Perfect Liars by Rebecca Reid @BeckyShort1 @transworldbooks @rebeccacnreid

Perfect Liars by Rebecca Reid

Published by Transworld/Corgi

Publication Date: 21 February 2019

Genre: Psychological Thriller

368 pages

Huge thanks to Becky Short at Transworld Books for the review copy of this title.
My review is entirely based on my own thoughts and is unbiased in any way.

Book Description:

They have it all. And they’ll do anything to keep it that way.

For fans of The Girlfriend and Liane Moriarty as well as TV hits Doctor Foster and The Replacement.

Sixteen years ago, best friends Nancy, Georgia and Lila did something unspeakable. Their crime forged an unbreakable bond between them, a bond of silence. But now, one of them wants to talk.

One wrong word and everything could be ruined, their lives, their careers, their relationships. It's up to Georgia to call a crisis dinner. But things do not go as planned.

Three women walk in to the dinner, but only two will leave.

Murder isn't so difficult the second time around...

Gripping and unputdownable, Perfect Liars tells the story of a group of friends bound by their dark pasts and their desperate need to keep their secrets hidden from the world around them. How far would you go to protect the life you’ve built?

My Review:

The book starts at the funeral of an unnamed woman.  We get the vibe that the woman has died under tragic circumstances, but that is as much information we are given.  The rest of the book tells us the detail - but not in a straight forward manner.

The story switches time frames and narrators, but every chapter is headed with who is talking and which time frame so as long as you read the heading it all makes sense.  The main characters are 4 friends from esteemed boarding school Fairbridge Hall. They all have definite roles within the friendship group: Nancy is the leader of the group, she needs to be in control at all times; then we have Georgia the 'middle child' of the group and Nancy's main ally in most of their escapades. As a scholarship student she's aware that the life she's living could all come to an abrupt end if she puts a toe out of line at school; Lila is the loose cannon of the group and the weakest link of the friendship. Nobody quite knows how she's going to react in any given situation which unnerves the others on more than one occasion; lastly we have Heidi - she's not exactly part of the group but was friends with Lila before they arrived at boarding school so believes she should be included. Socially inept, Heidi is an unwanted hanger-on as far as Nancy is concerned but Lila feels torn between the two of them, wanting to be part of the popular group yet feeling a sense of obligation to Heidi due to their shared past. The arrival of a young new teacher at the school with fresh ideas on how to deal with the girls' more challenging behaviour only serves to complicate things for Lila, and Nancy isn't keen on how popular Miss Brandon is among both staff and pupils alike. She doesn't like it one bit.

The friendship between Nancy, Georgia and Lila remains solid over the intervening years since the girls left boarding school and went their separate ways in life. They keep in touch but not in as tight a manner as you would expect.  Then suddenly after 16 years Georgia decides they need to catch up and calls the girls together to a dinner party. Tensions build over the course of the evening and we are fed background chapters from the girls' teenage years as an insight into what has gone before.  Why are the girls so wary of one another? Why is Lila drinking so much? And what is going on with the male contingent of their dinner party? Lila's partner Rupert and Georgia's partner Charlie are sparking off one another all evening, while Nancy's gorgeous new squeeze Brett is young and handsome enough to make the pair of them feel inadequate. Why do the women keep talking in corners and what are they hiding?

This is a great novel exploring the dynamics of a years-old friendship group - especially one which is clearly keeping a huge secret amongst its ranks.  The different time frames are used to great effect to explain all, yet even with all the background information and the layers which get peeled away bit by bit the author still manages to shock the reader with the overall climax to the book.

Complex story telling and characters I felt able to identify with certainly caused the book to make its mark with me.  I also think it would translate well to the screen and would make a riveting TV drama along the lines of the hugely successful Big Little Lies.

About the Author:

Rebecca is a freelance journalist. She is a columnist for the Telegraph Women’s section, works for Metro Online and has written for Marie Claire, the Guardian, the Saturday Telegraph, the Independent, Stylist, Glamour, the iPaper, the Guardian, Indy100, LOOK and the New Statesmen amongst others. Rebecca is a regular contributor to Sky News and ITV’s This Morning as well as appearing on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, LBC, BBC News 24 and the BBC World Service to discuss her work.
She graduated from Royal Holloway’s Creative Writing MA in 2015 and Perfect Liars is her debut novel.
Rebecca lives in North London with her husband. 

Social Media Link: Twitter: @RebeccaCNReid