My huge thanks to Rachel Kennedy at Penguin Random House for a copy of One More Lie by Amy Lloyd in return for an honest review.

Published by Penguin imprint Century, One More Lie is available for purchase through the publisher links here.

One More Lie

How do you live with yourself as an adult when you were convicted of murder as a child?

And when you can’t remember the crime…
HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU’RE GUILTY?

Charlotte wants a fresh start. She wants to forget her past, forget her crime – and, most of all, forget that one terrible moment.

It’s the reason she’s been given a new name, a new life. The reason she spent years in prison.

But even on the outside, with an ankle monitor and court-mandated therapy, she can’t escape the devastating memory of the night that turned her and her only friend into national hate figures.

But now her friend has found her.

And despite the lies she tells to survive, she soon finds herself being dragged deeper and deeper into a past she cannot confront.

Even if it’s going to cost Charlotte her life…

My Review of One More Lie

A new life for Charlotte doesn’t mean the past can be escaped.

Oh my goodness – YES! I loved One More Lie. Amy Lloyd’s writing held me gripped from the very first word until the final full stop. Her style is just perfect for the genre, with a range of sentence structure that filled me with admiration because it matched so brilliantly the atmosphere of the moment. The narrative voice of Charlotte’s younger self is completely convincing. Amy Lloyd’s ability to convey taut, ominous, emotion through a single word or a lengthier sentence makes One More Lie an absolute masterclass in effective writing. It was only when I finished reading One More Lie that I realised I’d been holding tension in my body throughout. The book is so good that it had a physical effect on me.

Alongside that palpable tension is a first rate story. The plotting simply didn’t allow me to put the book down. I felt as ensnared by wanting to know what happened as Charlotte feels by the life she now has and her attempts to remember the past. The pace is fast, the balance of ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ as well as ‘Her’ and ‘Him’ and the gradual uncovering of the truth is completely hypnotic. Events are familiar to the reader too, as similar things have happened in real life which adds to the compelling nature of the read.

Both Sean and Charlotte are superb creations. Flawed, obsessive, vulnerable and deceptive they wormed their way into my mind so that I couldn’t help admire and like them in spite of the terrible crime they have committed. The way their relationship unfolds and the past and present gradually come together is fascinating.

I thought the themes explored were also brilliant. Amy Lloyd weaves in society’s rapid jumping to conclusions, and the treatment of difference, the impact of nature and nurture and the consequences of how a small untruth or event can unravel several lives,  completely perfectly. The author never preaches and is never obvious or unsubtle but still manages to make the reader consider their own standpoint and to experience what life on the outer edges of society can be like through those passages relating to Sean and the women in Charlotte’s accommodation, especially.

One More Lie is manipulative of the reader as it is impossible not to become embroiled in the story on so many levels. It is deceptive and shocking. I thought One More Lie was stunning and I can’t recommend it enough.

About Amy Lloyd

Amy Lloyd studied English and Creative Writing at Cardiff Metropolitan University. In 2016 she won the Daily Mail Bestseller Competition for her debut novel The Innocent Wife which, when it was published, became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Amy lives in Cardiff with her partner, who is also a published novelist

You can follow Amy on Twitter @AmyLloydWrites and find her on Facebook.