Daisy and Simon’s marriage isn’t what it seems… And their happy little family of three will never be the same again.
In Lies, Lies, Lies, #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Adele Parks explores the darkest corners of a relationship in free fall in a mesmerizing tale of marriage and secrets.
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Lies, Lies, Lies by Adele Parks is a domestic noir/psychological thriller that managed to surprise me with several plot twists. I have not had an easy time with this genre lately and been in a slump, but I was pleasantly surprised with this story.
Daisy and Simon were married young along with their circle of friends. While their friends started having families, Daisy and Simon had difficulty getting pregnant. Finally, after years of trying they were blessed with a beautiful baby girl they named Millie.
Their family of three was perfect in every way, so when Millie turned five-years-old, Simon asked Daisy if they could try for another child. Daisy does not want another child, but she will not tell Simon why. Simon’s drinking has been a problem and it is only getting worse. As they argue on their way home from a party with friends where Simon has once again been drinking and out of control, they are in an auto accident that will change the happy little family of three forever.
This is a tale of a marriage that has each partner keeping secrets that lead to lies that ultimately poison the relationship and after a tragedy, the marriage implodes. Ms. Parks does an excellent job of keeping the reader engaged with plot twists that can completely change their perspectives. I feel she also does an excellent job of describing the fall from functional alcoholic to nonfunctioning. Yes, most of the problems, except for Simon’s alcoholism could have been solved if they just told the truth as problems occurred, but that does not happen until “The End”.
I recommend this domestic noir/psychological thriller.
This book has a lot of twists and turns. Every time I thought I knew exactly what was happening between the characters I was surprised. My favorite part of the story was what happens at the ending. I was very surprised by the ending. Parts of this can be difficult to read because of the content but it is handled well. I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.
A book with this title is a must read for me. Give me those lies, tell me those secrets, lead me on a journey full of surprises!
Lies, Lies, Lies by Adele Parks is my first book of hers but it’s not going to be my last.
This book is a delicious read. It’s one that moves along at a deceptive pace and hits hard in a lot of unexpected places.
From the very first page you are drawn into Daisy’s life – you can’t help yourself but feel for her, even though you’re not entirely sure why. The more you discover, the more invested you become at wanting to make sure she is safe, even if you have a hard time understanding some of her decisions.
The more you learn, the more twisted the story becomes. I fell in love with the writing, with how the author hid every single secret in plain sight and yet, I was still blind to them. I thought I understood this book, I thought I had the plot figured out…and I was wrong.
There are a few scenes that are tough to read but I found myself feeling so proud of the author for not shying away from the horrific truths, even when it left me squirrelling in my seat.
So many twists and turns – truly gripping.
Kind of slow getting to the story. Wordy, pretentious monologue, repeats information a lot. But great descriptions of Boulder, CO. I liked the characters of the two children.
I found the overall plot to be average, with familiar storylines as other domestic thrillers. However, the book flowed smoothly and quickly enough to hold my interest. The twists were well placed throughout the book and I found myself curious if my prediction of the end was on point or if there was a twist I hadn’t seen coming.
I liked the book a lot, the plot was interesting and took different turns. I figured out the main plot point quick, but that didnt make the book any less entertaining. The characters were well written. Overall a good read.
A best-seller? Really? The twists in the plot are timed to maintain reader interest and are not realistic changes in the characters lives. You must endure looong sections of a character’s ruminations and thoughts, all based on their believing something untrue, again to try to set up for the surprise. All manipulative.
Adele Parks is the queen of the domestic dark side.
Boom! What a book! Layers of intrigue and characters I want to spend a lifetime with.
Brilliantly twisty and makes for a thrilling, unputdownable read.
Often when fiction portrays an ugly truth, such as alcoholism or the devastation of a terrible accident, it is hard to read. Yet, truth is what readers purport to want. That in your face truth is evident here.
The same this occurring day after day is what happens with alcoholism. Adele Parks’ courageously portrayed that here, even at the risk of this section of the book being called boring or repetitive.
The characters are flawed and unlikeable. Their redeeming qualities are not discovered until later in the book. Giving up on them instead of seeing them through to the end is presuming that having an unlikeable trait makes one unworthy. I certainly hope that is not the case. Give these people a chance to show that what appears on the surface may not be what is hiding under the surface.
This book is dark and disturbing. However, it does it well. You will not like Simon or Daisy but will come to respect their story.
I received an ARC from Harlequin MIRA through NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book. I am voluntarily submitting this review and am under no obligation to do so.
Very dark in places. Not sure all of the scenes were totally necessary – do we need a “bad guy” to kill a kitten when we’ve already got his measure? I despaired of Daisy at times. Why would she put up with all that? Pity about the ending. It was all a bit too convenient. Surely this would have come out during one of Daisy’s chapters. I was gripped, though. I enjoy this author’s style and I would recommend the story to anyone who likes a domestic thriller, provided they’re less picky than me.
Lies, Lies, Lies is a very good thriller. It is told by Daisy and Simon who are married with a young daughter. How well do you know your friends and what happens behind closed doors? Simon is an alcoholic. Daisy and Simon are trying for a second baby and the disappointment leads Simon into a spiral. When their world blows up, can their marriage survive all the lies? I enjoyed this book and all the twists and turns. I received an advanced readers copy an all opinions are my own.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I thought that the overall plot was decent, and there was a good theme throughout. The first third was straightforward and drew me in. There was a growing layer of tension. The middle of the book really dragged with long periods of introspection, inner monologues, and copious details. The last third was okay, but I didn’t feel that it lived up to the promise of the first section. I had hoped for a better payoff in the end. Others may have a completely different take on it, but it was just ok. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for a digital copy of the book.
We meet Simon and Daisy who had been married for a while and were desperate for a child.
They finally conceived, but when they try for a second child, Simon finds out that he is sterile. Is Millie not his child? Did Daisy have an affair?
All these questions and insecurities have Simon drinking more and being absent more. It also has him lying more than usual. Will Daisy start to lie too?
Friends begin to notice his drinking and his and Daisy’s marriage getting rocky so a friend suggests they renew their vows at a shared party since they both have the same anniversary.
Was this party the biggest mistake of their lives? As it turns out what happened after the party was the biggest mistake ever.
LIES, LIES, LIES was very slow moving until the party and then secrets started popping up.
If you can make your way through the slow buildup, LIES, LIES, LIES gets better, but it still dragged for me and didn’t have me anxious to get back to reading.
The characters are pretty much unlikable because of their habits, the way a few of them betray friends, and because of their secrets.
Do we really know who’s lying? Do the characters really know what is the truth and what isn’t?
Be aware there is domestic violence and alcohol abuse in this book. 3/5
This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I love me a good domestic thriller with secrets between husbands and wives… no secrets here so I get them all in my books… and Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks was a doozy. I found the story to be quickly gripping. At first, I thought all the secrets were in Simon’s court but it turns out, Daisy is hiding the mother of all secrets! I really liked Simon and Daisy together. They tried for nearly a decade to have a baby… not just mandatory sex days but they did some very invasive IVF treatments. They did all the testing. They both found out they had some issues that would give them some difficulties reproducing. Let me tell ya, there’s not many things that I can think of that’s as emotionally draining as trying to conceive for years and not being able to. You feel like your body is fighting against you, it deceives you.
So the deception mostly circles around the child that everyone wants to parent. There are secrets and more secrets just circling around like sharks in the water closing in on a bleeding seal. I’ll be completely honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to love this story or not. The characters aren’t exactly likeable. Really, think I like maybe one of them at a time. Even though I didn’t like the characters, I was interested in the story. If you’ve ever dealt with infertility than you’ll know it’s a killer on your heart, on your soul and having to handle your spouse’s feelings too is super hard. So… yeah, this is a hard one. There are tough topics here but Adele Parks handles them with kid gloves. She seems to be really aware of the fact that she’s writing about touchy subjects.
I received an ARC of this book with the hope that I would leave an Unbiased Opinion. I was not required to leave a review, positive or otherwise, and my opinions are just that… my opinions.
Simon and Daisy struggled most of their marriage to have a child. Then along comes sweet, little Millie. But all is not as rosy as it seems. Simon drinks way too much. And all it takes is one night for everything to fall apart.
Daisy is a character I just wanted to shake! Shake some sense into her! And don’t even get me started on Simon.
I really was not a huge fan of this book. But do not judge it by my opinion…it is an opinion. I was not a fan of the characters. They really were unlikeable. It is also very slow at the start of this read. Took too long to get to any action. And when it came down to the part about the cat, that just about did me in!
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
This domestic noir starts off as something of a family drama, with Daisy and Simon struggling to hold their marriage together in the face of failure to conceive a second child and Simon’s drinking causing increasing problems between them. It steadily gets messier and darker, with lies by all the major parties slowly being exposed and twisting a tangled web ever tighter.
There are some significant trigger warnings required here, including rape, sexual violence, serious injury to a child, mental abuse, coercion, alcoholism, infertility, animal abuse and more. The story is told in alternating point of view between Simon and Daisy, and although we start off with Simon as a child and see that from the very beginning he really had no chance in winning a battle against alcohol, it’s utterly impossible to like or feel sympathy for him as he put Daisy through absolute hell because of his alcoholism.
It’s also obvious from early on that Daisy is hiding something fairly serious – I guessed it correctly, but the reveal was still shocking, and there was a twist at the end which I didn’t see coming and which answered my question of why didn’t she do anything at the time? I won’t give it away; she did something wrong in a fairly small way, but there would have been extremely serious consequences for innocent parties if she’d done what was right for her, so she kept her mouth shut… and paid the price.
This is also a story of friendships and how they endure and change over the years, and how some friends turn out to be better than you ever imagined when the crunch comes. Daisy was a pretty terrible friend, judgy and resentful when she and Simon were judged in turn, but she had some seriously awesome friends who stuck by her through it all.
Was the final resolution satisfying? Yes… though I’m not sure it was entirely fair, especially not to Millie, Simon and Daisy’s daughter who was the one who ended up paying a high price for both of their poor decisions. Millie’s the real victim here, the one for whom I had the greatest sympathy.
If you like domestic noir stories, you’ll enjoy this, but I’m not sure it could really be called a thriller of any sort; it’s a bit too slow for that even though it does eventually build to some pretty shocking revelations and events. There’s a lot of stuff especially in the first third which felt tedious and mundane, I suppose to try and create contrast with what happened later, but I think it dragged on too long. Overall an enjoyable read though, and I’ll give it four stars.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.
This book might be better titled “Secrets, Secrets, Secrets”, as the two main characters, couple Daisy and Simon, seem to withhold pretty important information from each other. I suppose the next recourse to that then leads to the Lies, Lies, Lies. And there are plenty of them. Mix well-intended friends with Simon’s addiction to alcohol, and add in new information about their daughter Millie, and we’ve got a perfect storm.
The story is told from the points of both Daisy and Simon. I struggled a bit this as Daisy is in a first-person POV, while Simon is told through the third person. I suppose that drew me into Daisy’s side more, but that felt like a given. Especially as we witness Simon’s behavior. When the story opens he is pushing Daisy to see a fertility doctor when she’s clearly stated she’s not sure she wants another child. This activity is pivotal in what they go through over the following months. This leads to his disease (alcoholism), taking over their lives and leads to a cataclysmic event that forever changes and forces both Daisy and Simonto to tell the truth.
While the first third of the book is all set up, getting to know Daisy, Simon, Millie, and their friends. It’s in the rest of the story is where their lives are unraveled. Daisy will be confronted by the worst kind of man and this is where her secrets pile up and force her down a path that is truly frightening, something that is hard to contemplate. But she’s lost some control over her life. It’s hard going for her and while she’s not ready to forgive Simon, she less than ready for what she is confronted with. At this point, we start to see a new side to Simon. He really starts to examine his addiction, his behavior and recognizes that the struggle that never goes away. I started to feel very sorry for him as well.
I think Adele Parks does a great job developing the characters and the plot kept me very invested in the outcome. I started to feel anxious about it was going and I ended up reading the last two-thirds of the book in one fell swoop. I recommend this book to any reader of domestic suspense. 4 Stars!