Silent Lies by Kathryn Croft: Review

Five years rebuilding your life.... Five words will destroy it again.

Silent Lies opens with Mia and her baby daughter, Freya, attending the funeral of Zach - Mia’s husband and Freya’s father. It’s clear from the outset that Zach has done something terrible - something bad enough that strangers apparently feel justified in verbally abusing his wife in the street - the nature of which is as yet unspecified.

Five years later, Mia has gone a long way towards rebuilding her life - she has qualified as a counsellor and is running her own business, and has a new partner, Will. But when a new client, Alison, blurts out something shocking regarding Mia’s own past - and then immediately retracts it - Mia’s life is flung once more into turmoil.

The story is narrated in turn by Mia in the present - struggling to uncover the truth about her husband - and five years earlier by Josie, a young university student with a horrific, traumatic past and indeed present. The two are connected by Zach and by Alison, a strange, clearly very troubled young woman whose motives are mysterious. Who can Mia trust?

This is the first book I have read by Kathryn Croft, and I found it a real page-turner - or whatever the Kindle equivalent is. As the cleverly constructed plot unfolded, I found myself developing all sorts of outlandish theories about what was going on - always a sign of a really engaging read! And a couple of them even paid off... kind of. (That’s all I’m saying.)

Josie’s narrative was particularly compelling in a just-can’t-look-away kind of way and I found her a likeable and sympathetic character.

There are plenty of twists and turns here and the denouement is genuinely unpredictable - I doubt anyone could guess it all in advance, even if you have a vague inkling about some aspects. The last chapter is quite satisfying.

A very enjoyable read and I will definitely look out for Kathryn’s other books.

Kathryn Croft is the author of six successful psychological thrillers, of which Silent Lies is the most recent. She lives in Guildford, Surrey with her husband, their little boy and two crazy cats.