The Lies You Told Me by Jessica Ruston

When Klara was a little girl, her mother left her. She and her father, Henry adjusted to life without the glamorous former model, Sadie but then another blow was delivered to young Klara; her mother was dead.

Klara didn’t probe too much into the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death – where Sadie had gone and why and what had happened to her. She was young and as she grew up, she learned how much her questions hurt her father and so she let it be and pushed her need for answers aside.

But years later, when Klara is married and thinking about starting a family of her own, she receives a strange letter and a key, claiming it holds the answers to what happened to Sadie. The key leads Klara to a lock up unit and begins a journey of discovery and mistrust as Klara follows the trail of her mother’s disappearance.

I’d been looking forward to reading The Lies You Told Me for quite a while as I was intrigued by the blurb and I wasn’t disappointed. The story opens with Klara receiving the key and note, signed by the mysterious N.R and I was quickly drawn in, wanting to keep reading to find out what secrets Klara would discover. Klara never really knew her mother as she was so young when she left but she begins to learn so much more about the younger Sadie and what made her tick, along with the reader.

I liked the character of Klara, even if I was never entirely sure why she kept the key and her discoveries from her husband, Mark. Although Klara and Mark didn’t have the best starts in life, I think they made a lovely, strong couple and I hoped that Klara didn’t jeopardise her marriage by keeping secrets from Mark and her actions as she tried to learn more about her mother.

The Lies You Told Me is an intriguing book, layered with mystery and powerful emotions and though it took a while for me to have any notion of where the book was heading, I enjoyed being led there immensely.