Review: The Last Lie by Alex Lake @AlexLakeAuthor @HarperCollinsUK #TheLastLie

Hi there, I’m Danielle and I’m a book addict; big books, small books, lovey dovey books and scary books. I especially LOVE thrillers whether crime or psychological. So you can imagine my excitement when I received the newest thriller from Alex Lake, ‘The Last Lie’. I had recently read ‘Copy Cat’ so I nearly bit off the publicists offer of reviewing the newest Lake thriller. So, thank you Harper Collins UK for gifting me a copy of The Last Lie, in exchange for an honest review! *

‘The Last Lie’ was published on the 27th of December in a variety of formats, that of course include paperback which is always my favourite format! I’ve made it easy for you, you can purchase this compulsive page – turner here! Alex Lake is a British author whose first novel ‘After Anna’ was written under a pseudonym. It reached number one bestselling e-book and was labelled as one of the top ten Sunday Times bestsellers.

I have started to not choose books because of the front covers alone, I’m like a magpie when it comes to book covers and I will sometimes but a book into my basket; physical or virtual, from aesthetics alone. Well the same thing happened here, kind of, I really liked the mysterious tone of the cover of ‘The Last Lie’ but after reading the blurb I knew that this would be a thriller that I needed to read! Here it is guys!

“Everyone lies…but some lies are deadly.
For Claire Daniels, life is good. She has everything she’s ever wanted – a career she loves, friends she can rely on and a husband who dotes on her. All she needs is to start a family of her own and things will be even better than good.
They’ll be perfect.
For Alfie, it couldn’t be more different. His life with Claire is built on a lie. A lot of lies. And she can never find out.
Because Alfie has plans for her. Plans which must never come to light. But lies have a way of taking on a life of their own, and when his do, the consequences threaten to destroy everything.
For him and Claire“

One of the things I enjoy about ‘suburban thriller’ as I like to call it, is reading about these perfect lives lived by the ‘perfect’ people. Then I darkly relish in reading about the breakdown and destruction of ‘perfect’ lives. Evil I know, but there are books like ‘The Last Lie’ that allow you that evil pleasure, without in fact giving ANY of the ending away.

I loved that there was no ‘easing’ in to the story, like a toe in a cold pool of water, you were thrown shoulder deep into one of the most dysfunctional marriage I’ve had the pleasure of being a fly on the wall for. Firstly, we have Claire; a daughter who was born into a wealthy family (think Housewives of Orange County, crossed with Desperate Housewives) who is totally head over heals with her husband Alfie, all she wants to complete her perfect life is a baby of her own. I couldn’t help but sympathise for Claire’s ordeal, she seemed so distraught and child like. Alfie on the other hand is a bit of a twerp, from his first chapter, he made my blood boil and my teeth grate.

The narrative is mainly split between Claire and Alfie’s point of view, sometimes of the same situations. This type of dual storyline I very much enjoy because you get the ‘juicy bits’ from both sides of the story (obviously) as well as building the type of relationship dynamic, personalities and even histories of both parties involved. I think this is important to help create that secretive suspense within a novel. Alex Lake got the balance perfect, even introducing POV’s from other angles at times.

As the storyline begins to delve deeper into the depths of thriller-dom, we begin to see cracks appearing especially in Alfie’s sanity. I tried so hard to put the dots together but came out with what felt like a child’s scribble on my brain; I had no clue. But, when that final piece of the puzzle fell into place, I was amazed at the unexpectancy of it. I would highly recommend this read to lovers Paula Hawkins and Gillian Flynn reads! Such a fantastically clever read, not that I’m surprised!

Have you read ‘The Last Lie’ or any other Alex Lake’s novels? What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you!