Amy Lloyd | ONE MORE LIE

Plot (via Goodreads):

Charlotte wants to start fresh. She wants to forget her past, forget prison and, most of all, forget Sean. But old habits die hard. Despite the ankle monitor she must wear as part of her parole agreement and frequent visits to her therapist, she soon finds herself sliding back toward the type of behavior that sent her to prison in the first place. The further down that path she goes, however, the closer she gets to the crime that put her in prison all those years ago. And that's the one memory she can't face. Until, one day, Sean tracks her down.

Review:

When I read Lloyd's previous novel, I found it to be all kinds of twisty fun and was blown away with her ability to take a complex plot and build it into such a masterful story with no character you could feel you should trust. When One More Lie was announced, I just knew I had to see what other tricks Lloyd had up her sleeve. 

The plot to this one is mysterious, intriguing, and beguiling. Told in multiple smaller chapters, it's an easy book to binge on and one that remains a mystery for most of the novel. I enjoyed the chapters from Charlotte's perspective, both past and present. I felt that they really intrigued me as a reader and only offered me breadcrumbs at a time to keep me invested in the story. While she was definitely someone who was not 100% innocent, I knew there was much more to the story than she was admitting to both herself and the other characters. Unfortunately, I felt the pacing slowed down with Sean's perspective because I just knew that basically he wanted to see Charlotte and felt most of his chapters revolved around drug use and being a menace to society. Charlotte was definitely a mysterious character to read about, so there were some elements where I enjoyed Sean's perspective on how he thought of her. 

I loved the way that Lloyd almost gave us two characters in one with both Sean and Charlotte and how the reader was able to experience both them as children and adults after this heinous crime that we knew little about. My only drawback with this one was that I felt that I wasn't getting enough information to fully invest me in the story and found myself on cruise control, waiting for more detail as to what happened when they were children. The last 50 pages or so really amped up on the suspense and this one definitely had an ending that was satisfying, chilling, and left little to the imagination when it comes to details. 

Special thanks to Hanover Square Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 3/5