BOOK REVIEW: Everything is Lies by Helen Callaghan

No-one is who you think they are. 
Sophia's parents lead quiet, unremarkable lives. At least that is what she's always believed.
Everyone has secrets.
Until the day she arrives at her childhood home to find a house ringing with silence. Her mother is hanging from a tree. Her father is lying in a pool of his own blood, near to death.
Especially those closest to you. 
The police are convinced it is an attempted murder-suicide. But Sophia is sure that the woman who brought her up isn't a killer. As her father is too ill to talk it is up to Sophia to clear her mother's name. And to do this she needs to delve deep into her family's past- a past full of dark secrets she never suspected were there.

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 400

Publication Date: 22nd February 2018

Wow, I completely loved this book! At 400 pages it's quite long but I read it in just under two days as I couldn't put it down; I was hooked from the very beginning.
I very much enjoyed Helen Callaghan's book Dear Amy but in my opinion Everything is Lies is even better.
Sophia returns home after a fraught telephone call from her mother. When she gets home the house is weirdly quiet and she finds her mother hanging from a tree in the garden and her father wounded but alive next to her. Sophia can't quite believe what is happening, her parents Nina and Jared are quiet, unassuming people who run a small cafe and nursery business. They would not be involved in a murder-suicide pact as the police are suggesting. With Jared in hospital and unable to speak, Sophia must seek the truth. She is led to some notebooks of her mother's but she is in no way
prepared for the contents. Her mother writes of a cult that she was part of in the 80's, an enigmatic leader called Aaron Kessler and a murder. Nina was convinced these people wanted to silence her; is Sophia's mother completely mad and making all these events up or has all of Sophia's past been a lie?
Helen Callaghan has written a tense, psychological thriller. The book flits between Sophia's present situation and her mother's life in 1989 where it seems she became caught up in a cult led by Aaron Kessler who she met at university. I was so intrigued by Kessler- I could totally see how Nina was taken in by him. The chapters taken from Nina's notebooks were my favourite, it was so interesting to see how Nina was drawn into this group of people she barely knew.
Everything is Lies was a fascinating read, the pace and plotting were both excellent and I think it is a book that will get many people talking.

Many thanks to Penguin for sending me a copy of this book to review. 

BOOK REVIEW: Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan

Margot Lewis is the agony aunt for the Cambridge Enquirer. Her advice column, Dear Amy, gets all kinds of letters- but none like the one she's just received: Dear Amy, I don't know where I am. I've been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I'm afraid he'll kill me. Please help me soon, Bethan Avery. Bethan Avery has been missing for years. This is surely some cruel hoax: but as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public. How is this  happening? Answering this question will cost Margot everything...

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Pages: 400

I came across this book on Netgalley and I loved the simplicity of the cover and once I'd downloaded it I read it in just under two days.
Margot Lewis lives in Cambridge, she is a teacher at an exclusive girls school and in the midst of a rather messy divorce from her husband who slept with one of his work colleagues. On top of all this, Margot has a column in her local newspaper, entitled Dear Amy, it is an advice column and she is used to receiving all kinds of  letters. However when she opens this one from Bethan Avery she is shocked to the core as Bethan has been missing for years. Police believe that she was kidnapped and murdered, but her body has never been found. Coincidentally a girl from Margot's class has also gone missing; Margot can't help but feel it is somehow connected and she sets out to get to the bottom of it.
Dear Amy was such a good read, it is dark, gripping and extremely clever. Helen Callaghan is my new 'Queen of Plot Twists', the one at the end of this book totally floored me. I felt like I had just worked it all out when the rug was suddenly and spectacularly pulled from under my feet.
Helen Callaghan flits between Margot as a narrator and also Katie, the other girl who is missing. Katie's experiences at the hands of her captor are terrifying and he is a character that you quickly detest.
It is clear from the beginning that Margot Lewis is a character with many layers and it was fascinating to watch the author as she slowly revealed the details of her past whilst expertly tying all the strands of the story together.
I think that Dear Amy is going to get a lot of attention, it is one of the best books I have read so far in 2016.

Many thanks to Michael Joseph for allowing me to review this book via Netgalley. Dear Amy is due to be published on June 16th!