Review: Never Tell a Lie

Title: Never Tell a Lie
Author: Hallie Ephron
Pages: 288
Rating: 4/5

It all started with the yard sale. Ivy was eight months and one week pregnant when she insisted that she and her husband, David, clean out the junk they'd inherited with the old Victorian house they'd bought three years before. Call it nesting, call it nerves—she just wanted it all gone: the old electrical fixtures, the boxes of National Geographics from the 1960s, the four black wool greatcoats.

Neither she nor David recognized the woman at first. But it turned out that the customer asking about the lime-green glass swan dish—the woman who looks just about as pregnant as Ivy—was none other than Melinda White, a former high school classmate of David and Ivy's. When Melinda was a child she used to play in their new house, she explained. It looked like they'd been doing some work. Would it be all right if she took a look around? David took Melinda inside. And she never came out.

Now David's under police suspicion, and Ivy finds herself digging deep into the past to clear his name. But David's history, she begins to discover, is not necessarily the history she remembers, and before long Ivy has uncovered a twisted web of deceit, betrayal, and lies, both the ones we tell those we love and the ones we tell ourselves. . . .

Relentlessly fast-paced and disturbingly creepy, Never Tell a Lie is a page-turning thrill ride about how well we know the people we love, and how far we are willing to go to protect the secrets of our past (Cover Blurb).

I heard about this book when J. Kaye reviewed it for her blog and immediately wanted to read it. I'm not a huge fan of thrillers (I used to be and think I burned myself out reading them one after another) but this really sounded good. I was planning on getting it from the library or waiting for it to come out in paperback when I stumbled upon the website BookSwim. Its an awesome website where they loan you books and then you send them back for free (like a Netflix but with books). Well of course I had to try it out and Never Tell a Lie was in my first book package that I received on Tuesday.

I had hit a brick wall with my reading, and hadn't even picked up a single book all weekend, so I was super excited when my books arrived. I started this book late Tuesday night and quickly flew through the first 100 pages. I really enjoyed this book and the writing style of the author. The characters were well developed and believable. I really liked Ivy, the main character of the story, and pushed for her to overcome the evils of the story the entire time.

The reason I only gave the book a 4 rating is because I had it figured out by the first 100 pages. It was slightly predictable, but still rather enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it to other readers who are looking for a fast paced, quick read.