Hey everyone,

This is not a Challenge 2020 read, this is my FIRST EVER Netgalley book review!

What is Netgalley you ask? Netgalley is something I’ve recently joined for free and is a website distributing digital proofs of books, many of which are yet to be published. When you see a book you like the sound of you can request a copy. You then wait for an email to either say ‘you’ve been unsuccessful’ or ‘congratulations here’s your copy’ after that you read the book and post the review on Netgalley and your blog and then publish your review on Amazon on the release day. Exciting stuff right?

My very first Netgalley book review is for To Tell You The Truth – Gilly Macmillan. Here’s the blurb:

“Lucy Harper has a talent for invention…

She was nine years old when her brother vanished in the woods near home. As the only witness, Lucy’s story of that night became crucial to the police investigation. Thirty years on, her brother’s whereabouts are still unknown. 

Now Lucy is a bestselling thriller writer. Her talent for invention has given her fame, fortune, and an army of adoring fans. But her husband, Dan, has started keeping secrets of his own, and a sudden change of scene forces Lucy to confront some dark, unwelcome memories. Then Dan goes missing and Lucy’s past and present begin to collide. Did she kill her husband? Would she remember if she did?

Finally, Lucy Harper is going to tell us the truth.

Cross her heart. 
And hope to die.“

Sounds intriguing right? Check out my review below:

“My dreams had been horrible, the kind that taunt you, torment you, wring every bead of sanity out of you…”

This is the tale of Lucy. She is an award winning author with her detective novels with a female detective, Detective Sergeant Eliza Grey as her main character.

“I could find beauty in surprising things. You have to when violence reverberates through your work.”

What her readers don’t realise, is Eliza is Lucy’s imaginary friend and been with her since childhood.

“…it is impossible to separate truth from fiction.”

Lucy is married to Dan, once a keen author now her biggest supporter of her work and helps ensure that everything is kept up together.

“Your soul is your own…no matter what you say or do. You and it are answerable only to one another. It is both your conscience and your essence.”

When Dan surprises Lucy with a house, you’d think it’d be any girls dream but this house is on Charlotte Close, a road Lucy had vowed never to return too and Dan knew this.

” After all, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that not all surprises are good ones. Especially when you’re keeping a secret yourself.”

What is he playing at?

“I had the horrible feeling that I had become a pawn in a game…”

When Dan doesn’t return home and the police discover his car burnt out at the side of the road, the question is not missing person any more…it’s homicide; Lucy is the prime suspect.

“How could I trust anyone else when I couldn’t even trust myself?”

Things get worse when her past starts coming back to haunt her and when both her brother’s disappearance and her husbands murder collide, she realises there is a link.

“It’s because she’s a fibber. Always has been, always will be.”

When her husbands demons start creeping out of the closet, its time for Lucy to start using her own detective skills.

“…my husband had believed me to be a monster.”

But where is her brother Teddy? Who killed Dan?

“Fiction isn’t just about what you find in books, it’s the lies we tell ourselves. They can be sturdy lies we use as scaffolding, lifes with an abrasive edge to scour our consciences clean, lies that settle over things we’d rather not see like a pure drift of snow. There are many other permutations, but whatever form they take these are lies that we love and loathe.
‘The only way to avoid creating your own fiction is not to think at all.” The Truth – Lucy Harper

This is a book written in two settings – one is Lucy and Dan, the other is from Lucy’s past when Teddy went missing. It really helps as they bring the story together.

I’ll be honest, to begin with the story didn’t grip me like I was expecting it too, I found it quite easy to pick up and put down. But once Dan went missing I was hooked and couldn’t put it down! There is still a missing piece, an unanswered question in the book but there are definitely arrows pointing in certain directions so we, the readers, can come to our own conclusions. 3.5/5 stars for me because it definitely got better!

Find it on Amazon from June 25th!

Until next time,

Keep reading,

D x