A sometimes-engaging thriller about a woman who pushes a marriage over the brink.
From the pressure cooker of upper-class suburban London comes a painful story of paranoia and betrayal.
Like Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere, Ali-Afzal's Would I Lie to You? delivers a fast-paced critique of class and motherhood. Narrator Faiza is the perfect housewife—casting aside her degree from Oxford to raise her three children and keep up appearances in wealthy suburban Wimbledon, she goes to Botox parties and participates in fundraisers for the local prep school. Faiza wants to belong at all costs even as she longs to be talked to "as if I was a person and not a walking, talking ethnicity," to escape her immediate classification as "exotic." When Tom, her husband, loses his job, she goes to great lengths to hide the fact that she's used up their rainy-day fund to play in this society. She grew up with Pakistani immigrant parents fighting over money, and she doesn't want to repeat the same pattern, so she hides her spending from Tom—but soon their loving marriage begins to feel the strain of Tom's depression and Faiza's web of lies. Faiza returns to a demanding sales position after more than a decade out of the workforce, and she continues to use lies as her armor as she struggles to keep up with women like Julia, her nemesis, an unkind and racist socialite. Though Julia and her Harvey Weinstein–like husband are a sometimes crudely drawn stereotype of a power couple, Faiza and Tom and their children can sometimes surprise. The book begins with a strange 10-line prologue, hinting at suicide, written in a voice that isn't Faiza's first-person narrative. It seems tacked on to drive the reader through the novel, which does not need this help.
A sometimes-engaging thriller about a woman who pushes a marriage over the brink.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-5502-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
