“Scalpel-sharp writing and a killer concept-dark, clever, compelling and utterly assured.” —Lucy Foley, author of The Guest List, a Hello Sunshine x Reese’s Book Club PickKeep the lights on—you’ll be turning pages deep into the night with this one.”—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Run AwayIt all started with just one little lie. But we all know that it never ends there. … with just one little lie. But we all know that it never ends there. Because, of course, one lie leads to another. . .
Growing up, Jane and Marnie shared everything. They knew the other’s deepest secrets. They wouldn’t have had it any other way. But when Marnie falls in love, things begin to change.
Because Jane has a secret: She loathes Marnie’s wealthy, priggish husband. So when Marnie asks if she likes him, Jane tells her first lie. After all, even best friends keep some things to themselves. If she had been honest, then perhaps her best friend’s husband might still be alive today. . .
Seven Lies is Jane’s confession of the truth—her truth. Compelling, sophisticated, chilling, it’s a seductive, hypnotic page-turner about the tangled, toxic friendships between women, the dark underbelly of obsession, and what we stand to lose in the name of love.
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Seven Lies is the author’s debut, and the story of the unique friendship of Jane and Marnie, told through the eyes of Jane.
Jane and Marnie have been besties since secondary school, but the friendship has had it’s inconsistancies. They’ve sworn to stay close. But life got in the way at times. There were demanding jobs, both women married and both were widowed by a young age.
Jane is the narrator, and the one more devoted to the friendship. Some might say she’s obsessed with Marnie. She’s the one who has told the seven lies, and she explains them along the way. Her husband was the first to die, in a freak accident, and she’s been claiming more of Marnie’s time ever since. And she does not like Marnie’s husband!
”Our friendship is no longer its own independent thing, but a skin tag, a protrusion that subsists within another love.”
Sincere thanks to Edelweiss, Penguin Audio, and Elizabeth Kay. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
My Rating: 3.5 ’s (rounding down)
Published: June 16th 2020 by Penguin Audio
Audio: 10 hours, 52 minutes
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After publication my reviews can be found at Amazon, Twitter, GoodReads, Barnes and Noble, BookBub, NetGalley, and Edelweiss
@PamelaDormanBks @edelweiss_squad
It was a decent story, but weird. Jane is one weird weird lady
I really liked this thriller narrated by a very unreliable woman. Even the parts that weren’t advancing the plot were addictive reading.
Seven Lies is a very different book. It is about 2 friends, Jane and Marnie. Jane is the narrator. I realize immediately that everything will be told from Jane’s perspective.
Right away I sensed that something was “off” about Jane. There is lots of sinister foreshadowing from the very beginning.
The narrative is as if Jane is talking directly to the reader. Much more narrative than dialogue, something that I’m not normally fond of. This time it works for me.
The whole book is the retelling of the seven lies that Jane told Marnie and her rationalization of them. We find out the circumstances for each lie. Even though Jane is a creepy character I admire her ability to keep her lies straight. Strangely enough, Jane also does a lot of interesting philosophical thinking.
Interesting book though it might be too dark for some. The ending was a bit of a letdown.
In this psychological thriller, we meet the narrator, Jane Black, who considers herself dark and flawed. When she meets Marnie, they are opposites – Marnie’s lightness to Jane’s darkness. When. many years later, Marnie marries Charles, a narcissistic oaf, things between Marnie and Jane change. They are no longer inseparable, they no longer tell each other everything and maybe they never did. Jane knows what’s happening but can’t stop it. When Marnie asks Jane whether she likes Charles, if he’s a good man, Jane lies to her and says yes she likes him because not to do so would mean losing Marnie’s friendship. It is the first lie Jane tells Marnie, but not the last.
This book is one of those that you’ll either love or be indifferent to. Since it is told in the first person by Jane, we only have access to the workings of Jane’s mind. For instance, we get a sense that there’s something wrong between Charles and Marnie, but since we only have Jane’s point of view, we can’t know whether it is true or just Jane wanting it to be true.
This book has garnered lots of praise, including a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly magazine. However, this was not my cup of tea. I enjoy first-person points of view, but this was … too dense (for lack of a better more accurate word). There’s nothing I can put a finger on to share why I disliked the book, but I found it lacking.
My thanks to Viking and Edelweiss for an eARC.
Obsession, lies and more lies and a touch of murder are at the center of Seven Lies.
Jane and Marnie are life long friends in fact they are inseparable but as life changes so does their relationship.
Jane is having none of that !
One lie becomes seven .
Things are not going to end well , you can just see that coming.
I wont give anything else away . It is a dark story that somehow you keep wanting to see how things turn out for the friends.
The pages turn quickly, twists and turns and an ending I didn’t see coming.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada, Viking for giving me the opportunity to read Seven Lies.
Well friends get ready for a review from an outlier regarding this book. I’m giving it two stars for actually having a psychopath in the story and it did make me turn the pages. Definition of a psychopath in case you are interested :
“Common signs of psychopathy
socially irresponsible behavior.
disregarding or violating the rights of others.
inability to distinguish between right and wrong.
difficulty with showing remorse or empathy.
tendency to lie often.
manipulating and hurting others.
recurring problems with the law.
http://www.healthline.com › health › psychopathy”
This is a story of Jane, who is obsessed with her best friend Marnie. They have been friends since childhood, always together, always doing the same things, often wearing the same clothes. Jane is always described as the dark one, seldom happy, twisted thinking, prefers solitude or her best friend. Marnie is the opposite, light hearted, happy, loves to be around people.
The beginning of the novel is told from the first person point of view as Jane recounts her childhood spent with her best friend, Marnie. Soon the story is told in what I would call “stream of consciousness” as it’s Jane telling us the story as she is thinking about what has happened, she is talking to us. She is admitting all of the lies that she has told, her darkest thoughts and imaginings.
The beginning grabbed my attention because I had no idea where this was going. The two are great friends until Charles enters Marnie’s life. Jane totally dislikes Charles, how he looks, how he dresses, how he commands an audience, everything about him. Mostly she hates that Marnie loves him and marries him. She feels left out of the love that she has always counted on from Marnie.
Marnie seems as though she doesn’t have a lot of intuition into what is happening around her. Jane really has given her signs that she isn’t happy with being left out of anything that Marnie does, but Marnie seems oblivious to these signs or chooses to ignore them and hope things will get better.
When the crime in the novel is committed I thought that the story would take off. For me, it didn’t. There were just pages and pages afterwards of Jane’s thoughts. There is one interesting twist with a journalist who works for a small print newspaper. She has followed the story of the two women, their intense friendship, their losses and all that has happened. She isn’t convinced that all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. She is the only snag in the lies that Jane has told as she continues to contact Jane and Marnie to see if she can “trip up” one or the other and reveal a more sinister story. We get a bit of a side story about the journalist, who becomes a dancer, but then . . . .that thread just drops away as does the journalist finally.
I was hoping for an ending that would bump this book up to at least a 3* but the ending was completely unsatisfying. There is no justice, no punishment, just a continuation of Jane and Marian’s story four years later.
I can’t recommend this book, it seemed shallow to me. The only character that we really understand is Jane, the others aren’t well defined. Jane’s sister Emma and her mother make cameo appearances but I don’t think really added to the story but did describe more of Jane’s twisted thoughts and feelings.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.
This novel is set to publish on June 16, 2020