Book Review: "The Woman Who Lied" by Claire Douglas

There are times in my life when I think about how much paperback thriller literature I read. I come to the conclusion that it is a lot. One of my Amazon recommendations was Claire Douglas' book The Woman Who Lied and I was not all to enthusiastic about it to begin with but when the book started to get going, it got really good. I only found it a shame that there were so many details in the book that made no difference whatsoever to what happened. I understand intricacy and description because those are two things I love, but this kind of description ruins the pace of what could be a very good thriller novel. It took so long to get into the actual story of the situation and what was going on due to the random intricacies here and there that were not brought back later on and therefore, made no real difference to the plot. In scenes where it is vital that the writer builds up pace, the book is often let down by its inability to do so. As for the characters, most of them are unrelatable and terrible people, there is really little redeeming factors for this story. It upsetted me because I was so looking forward to reading it.

Emilia is an author and has written her tenth book in her series about a cop and a serial killer, but she finds that the things in the book series start to happen in real life in a cruel series of unknown dangers that impact her life at every angle. Slowly, each incident impacts her more directly and she realises that this must be something very co-ordinated. She starts to realise throughout the book that her life and those of her around her might be in real danger - unfortunately, she cannot trust the words of those around her any more. She cannot even trust her own family.

I had a couple of problems with this book and the first one is just this: the characters were wholly unlikeable human beings. There was nobody that I was invested in at all and so, that being said, I could not empathise with them and it threw off the entire pace of feeling for me. I need characters I can become invested in and I can get to know. It did not feel like I knew anyone and the things I knew about them made them seem superficial and two-dimensional. After about one hundred pages of reading, this can become slightly annoying as you then have to try and wade your way through intricacies that do not matter to the book at all.

Though the concept behind the story was compelling, the writing was not. Too much fluff was written and not enough atmosphere was created. I understand using the description to create a slow-burning and tense thriller, but I do not understand using silly intricacies of who ate what and someone's relationship history that means nothing to the story to start us all off on the wrong foot about the pacing.

The pacing is a problem because of all of the minute details that the reader apparently needs to care about and then never pop up in the story again. Apart from that, there is really no atmosphere in this novel. After a while, it begins to drag so much that you really do not care what happens at the end.

All in all, the concept of this story and the switch in narration meant that this could have been a really good book if executed right. Instead it was a novel filled with people who are unlikeable as people, a woman who does not talk like she has the gall or brains to write ten books, half-written characters without tone or dialogue and generally, just a mess of pacing and descriptions that were all over the place. I feel like this would have been a better book if it were written by someone like B.A Paris or at least, Lisa Jewell, maybe even C.J Tudor. But I don't think Claire Douglas can write such characters very well.

I was not surprised, just a little disappointed in the end.