Title: All the Beautiful Lies
Expected
publication: 3 April 2018
My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.
Book Description:
Harry Ackerson has always considered his step-mother Alice
to be sexy and beautiful, in an “other worldly” way. She has always been kind
and attentive, if a little aloof in the last few years.
Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead and the police think it’s suicide. Devastated, he returns to his father’s home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help one another pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father.
Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn’t the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way.
Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth.
Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead and the police think it’s suicide. Devastated, he returns to his father’s home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help one another pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father.
Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn’t the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way.
Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth.
My musings:
Ever since reading The Kind Worth Killing and Her Every Fear,
Peter Swanson has been on my list of authors whose books are must-reads before
they have even been written. Imagine my happy-dance when I found out that I had
been granted and ARC of All The Beautiful Lies, one of my most anticipated new
releases in 2018 (thank you to Edelweiss)!
Swanson’s engaging writing style sucked me in immediately,
and I contently settled into what I hoped would be an all-night read-a-thon
with thrills and chills galore. This certainly is a dark, dark book! I love the way this author presents his
villains in a detached, no-nonsense manner, like peering at them through the
glass cover of a specimen jar, turning them over and around to inspect their
sociopathic tendencies from all angles in an almost scientific manner. And be
warned, because each and every character in this novel is deeply flawed, and
not ashamed to present their darker sides to the reader. But where I had a soft
spot for Lily, the calculating and somewhat cold-hearted protagonist of A Kind
Worth Killing, I struggled to find an endearing quality in Alice, his latest
creation. Although her dispassionate reasoning matches that of Lily, and
Swanson endows her with a solid background that provides the origin of her
sociopathic tendencies, I thought Alice lacked the emotional depth I found in
his earlier creations.
The story is set in two different time-frames, “then” and
“now”, one part focusing on Alice’s childhood and growing up, the other from
the moment Harry finds out that his father has fallen to his death on a lonely
coastal cliff path in Maine. It soon becomes obvious that there may be more to
Bill’s death than an accident, and this is where the story becomes interesting,
with several flawed characters becoming the suspects in what was potentially a
brutal murder of a well-liked man. Like me, you will probably have your main
suspect pegged very early on, and may find that Swanson has totally
blindsighted you – or perhaps other readers make better detectives than I do,
because I was very wrong!
So, why the average rating you ask? I know that I will be in the
minority here, and it really pains me to admit that I did not enjoy this book
nearly as much as I had hoped I would. Despite Swanson’s writing style, which
is so perfect for a psychological thriller, and the red herrings that come at
you from all angles, I just could not warm to any of the characters. I normally
appreciate Swanson’s penchant for exploring the darkest corners of the human
psyche, but there were some weird dynamics at play here, with twisted
incestuous sexual relationships between characters which I found disturbing and
which tarnished the story for me. Perhaps motherhood has made me too prudish
for this type of tale, but these details took a lot of enjoyment out of reading
a book that may otherwise have been a clever and riveting psychological
thriller.
Summary:
If you are a fan of Peter Swanson’s writing, I still encourage
you to give this one a go, as it has all the hallmarks of his previous novels –
deeply flawed sociopathic protagonists, creeping tension, twists galore and an
unexpected ending. Whilst I found that some of the characters’ strange sexual
tendencies were disturbing and marred my reading pleasure, I will certainly not
be put off enough to eagerly snatch up future books by this author.
Thank
you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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