Book review: The Lies You Told Me by Jessica Ruston

When Klara was a child, her mother vanished from her life. All she has left is a handful of stories, passed down from the father who raised her. Klara believes she has long ago come to terms with her mother's disappearance, but then she receives a note and key from someone who calls themselves 'N.R'. These lead her to a storeroom, full of the remnants of her mother's past, and to the diary she kept all those years ago. Within its pages, Klara discovers a woman who doesn't quite match the portrait her father has painstakingly painted for her, and a story that leads her to question everything- and everyone- she thought she knew...

I thought that Jessica Ruston's  last book The Darker Side of Love was fantastic so I was very excited to receive her latest one. The Lies You Told Me is also fantastic, Jessica Ruston is a superb story-teller, she draws you in straight away and you are completely absorbed by the end of the first chapter.
Klara's mother disappeared when she was a child and her father told her she had died abroad. However, Klara receives a letter and a key; the key is for a storeroom which contains some of her mother's belongings, most importantly, her diary. Klara begins to discover the many secrets her mother kept which leads her to realise the many secrets her father has had to keep over the years too. She has been told so many lies; Klara begins to question her whole life, why the need for the lies and elaborate stories, what is she being protected from?
The Lies You Told Me flits between the present day which we see through Klara's eyes and then London in the 70's which is presented in Klara's mother's diary entries. Klara has to fit everything together in order to reach the truth.. Who was her mother and what is her father hiding? Klara doesn't just learn new things about her family members but about herself, the way in which she reacts to this new information affects her current relationship, she questions the way in which she behaves, is she like the mother she didn't know?
Jessica Ruston has written such an interesting book. I loved how everything came together at the very end but there were still some surprises. The whole book is about lies, the good ones and the bad ones plus the ones we don't even realise we are telling.
I highly recommend this book, The Lies You Told Me is a gripping read that I really struggled to put down.

Dot Scribbles Rating:  5/5

Many thanks to the lovely people at Headline Review for sending me a copy of the book, it is available now!