Everything is Lies by Helen Callaghan

Everything Is Lies by Helen Callaghan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 4 days

Pages -400

Publisher - Penguin

Source - gift

Blurb from Goodreads


No-one is who you think they are

Sophia's parents lead quiet, unremarkable lives. At least that is what she's always believed.

Everyone has secrets

Until the day she arrives at her childhood home to find a house ringing with silence. Her mother is hanging from a tree. Her father is lying in a pool of his own blood, near to death.

Especially those closest to you

The police are convinced it is an attempted murder-suicide. But Sophia is sure that the woman who brought her up isn't a killer. As her father is too ill to talk it is up to Sophia to clear her mother's name. And to do this she needs to delve deep into her family's past - a past full of dark secrets she never suspected were there . . .

What if your parents had been lying to you since the day you were born?



My Review

The book opens with some bad choices on a work's night out and a call from the overbearing parent. Quite a mundane start only to descend into death and near death, poor Sophia finds her mother handing and her father near death. The police reckon a murder suicide picture but Sophia can't believe it, she won't believe it, this is her parents, her ordinary normal parents. News of her mum going to publish a book comes out and sends her whole vision of who her mum was in question. Split between present day and the past when reading her mum's book we go into a world of sex, drugs and a cult. Does it have anything to do with what happened to her parents? Will she ever get the truth?

This is my first book by Callaghan, I thought it was well done as the two timelines are very different stories. Present day Sophia is trying to get over what has happened, maintain a job, visit her dad who is clinging to life and dodge all the fall out from her works night out.

Lots of surprises and revelations for Sophia as she gets to know a very different side to her mum through her book. Some of it makes for uncomfortable reading especially the stuff with her mum in the book as a younger woman. It adds to the feeling of unease and creepiness as you get deeper into the story. Easy to sink into and quick to get caught up with the characters and skulduggery, 4/5 for me.

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