Little Liar

By: Clare Boyd

Narrated by: Jane McDowell

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

A nail-biting, gripping psychological thriller

The perfect family...or the perfect lie?

When a child’s scream pierces the night, Mira does what any good neighbor would do: She calls the police. She wants to make sure that Rosie, the little girl next door, is safe. Opening her front door to the police the next morning, Gemma's picture-perfect family is forced under scrutiny of social services.

As her flawless life begins to crumble around her, Gemma must fight to defend the family she loves and protect her daughter from the terrible secret she's been keeping. But who has Rosie been confiding in when Gemma’s back is turned? And why has she lied to the police?

When Rosie disappears without a trace, Gemma thinks she only has herself to blame. That is, until she finds a little pink diary containing a truth even more devastating than the lie....

If you loved The Couple Next Door and Big Little Lies, you’ll adore this razor-sharp, tense, and utterly engrossing page turner about the people we choose to trust and the secrets we keep behind closed doors.

©2017 Clare Boyd (P)2018 Bookouture

This book should be named, We All Need Therapy!

This book did not do it for me, I found myself wanting to yell at all of these characters! Especially Gemma! she was the most frustrating out of the bunch. Besides that, I felt myself waiting for something to happen, and it was just too slow. It finally sped up with about an hour left in the book, but it was too late. Thumbs down

Can you say the word THERAPY?

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I found myself extremely frustrated about the DENIAL of parents to see that their family may just need some therapy; particularly the child. And maybe some effective discipline???

Which scene was your favorite?

I didn't have one

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No

Any additional comments?

I am shocked that, throughout this entire book, the word therapy was never mentioned, which I find absolutely, unbelievably stupid!!

good story

This was a decent story but somewhat challenging for me because I would never let my kids act like this. A parent needs to act like a parent and not be scared of your child not liking you so that made it very frustrating for me.

Wanted to throttle characters

The plot of this one was promising,, but, good grief...mom, daughter, neighbor all needed some therapy - maybe a group discount or something. Rosie had issues before her mother blurted out the truth to her. Frankly, I felt like Gemma was an unfit mother, even if she was not physically abusive. The manner in which she dealt with her daughter's behavior was appalling to me. The son received no attention. And how did the fruitcake neighbor keep a long-term job at a school with her issues? Narration was good.

It was alright

I didn’t think it was quite is nailbiting as I had hoped it was OK
most of the time I wanted to slap the kid or the mother not sure

Didn’t get good til the end

Was a good book. But I feel it didn’t get good til the last 15 chapters. Felt like it just dragged on and on.

A Very Odd Novel

Little Liar is an odd book. I am not really sure what the point was, but it did keep me listening. We have a family who lives outside of London with their young daughter Rosie, and their son. Jemma (Mom) is pregnant again and Pete is seemingly basking in his job, married life, and children's love.

But, Jemma's neighbour has a past. She had her baby taken away when she was just 15 years old. She is jealous of Jemma, and reports her to social services for child abuse. Although, Rosie isn't an 'angel' child because she lies about being abused as well. She has terrible temper tantrums and she behaves badly.

Rosie drives Jemma to the point of screaming (and I can't say I blamed her). Every time this little brat would act like a spoiled little witch I wanted to scream at her. My rage built up inside me, too. Jemma felt guilty about getting angry, and her nosey neighbour fills Rosie's head with more ammunition to get Jemma in trouble, and she's already in jeopardy of going to prison for abuse!

The neighbour is suffering from PTSD due to a bad relationship with her mother, and being raped by her mother's boyfriend as a teen- and then having the consequential baby taken from her and put up for adoption. Rosie the 10 year old needs some anger therapy, as does Jemma.

This book is depressing and it has no specific climax. It's one heart ache after another and it screams 'THESE PEOPLE NEED THERAPY' to the reader. It doesn't really fall under a psychological thriller. It's just a story about people who are a complete mess.

It's worth the listen if you can get it on sale. I hated Rosie (that's so awful of me!), but some of the other characters are very likable, and the bond between families (good or bad) is portrayed beautifully by the author.

-Wendi

What a BRAT!

i don't even know where to start... nosy neighbor, parents that can't get a grip on their child or the mom bending over backwards to make a brat happy. SMH

I really wanted to love this one but ...

The story was heartbreaking and the characters were well done. This is good, solid, suspense... but

This was a tough one to love, a struggle to finish- only because of some significant flaws. The lazy writer's crutch "oh, yeah, I didn't I tell you, but this happened in the past" intro of a never-before-mentioned incident to increase the character's vulnerability was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I really loved the characters as a whole, but having the self-confident, power professional undercut herself so naively, so frequently... a stretch.

Despite all of this (or, assuming these writing gaffs are a "first novel" one-off), I would still recommend it as a solid read...

Little White Lies

I want to say, 1st how much I deeply enjoyed this Audiobook as I listened to it straight through.
This novel was well written & preformed by both narrator McDowell and writer Clare Boyd.
5 🌟 journalism at its best.
A DeAnn DeVille Review.😊