Each time I read a book by Diane Chamberlain, I think it is the best she has written. This novel is now my favorite and her best ever!
This is an amazing dual timeline where two young ladies seventy years apart work on a mural for a small town in North Carolina. One creating and the other restoring so many years later. Their backgrounds are unique; but the
similarities in Morgan and Anna are uncanny as we weave our way through the pages learning of their personalities, traits and talents.
The depth of this story made me take my time reading. I needed to fully immerse myself in this plot and then pause to think about it.
A mystery, suspense and a beautiful tale of friendship, second chances and love that will have you glued to each page!
"You have to make peace with the past or you can never move into the future."
I absolutely recommend "Big Lies in a Small Town".
It is perfect!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to.

One of the best parts of reading is finding a book that shows and teaches you something new. This lyrical and evocative book brings to the reader the world of art: painting, the creation of a mural, and the field of art restoration. I so enjoyed learning how artists think and create. And even, more I was swept away by the powerful story of Anna Dale and Morgan Christopher.

The story is based on a New Deal Public Works of Art Project called the 48 State Mural Competition. During the Depression, artists competed to paint a mural for a post office, one in each of the 48 states. This book has a dual timeline, and we meet artist Anna Dale in 1939. She has been chosen as an artist and assigned to create a mural for the post office in the small town of Edenton, North Carolina. She is young and talented, but grew up New Jersey, and is thus a “furriner” when she comes to the south to create her mural.

Morgan Christopher tells us her story in the present day. She is also a young adult, and she wants to be an artist, although her life has fallen off the rails. She comes to Edenton at the behest of a famous African American artist, Jesse Williams, for a mysterious reason. What is striking about the beginning of story, is that Anna and Morgan lived such parallel lives. We see Anna walking down the Main Street of Edenton in 1939, filled with hope and concern, and then we see Morgan walking the same streets with equal problems. We learn how Anna created her her mural, how she researched to chose the images she would paint, and the fascinating way that a large mural is created. We also see how Morgan learned to restore the same mural almost 80 years later.

In addition to the main characters, many other wonderful people inhabit this book. The townspeople of both eras, some delightful, some hideous, some caring and some crude, are all well-drawn and compelling to read about. Like a painting, there are many layers and shades of mystery in this book and I know you will find it hard to stop reading. There are also layers of issues that are interesting to read about from a perspective of 1939 and the present: race relations, abuse, and mental illness.

But most of all, this is a book about restoration: of the mural, but also the lives of Anna and Morgan. Sometimes it’s a big event, some times an act of bravery, and sometimes it’s love, but lives can be restored.

I highly recommend this book. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a digital review copy. This is my honest review.

Diane Chamberlain is one of my favorite authors and her new book is an interesting story from two different time periods, 80 years apart. This is a book about 2 different women who separately have compelling storylines that keep you fully engaged throughout the book. Art restoration and race relations play important roles in this story set in a small town in North Carolina. The author demonstrates her excellent writing style as she navigates us through 1939 and 2018, alternating between the stories of these two women while never letting us lose interest. The ending perfectly draws the two storylines together for a satisfying conclusion. #BigLiesInASmallTown
#DianeChamberlain #NetGalley

This is only the second novel that I have read by Ms. Chamberlain. This book is quite different from “The Dream Daughter” which involved time travel and a woman’s decision about the fate of her unborn child. What this book shares with the previous book that I read is a dual timeline once again and strong character development. I would classify this more as a mystery with a very unique story. I found the flow to be wonderful and it was easy to move from one timeline to another, I really enjoyed it.

We first meet Morgan Christopher as she is serving a sentence for a crime that she didn’t actually commit, in Raleigh, North Caroline, but I will leave you to discover the details of that crime, it is 2018.

What happens next sets us up for the entire story. Two women, one the daughter of a famous painter, Jesse Jameson, named Lisa, and her attorney, Andrea Fuller. They have a proposition for Morgan. They want her to restore a mural that had been painted for a post office and has been hidden in Jesse’s home and now is a pivotal issue in the details of his will as he has recently passed away. There are strict guidelines and dates for when the mural must be restored and placed in a new gallery and he wanted Morgan Christopher to do the restoration. We don’t know how or why he insisted that Morgan do the work at this point. Even though she has never done any work of this type she was an art student for 3 years and or course wants to be released from prison. We will follow Morgan as she lives with Lisa and proceeds to restore the mural which is badly damaged and so grimy they can hardly make out the scene it depicts.

In the other timeline we are introduced to Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey who has won a contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina, it is 1939. She was not actually expecting to win the contest so she drives there to see what the area and the people there are like. She finds the “south” to still be small minded with lots of racial prejudice and ideas of where a woman should be at home! They are unhappy that a local man, Martin Drapple, didn’t win the contest and we will find out just how many obstacles that Anna has to face in proceeding to paint the mural. We are also left with the question of what happened to Anna? Why wasn’t the mural ever installed?

Without giving away any more of the plot I can tell you that this book has strong, competent and complicated women who “rise to the occasion” and many issues will be addressed including, racism, abusive family situations, mental illness, injustice and the deeply seated prejudices of the town. There are other strong characters in the book which are all believable and I cared about the outcome of the story.

I can highly recommend this book. I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Netgalley. It is set to publish on January 14, 2020.

Will post review on Amazon upon publication.

Enjoyable read
well developed characters
very interesting story

Will definitely recommend and hand sell this title!

I've become a huge fan of DIane Chamberlain over the years, ever since I read one of her books for my Book Club. She has such a raw talent for creating this real characters and putting them in real situations.
Big Lies in a Small Town wasn't much different, my only fusteration was the ending!! I'll get to that.

So Morgan Christopher has been in jail for a DUI and she is up for parole. Surprisingly she is granted parole in order to work for Lisa Williams. Lisa, just happens to be the daughter of the world reowned artist Jesse Williams who has recently passed. Morgan is presented with a opportunity. Restore a old Mural to be hung in a art gallery that Jesse Williams has requested be open by August 5th. In exchange for her commitment to the restoration, she will be released from prison, given room and board, and a payment of 50K as long as the mural is completed in time for the Gallery's opening. Sounds easy enough, exception that while Morgan was an art student, she has zero experience with how to restore a painting.

Anna Dale is a gifted artist who won the opportunity to create a mural that will be hung on a Post Office Wall in Edenton NC. It is the 1940s where a woman beating a man in creating anything is virtually unheard of. Anna hails from NJ where racism is not as obvious as it is in the south in the 40s. So when she's asked to allow a young Jesse Williams to help assist with the creation of the mural, she doesn't think twice about it.

The story is told in two time lines. Current timeline is Morgan and how she comes to fall in love with the mural (which actually turns out to have some pretty disturbing images in it) and also becomes invested in the mystery of what happened to Anna Dale who all but disappeared. The story was she went mad and that was evident from her mural, but Morgan doesn't believe that. As she works to restore the mural, she also sets out to find out what happened to Anna.

Anna's mural wasn't originally planned to be as disturbing as it became. She was a young girl, all of 22 years old who up and left NJ to move into Edenton to get to know the town, its people and paint a mural that will capture the heart of the town. She is met with some resistance. A local artist Martin Drapper, was also considered to paint the mural, but he lost out to Anna, so of course Anna is met with a lot of restistance. But then the unthinkable happens that changes the course of Anna's life.

There is just enough mystery in the book to keep you hooked but not to make it a Thriller, but rather a great work of fiction.

Thanks to netgalley for providing this arc! I started reading this book and easily fell into Diane Chamberlain's writing as it was my first read from her. I was really loving the book until the last quarter of the book. The ending was very anticlimactic and rushed. But I did love her writing and will probably read more oh her books in the future.

5 ☆ Loved it! Big Lies in a Small Town is a fabulous intriguing book chocked full of mystery that I quickly became invested in - exposing all its juicy little secrets the further I read. And believe me, there’s plenty of them in the small N. Carolina town of Edenton. Very good, highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

OMG I can’t tell you how excited I was to read this book. Diane Chamberlain is one of my new found favorite authors. I have been reading some really difficult books about WWII and concentration camps so I was looking forward to her uplifting style of writing. This book did not disappoint. Without giving too much away there was crime, drama, race issues and of course love. Just like all of her other books it makes me want to visit the town it was set in because I feel like I know it. The only downside is that it needed!

Diane Chamberlain writes books that are easy to get into. Big Lies in a Small Town had me captivated by the first page. The dual times were well done and skillfully revealed the story. There is an ugly and violent part, but it is not graphic. I felt that the 1940 parts were better than the 2018 parts. The modern characters felt flatter and less interesting. It seemed like there would be a Big mystery revealed, but there really wasn’t. I still found this story enjoyable and interesting to read.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much to Diane Chamberlain, Netgalley and the publisher (St. Martin's Press) for an Advanced Reader Copy for an honest review.

Diane Chamberlain is one of my favorite authors, and once again she delivered with her new book, Big Lies In a Small Town. While I don't normally like to read about art, this book held my attention from the first page to the spell-blinding last sentence.

She did an amazing job of helping the reader understand the job of restoration and actually took us back to the past a bit especially when it comes to restoring the mural for the post office.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a 5 star book, and once again, I loved every minute of it.

I absolutely loved this book! I was invested in each of the characters and their journey. The women were both so strong but didn’t believe in themselves, only to find that strength through tragedy.

The supporting characters were beautifully scripted and gave you a great sense of their family and purpose.

Without giving too much away, the ending was surprising and as I read every word (some I had to go back and re-read to make sure It was accurate and did I just read that?!! ) I was touched and had goosebumps as the stories merged together. I will be thinking this story for months. . Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Another great book by Diane Chamberlain. This is part mystery, part love story. A young girl is given a second chance at life, and in doing so she makes many discoveries about herself, and about the people that came before her . Great storyline, great well-developed characters throughout this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it to my friends and family. Thank you so much for my advance copy, as always I will look forward to more books by this author.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.You can receive your copy here on January 14th, 2020, but reserve your copy here:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TBW8RLR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1  


Have you ever hoped that someone would come to you with an offer that you could not refuse? Sometimes when we are young, we do not make the best of decisions and we also have to live with the repercussions of the fallout of said decisions. What if someone could essentially wipe your slate clean and you could start over?We start this book with Morgan in jail getting an unknown visitor. This unknown woman offers her a way out of jail, but as we all know everything has a price. Morgan is a huge art fan and she is propositioned with something involving artist, Jesse Jameson Williams. A get out of jail free card by a dead artist, what is the catch? Is there one? Well, we shall soon find out in this exhilarating book by Diane Chamberlain. She never disappoints in her books. I am always left wanting more with her books.Morgan has to restore a mural by Depression-era artist, Anna Dale. Morgan was arrested before she finished college and knows nothing about restoring art. Morgan does some research, enlists some help of some young artists. A death leads to uncovering a secret that is unthinkable. We discover many things about Anna Dale's life that I never saw coming. The last 2% had so much shocking news to it. This book left me wanting more Diane Chamberlain! Reading about the shocking events that took place in this book had me OMGing, yelling at this book and had me cancelling or should I say rearranging my plans. I read this book while my car was being worked on, the guy came out and apologized many times of how long it was taking and I just dismissed him, oh do not worry about it. I loved this book and I am so honored to have received this ARC!

I received an ARC of this awesome book. It is a tale of taking responsibility and second chances with some romance on the side. I loved this story and was kept guessing until the end. A very fast and satisfying read!

I absolutely loved this book. At spots the storyline seemed a bit weak, however that did not affect a quality of the written piece. The characters are memorable and the setting well described. I feel everyone who enjoys a well written book ought to read this.

I can not even begin to explain what a great book this is. I normally am not a big fan of books that go back and forth between the present and the past, but this was exceptional. I loved the way the author intertwined the present and the past making an intriguing story that was hard to put down.

I did not want to put this book down. Such a captivating set of intriguing mysteries, I was eager to find out what happened to both Anna and Morgan. I liked the ending except I could’ve used just one more chapter... open the door, go inside... and then what happens?? Definitely recommend, I may try to recommend this for our book club next year.

Gosh, I loved this book. I loved the flow from 1940 to present day. I loved the characters. I loved the mystery of the painting and the artist and I loved the redemption in the end. Great book!