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34744688

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookcouture for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: Available Now

433 Pages

Synopsis: A mother desperate for the truth. A daughter hiding a terrible secret.

Melanie Oak appeared to have the perfect life. Married to her childhood sweetheart, Jacob, the couple live with their beautiful daughter, Beth, in a pretty village.

Nothing can shake her happiness–until the day that Beth goes missing and is discovered beaten almost to the point of death, her broken body lying in a freezing creek on the marshes near their home.

Consumed with grief, Melanie is determined to find her daughter’s attacker. Someone in the village must have seen something. Why won’t they talk?

As Melanie tries to piece together what happened to Beth, she discovers that her innocent teenager has been harbouring some dark secrets of her own. The truth may lie closer to home and put Melanie’s life in terrible danger.

I really enjoyed The Darkest Lies, which was my first book by Barbara Copperthwaite, but I did have a couple of issues that stopped it from being a perfect read.

The story is told mainly from Melanie’s POV, although details from the night that Beth was attacked emerge, and there are brief and frightening glimpses into the unknown killer’s disturbed mind. Melanie drove me a little crazy at times. While I had complete sympathy for her and what she was going through, her search for her daughter’s attacker becomes an obsession which has her reporting every new theory she comes up with, to the police, and accusing her friends and townspeople. As the story progresses, she becomes more and more isolated, and she really has no one to blame but herself. She also has these internal conversations with Beth, but she barely visits her in the hospital because she’s too busy berating her friends and neighbors.

The story itself though is fast-paced and intriguing. I suspected who the true villain was about halfway through the story, but because of several twists, I wasn’t absolutely certain until right near the end. The last few chapters were full of surprises which did a lot to overcome my previous issues.

In the end, The Darkest Lies, wound up being a solid psychological suspense story for me. The chapters are short which helps make this a quick read. If you’re a fan of authors like Lisa Jewel, I highly recommend this. I will definitely be on the lookout for future books by this author.