Liza Jones wrote a bestselling thriller. Many years ago. She's written other books since then, but they've gotten put on increasingly lower shelves, with increasingly lower sales. Feeling like she's heading from heartbreaking news from her editor, she tries one more time to recapture her magic. She decides to write her next novel in 30 days. And as if that's not enough pressure, she and her husband are trying to conceive, and she's in the middle of an experimental treatment to boost her fertility.
Not only that, but her husband David is an attorney, and his partner Jake has gone missing. It's been about a month, and Jake hasn't been seen anywhere. David is struggling to carry Jake's caseload as well as his own while doing everything he can to help find his friend and business partner.
As Liza works on her book, attends a writer's conference, and deals with the attending moodiness and migraines associated with her fertility treatments, cracks start to show. The lines start to blur between her novel and her life, as her main character starts to act out in ways that are more fact than fiction. Once those lines get crossed, how much of Liza's novel is true and how much is not?
Cate Holahan's Lies She Told is a study of pressure. One writer is working under extreme pressure, skipping sleep, taking experimental hormone treatments. Her husband is barely around, working desperate hours and worrying for his friend and for his business. As time passes, and the pressure intensifies, Liza becomes a ticking bomb.
The novel is told in alternating chapters. There is a chapter of Liza in her real life, and then a chapter of her novel, where a new mother suspects her husband of cheating on her and she ends up killing the mistress. The interchange makes for an interesting framework for that increasing pressure and for the consequences of Liza's actions on the page and in real life. Holahan's novel is a fascinating look at what we're all capable of and how we deal with the reality of our actions. Great grip lit for fall!
Galleys for Lies She Told were provided by Crooked Lane Books through NetGalley.com, with many thanks.