. The characters were so well written and the story was just amazing. The story was basically about redemption in many ways, however it was also the story of two women, families, and lots of painting. I love that the book goes backward and forward in time to tell the story, while also drawing in cultural references from the times as well. I have read a few books by this author and am now going to be adding all of her books to my to be read. I will be recommending that everyone read this book.

3.5 stars. This is the first book I have read by Diane Chamberlain and she didn’t disappoint. I enjoyed her characters, her description of small town living, and how her story flowed from past and present. Both main characters were believable and you came to feel for them as they endured their struggles. I take issue with a couple of items, the first is the predictable plot line for Anne. I’m kind of over the low hanging fruit sexual assault plot lines for female characters. There are so many plot lines that could be equally devastating to a female character and I wish female authors would advance those storylines in place of the most obvious storyline. I get why the author added it, which brings me to the second, the ending seemed rushed. It’s a mystery plot and everything wrapped up pretty quickly. It felt rushed. The author is a great storyteller and so I would have enjoyed an ending that took its time. Overall, it’s a book.

Diane Chamberlin is a wonderful story teller.
Told part in the past and part in the future. Anna Dale wins a competition to paint a mural for the Edenton post office and the town is a little cautious of the new come since they have their own resident artist.
In the future Morgan has been released early from jail to restore Anna’s painting with stipulations set on her by set by a famous artist that has passed. How are they all connected? Why did Jesse want Morgan to restore this mural?

I loved this story. This world felt real with the small town feel, gossip and everyone need to know what’s going on. The character had so much depth! The mystery of what happens to Anna Dale really had me hooked!

Everything Diane Chamberlain writes is a winner in my opinion. Big Lies In a Small Town is truly an exceptionally good read! The genre of the book I would classify as mystery. It’s a story about 2 women that’s told in 2 different timelines. Anna Dale, the artist, is from the 1940’s while Morgan Christopher, the art restorer, is in 2018. The story takes place in Edenton, North Carolina and centers around the painting and restoration of a post office mural. The lesson that Chamberlain wants you to take from reading this book is that you have to make peace with the past or you can never move into the future. That’s a line that’s stated twice in the story. I was very pleased and satisfied with the ending as it explained how and why these two ladies lives were connected. This was a very enjoyable read, one that held my interest and kept me turning the pages. It’s one I will definitely be recommending to all my reader friends. I’d like to thank NetGalley and Naureen Nashid from St. Martin’s Press for allowing me the chance to read an arc in exchange for my honest opinion. I think it’s a 5 star read!

I loved this book! The author takes you back in time to Anna's story and then to the present and Morgan's story. So many things are to be learned from the past, but how do you learn them when one person is gone?

Diane Chamberlain tells a fantastic story and takes you through the trials of each person's story. We learn about Anna and what happened in her life and how it affected what Morgan sees of what Anna left behind.

This is the first book from Diane Chamberlain that I have read, but it certainly won't be the last.

I really love mysteries that involve separate timelines, transversing history, especially ones that involve a mysterious object, such as a piece of art, an old manuscript or a journal. The struggle I often encounter though is that inexorably one timeline or central character ends up being more compelling than the other. Not so here – Diane Chamberlain has managed to pull off one of the most difficult tasks a writer can do, which is making each of her timelines and characters equally interesting, which made for a wonderful reading experience on my part. I found myself reading slower in order to be able to savour this book longer!

Morgan, who has been serving a jail sentence for a crime she did not commit, gets a chance at early release if she agrees to restore an old mural from 1939, which had been painted by a mysterious young artist called Anna Dale for display at the Edenton Post Office. As Morgan cleans the grime off the canvas she comes across some mysterious elements in the painting that leave her puzzled - what do they mean? Was the artist indeed as crazy as some people claim? And what has happened to Anna Dale, who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth after the completion of the painting in 1940? The mural itself never made it to its intended location on the post office wall, but ended up in the basement of a famous – recently deceased – artist, the very man who has asked for Morgan to restore it. The more Morgan invests in the restoration of the painting, the more she wonders about the girl who painted it.

In the second timeline we get to know a young and spirited Anna Dale, the creator of the mural. She arrives in Edenton a stranger, and will soon find out that the small Southern town holds some secrets and challenges she has been ill prepared for.

As I said previously, I really liked each of the female leads and very quickly became invested in their fates. I, too, was puzzled by the things Morgan discovered in the painting, and curious to find out their meaning, I was not quite prepared for the heart wrenching journey to get there! Chamberlain is obviously very familiar with her setting, as it literally sprang to life on the pages and felt very real to me, from its people to the abandoned warehouse Anna uses as her studio. Chamberlain addresses a lot of issues in her latest novel, including mental illness, racism, prejudice, trauma, small town politics etc, but manages to blend these seamlessly into her narrative without appearing to be preaching or hammering any of the messages home. Whilst the mystery of the painting is the centre of the story, this really is more a story about two young women living decades apart and connected by events outside their control. I was fully emotionally invested in this tale, even though I admit that the ending was just a tiny bit of a stretch for me.

All in all, BIG LIES IN A SMALL TOWN is an engaging historical mystery spanning two separate timelines connected by a mysterious piece of art. Featuring two interesting and strong female leads, each timeline was as compelling as the other, making this an enjoyable and unputdownable read for me. I really enjoyed Chamberlain’s writing, and have already added a few of her older books to my ever growing TBR pile.

I found this to be an interesting book overall. At times I was confused about which time period it was in at that point, but would recommend this book to everything

Round up to 4.5. Morgan Christopher is in jail for a crime she didn't commit when she is approached by a stranger with an appealing proposition: be released from prison immediately in exchange for restoring an old mural needed for an art gallery opening in a few short months.

Although Morgan dreams of a career in art, she knows nothing about art restoration. The promise of leaving prison is too appealing to turn down though, so she accepts and takes on the challenge. She still has questions as to how she was chosen for such a daunting task but decides to focus on her freedom and how her new life will look.

We are transported from 2018 to 1940, as we hear of how the mural was originally created by Anna Dale. Since the discovery of the state the mural is in when it is unveiled to Morgan is quite appalling, reading Anna's story is especially intriguing as we work to figure out what exactly happened. The mural was created to be hung in the local post office of Edenton, but was never released to the public. Why? What happened all those years ago, and why does the mural look the way it does?

This story grabs your attention, focusing not only on the mystery of the mural but also on the lives and decisions made by both Morgan in 2018 and Anna in 1940. Can our lives continue once we have made horrible mistakes?

Thank you to Net Galley for the advance reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have come to love Diane Chamberlain in the past few months and her new book is great. One point of view is from a young a woman is released from jail to restore a mural, yet she has no experience doing this and no idea why she was chosen. The other is from the 1940s where another young woman wins a national competition to paint a mural in an unknown southern town. You find yourself rooting for both characters and this was a quick, enjoyable read.

This is likely my favorite of Diane Chamberlain’s books. It was so well written and researched. I know nothing about art but it made me feel like I did. The storyline in both eras was griping. And I didn’t see the ending coming. Pieces of the puzzle I put together but not the ending. I could see this as a great movie and the graphics would be amazing.

This was a fantastic book! I loved it and I am grateful that I was given a chance to read it early by netgalley. Told in alternating times lines this is the story of Morgan, an art student who has been in jail due to her involvement in a horrific accident and Anna who is working on a mural in a small town in Carolina in the 1940's. They are both dealing with some intense situations and this author does a beautiful job weaving their stories together and an interesting way. Well written, I was pulled in from the start and found myself drawn to both of these women and their complex stories. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.