#BlogTour ‘Tell Me Lies’ by Teresa Driscoll

About the book…

From bestselling author Teresa Driscoll comes a chilling thriller of past secrets and present terror. Deep in a rural hideaway, it’s only the owls watching them…right?

After a betrayal that sent their marriage into freefall, Hannah and Sam are desperate for a fresh start with their eight-year-old daughter Lily—and where better than picture-perfect Owl Cottage in beautiful Cornwall. But something about the holiday home stirs dark memories for Hannah…

When she finds dead creatures on the doorstep and hears mysterious knocks at the door, Hannah can’t help wondering whether someone is messing with her—or whether the past she’s been running from has finally claimed her sanity.

As the disturbing events at Owl Cottage seep out into the local community and the police become involved, Hannah turns to Sam for help, but when he dismisses her worries, she wonders if she was wrong to ever trust him. Are the memories making her paranoid, or is this something more sinister than she dares imagine?

My thanks to Kashmini at FMcM Associates for the blogtour invite and publishers Thomas And Mercer for my gifted review copy of Teresa Driscoll’s latest thriller, ‘Tell Me Lies’ which is out on April 18th.

It comes complete with an author’s note that adds an extra layer of spookiness to the preceding tale, and an extract of her previous novel, featuring characters from this one in their debut outing, ‘Her Perfect Family’.

Here , we have a broken family, a mother, father and daughter, on a last ditch attempt to salvage what remains of a marriage shattered by lies.

Having cheated on wife, Hannah, Adam is desperate to prove himself worthy of a second chance, so when their counsellor suggests a week away, not only is this a timely escape from the pressures of 2 demanding jobs and parenting a small child, this could be an opportunity to clear the air once and for all.

Hannah is not an ordinary first person narrator, Her internal monologue which is principally addressed to ‘you’, as in Adam, brings you into what she is thinking and feeling, however, you can never quite shake the feeling she is lying to both herself and you, the reader. She has gone through a horrendous experience as a child, an experience which defined her and left her shaped by the tragedy which resulted in the death of her father.

Add in an over compensating mother, and being one herself, this getaway should , ideally, give both Adam and Hannah a chance to face up to their responsibilities and plan for a future. But shaking off a broken wedding vow is not so easy in a place like Owl Cottage…

At first it seems quaint, quirky and slightly kitsch with its over abundance of owl themed trinkets. It’s isolated, in a tiny village where second homes and holiday leases are viewed with suspicion and distaste.

Then the owlets begin turning up on the door mat, inside the house.

The power cut which no one else nearby experienced.

The knocks at the door in the middle of nowhere.

The mysterious notes, seemingly in Hannah’s own handwriting, in the guest book.

Whispered phone calls that are abruptly cut off when she enters the room.

These serve to pick away at the fragile peace of mind which Hannah is doing her best to maintain, and as the clues start being dropped, someone is very clearly out to break Hannah’s mind, permanently.

The novel takes the concept of the unreliable narrator and ratchets it up to the max, you are never quite sure whether the repetition of facts which are perceived to be known by Hannah are because she is establishing a reality to the reader, or to herself. It is clear she has secrets of her own, some absolutely devastating ones, and whether she finds the courage to admit that what happened to her was absolutely in no way her fault, she cannot learn how to begib to heal.

Her marriage breakdown is just the start of a long held trauma, exacerbated by situations beyond her control, and in the hands of a skilful writer, you find yourself doubting what you are reading, then becoming completely devastated by turns of events at the book’s conclusion. It leads-and I am being super careful not to lead to any spoilers at all-you to have an in depth understanding of why people who have suffered trauma, create a wall around that in order to protect themselves and continue to function, until, devastatingly, they no longer can. The enduring love of a mother for her child is explored from both Hannah’s perspective, and that of her mother, Maud, who both have had to navigate a life without the man they deeply loved.

It also shows , quite startlingly, how twisted and cruel people can be towards those with a vulnerable and loving nature, and how those who are victims of crime blame themselves because of an underlying perception of that victim making themselves a target.

I was both furious and elated at the shocking conclusion, by this time I just wanted to swoop into the book and rescue Hannah myself. Not because she was weak, far from it, but because she was surrounded by predators, who saw her as nothing more than a mouse to their owlish claws.

Thrilling, devastating and suspenseful, this is everything a reader could want in a novel.

About the author…

Teresa Driscoll is a former BBC TV news presenter whose psychological thrillers have sold over two million copies in more than 20 languages. Her first thriller  was kindle #1 in the UK, USA and Australia and has sold more than a million copies in English alone.
Teresa writes women’s fiction as well as thrillers and her work has been optioned for film.
During her long career as a journalist, Teresa worked for newspapers, magazines and television, including 15 years presenting the BBC TV news programme Spotlight. Covering crime for so long, she was deeply moved by the haunting impact on the relatives, the friends and the witnesses and it is those ripples she explores now in her darker fiction.
Teresa lives in glorious Devon with her family and blogs regularly about her “writing life” at her website

Links-https://www.teresadriscoll.com/

Twitter @teresadriscoll @FMcMAssociates @AmazonPub