Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Lynnie      
Amy         

contemporary fiction, mystery

 

Lucy Chase and her best friend Savannah (known to everyone as "Savvy") are beloved in their small Texas town. Both are beautiful and smart, but Lucy has returned from college married to a man with generational wealth, while Savvy is known as a very social butterfly with boyfriends all over town. One evening, Lucy is found walking down the road covered in Savvy's blood with no memory of what happened. Five years later, a meddlesome podcaster of "Listen for the Lie", Ben, is reopening the case on what happened that terrible night along with all the wounds associated with it.

Lynnie's Review

I have been a fan of Amy Tintera's young adult fiction for a long time so I was very excited to learn she was writing a novel for adult audiences. I am not, however, a huge fan of mysteries but, for Tintera, I was willing to give it a go and I was not disappointed.

I loved Listen for the Lie from start to finish. Lucy's matter-of-fact acceptance that everyone, including her parents, believes she murdered Savvy was refreshing and heartbreaking. I often found myself amazed at her ability to walk with her head held high in the face of the glares and the not-so-whispered suspicions. It's hard to sympathize with a suspected murderer, and yet I couldn't help but cheer for Lucy. She has learned to cope by being sarcastic, blunt and refusing to ignore the elephant in the room — that she may have murdered her best friend.

Ben Owens is likable as the podcaster trying to uncover the truth. Lucy's grandmother, Beverly, is a delight and a wonderful counterpoint to her painful parents. Lucy and Savvy's friends, their former neighbors, and Lucy's ex-husband are all interview subjects as Ben tries to fit the pieces of the puzzle together to unlock Lucy's memories and find out what happened to Savvy.

I definitely had my suspicions about who murdered Savvy along the way, and there are plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing if you don't spend too much time thinking about it.

While this was completely different than any other book I've ready by Amy Tintera I enjoyed it thoroughly and I can't wait until her next one.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House UK, and Transworld Publisher for the advance copy.

Amy's Review

Five years ago, Lucy was implicated in the murder of her best friend but Lucy has no memory of that evening. The police didn’t uncover enough evidence to prosecute her but the people in her small town in Texas are convinced she did it.  When she agrees to go home for her grandmother’s big birthday, she has to face all the suspicion and mistrust that is thrown her way in town. 

This is the kind of mystery I enjoy—it’s about the people more than playing detective. But the mystery is compelling as well! The reader gets to go along for the ride with a key character who is directly affected by the mystery. 

While I didn’t think I would enjoy it at first because I didn’t really like Lucy, I found this novel to be un-put-downable.  True, Lucy is prickly, jaded, snarky, and resigned. But Amy Tintera allowed the reader to come to know her gradually. And the more I learned, the more I felt I understood her.   The multiple character revelations regarding the townspeople that were sprinkled throughout the novel hooked me.

The audiobook narrators were both phenomenal!  They both had incredible vocal repertoires. Since this novel includes interviews with multiple people, the narrators had a huge cast of characters to play and they seemed to give each one their own voice! January LaVoy even had incredible male voices which is really rare for a woman. She read Lucy’s sections of the novel. Will Damron read Ben’s sections. Interestingly, I’ve given both of them A+ ratings for other novels. So, this just proves that these two are terrific.  Perhaps they will earn my top narration award this year which neither has accomplished yet. As a side note, at times, the audiobook production would sometimes include both of their voices during interviews and that was seamlessly and successfully accomplished. Bravo to the entire audiobook team!