A Gripping Novel of Psychological Suspense - Every Last Lie

This book is about loss, grief, sleep deprivation, and the need to find out why her husband was killed. It is a mystery and more. Family dynamics, secrets and a 4 year old talking about a black car and a bad man. Without giving anything away I figured what happened but not another part. Very fast read and well written. I did like the surprise in the end!

Kubica does it again! I still remember staying up all night reading The Good Girl, and this was no different. She has a way of keeping you turning and turning the pages to find out WHAT IS GOING ON! Highly recommend.

Kubica does it again! I still remember staying up all night reading The Good Girl, and this was no different. She has a way of keeping you turning and turning the pages to find out WHAT IS GOING ON! Highly recommend.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book - a true whodunit. Secrets and lies are around every corner. Clara and her husband Nick have a four year old daughter and a newborn son. Nick dies unexpectantly- and Clara is on a mission to sort through the suspects to uncover her husband's killer.

A very suspenseful story with well developed and likable main characters. The problems both emotional and financial that confront the two main characters are overwhelming. This is a very fast read - can't wait to find out how the story ends and the mystery is solved.

I enjoyed the ride. Then was disappointed that the ending didn’t tie up loose ends. It’s not like she left them untied for suspense or dramatic reasons. It feels like she got tired and wanted to end the book hoping we wouldn’t notice or care. So disappointing to enjoy the ride and then have it fall flat.

Mary Kubica delivers yet another compelling read. 'Every Last Lie' is a story about grief, marriage, exhaustion and questions what we know about the people closest to us. While similar in style to her other fabulous books such as 'The Good Girl' or 'Pretty Baby' - there aren't as many twists and turns even though this is a standalone suspense/mystery thriller.

After her husband, Nick, unexpectedly dies a few days after the birth of their second child, Clara must learn how to go on with life. Struggling with her grief and sleep deprived looking after a new born, Clara has trouble accepting that Nick's accident was his fault. She is slowly unraveling as she is left caring for a newborn and raising a precocious four year old.

Nick and Clara are really interesting characters and felt real, I connected with them and they definitely ran me through many emotions - pity, sympathy, disbelief, frustration... to name but a few. Told in alternating perspectives from Clara’s investigation into Nick's death and also in Nick’s voice in the months leading up to his accident - including all the events he kept secret from Clara; in my mind these both worked well.

I am a huge fan of Mary Kubica's writing. 'Every Last Lie' is a slow burn and the suspense creeps up on you and although it was a bit slower than her other books, it really picked up through-out and left me eager to know which lie caused this tragedy. This book was raw in the way it explored how tormented a person can become through grief and how it impacts their overall psyche and what they believe is true and real.  

Ultimately it pains me to say, as much as I am a fan of Mary Kubica I was disappointed in the ending as I expected an interesting twist to blow me away - without that it fell flat for me, especially after the build up. It was still a good read but not my favourite by Mary Kubica. 3.5 Stars from me.

When I want to read a rambling, barely coherent narrative about a person who is a self-styled victim, I'll remember this story and make sure NOT to indulge that desire. I almost never skip through paragraphs or pages of any book I'm reading, but I made an exception with this one. Add poorly conceived characterization to the confusing, fragmented style of the narrative, then pile on an ending that reveals that most of the plot-line has been delusional and contrived, and you get the idea of what a waste of time this book is. Don't think I'm going to go looking for more of her work

One of my very favorite authors, talented bestselling author, Mary Kubica returns following, the sensational Don't You Cry, landing on my Top 10 Books of 2016 with yet another 5 star winner: EVERY LAST LIE — a compelling and clever domestic suspense of a young widow trying to make sense of her husband’s untimely death.

A marriage of secrets.

A slow-burning twisty psychological suspense. Heart-pounding, a tale of one woman's desperate search for answers. From an array of emotions —grief, disbelief, anger, fear, and confusion.

What was her husband hiding? Her children are one parent away from being orphaned. A young daughter with nightmares. Was he killed purposefully, intentionally and with malice? Was he the bad man or someone else?

Clara Solberg lives in Chicago suburbs with her husband Nick, a dentist; with children: four-year-old daughter, Maisie, and newborn son, Felix. A few days after Felix is born, Clara receives the horrific news. Her husband is dead in an automobile accident, yet their daughter is alive, unharmed. He was on his way home from taking his daughter to ballet practice.

Chinese or Mexican? These are the last words Clara would ever exchange with her husband. If she had asked for Mexican, Nick would be home.

A crash on Harvey Road leaves one dead. An accident implies that something has happened unintentionally and without deliberate cause. Soon Clara begins to suspect foul play was to blame.

She is angry at Nick for leaving her. Nick is dead. When she is not sad, she is angry. For him being careless. For driving too fast with Maisie in the car. For driving too fast period. For losing control and launching headfirst into a tree.

She hates the tree. The force of the impact wrapped the car around the oak tree on Harvey Road, while Maisie sat in the backseat, on the opposite side, miraculously unharmed. Reckless driving is to blame. There is no investigation. He was driving too fast. What was going through is mind, minutes before the accident?

Her daughter says there was a bad man in a car, following Maisie and Nick. Who is the bad man that was following Nick and her daughter? Who is the bad man that took her husband? A black car. Her daughter is afraid. She continues to scream, “the bad man is after us. He’s going to get us.” She fears for her terrorized four-year-old-daughter. She fears for herself and her family.

She replays Maisie’s words over and over in her mind. In no uncertain terms, Maisie has made it clear that Nick’s car accident was no accident at all. The questions continue to run through her mind. Does Maisie know this bad man? Did the car push Nick from the road? Did her daughter get a glimpse of him before the car went airborne, flying into the tree? Did Nick see the man?

An illusion or a figment of a little girl’s imagination? What if there was another car on the road that fateful afternoon? What didn’t she know about her husband? What secrets was he hiding?

Everyone loved Nick. He had no enemies. Whatever transpired on the street had to be the worst kind of luck, a simple act of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Was someone watching Nick as he crashed? Why was he going sixty on four-five miles per hour road, that drops to twenty at the bend?

How could Maisie be fine and unharmed? Did he take the turn too quickly? A black car? Would he take his own life with his own daughter in the car?

Carla is in denial. She cannot bring herself to tell her daughter her father is gone and not coming back. He is dead. She must find answers. Financial problems. Who was Melinda Grey?

Drugs, restraining orders, stealing, affairs, suicide? This cannot be Nick. There were no secrets in their marriage, or was she wrong? She begins to suspect everyone.

Nick’s secrets. How secrets can destroy marriages. Lives. Families. From an unreliable narrator, feelings of paranoia, grief, confusion. The money. She soon learns there is nothing. She needs closure. She hates this feeling of the unknown and uncertainty. What really happened on Harvey Road? Clara is overwhelmed by grief, caring for her children, the needs of her aging parents; she’s also unable to sleep. She is coming unhinged. Is she going through the stages of grief? Can she ever reach acceptance?

Skillfully executed, Kubica takes readers on a chilling psychological journey— a woman grief-stricken obsessed with solving the events surrounding her husband’s mysterious death. A fan of Mary’s very first book and everyone in between, to her latest: EVERY LAST LIE – a domestic suspense which will leave you guessing to the final conclusion, as we hear from POVs of Clara and Nick.

Motherhood is a strong ongoing theme in this whodunit mystery novel. Both Clara as a mother to Maisie and Felix, as well as Clara’s relationship with her own mother, Louisa. Many of these relationships are strained. An ideal choice for book clubs and further discussions.

As always each of her books is strongly character-driven and psychologically rich. You feel Clara and Nick’s desperation. If only there were no lies. How would the outcome be different? The feeling of entrapment and coming unhinged is front and center. A twisty suspense of lies and secrets you cannot miss. For fans of B.A. Paris, Ruth Ware, Kimberly Belle, Clare Mackintosh and Fiona Barton My favorites.

Highly recommend all Mary Kubica’s books! Top-rated —she never disappoints her fans and you can always expect to be surprised.

Don't You Cry Top Books of 2016
Pretty Baby Top Books of 2015
The Good Girl (English Edition) Top Books of 2014

A special thank you to Park Row Books and NetGalley for an early reading copy. Also purchased the audiobook narrated by Carly Robins and Graham Hamilton for an engaging performance.

JDCMustReadBooks

I was really glad to leave Clara Solberg behind me. I simply didn't like her. I felt sorry for her situation but she was just so self absorbed that it was hard to feel real empathy for her. In her late 20's and nursing a brand new baby days old, a knock comes to her door. Her husband, Nick, has been killed in a car wreck but her four year old daughter, Maisie, in the backseat comes through unscathed. Her daughter's safety barely registers with her but grief is a strange thing.

Then she does some really odd things. Even though her daughter was in the car wreck, Clara refuses to tell Maisie that her father is dead. Maisie is understandably confused. She starts to have nightmares and talks about a bad man. Clara jumps to the conclusion that Nick was murdered. Someone ran him off the road. So off she goes with a new born son and a traumatized 4 year old to discover the murderer. There are other story lines. Her mother suffers dementia and her father tends her. There is a caretaker and a situation that arises that is so predictable that I yawned when I first read it.

The story is told from Clara's perspective now and Nick's story leading up to the fatal crash. It turns out that Nick is not all he seems to be (who could have seen that coming? Everybody). Lots of bad things are going on his life but Clara notices none of them. Did I mention she was self absorbed so she had no clue of anything. Really?

This was one of the most unimaginative, boring mysteries I have read in a long time. I suppose if you are laying in the sand and want something very easy to read, you might enjoy it. I really like something that has interesting characters and unpredictable situations. This isn't it.

“Every Last Lie” is the story of a young mother, Clara, who loses her husband, Nick, to his car crashing into a tree.

The cop’s verdict? Speeding while talking on a cell phone.
Nick hit the tree (which practically becomes a player in the story itself) on a hairpin turn driving way over the speed limit.
The couple's 4-year-old daughter, Maisie, incredibly survives the horrific crash with hardly a scratch.

But Maisie is afraid. The sight of any black car will send diving for cover, and screaming “It's the bad man, Mommy! The bad man is going to get us!”
Maisie is known for making things up though, and she will not back down about the things she “sees,” a giant spider, an elephant in the woods...a bad man?

Clara begins to doubt that the crash was a simple matter of speeding. She gradually convinces herself that somehow a bad man and a black car really are responsible for her husband's death. She sets out to get answers, and in the process we watch as Clara slowly drives herself crazy.

The story is told in the first person, a point of view I find annoying to read. It is further exasperating because Nick tells his story, building up to his death, in first person as well. The narrative goes back and forth between Clara and Nick, as it leads to the climax. Using the first person viewpoint for both of them becomes confusing.

Still, the book just cannot be put down.
The tension builds and builds: everybody becomes a bad man, even the female characters, as Clara descends into madness from lack of sleep and nourishment.
Poor woman, along with Maisie she also has a newborn son to take care of.

Clara gradually learns that Nick has been hiding his own rapidly deteriorating life from her, adding further unbearable anxiety.
Kubica is expert at building tension, as up to the last chapter we continue to wonder, “Was there really a bad man in a black car involved?”
The author is a natural storyteller, weaving a tight tale of doubt, fear and madness, from which we cannot break away.

The denouement of the tale is satisfying. There are very few superfluous or far-fetched occurrences in the story.
Each of Kubica’s players have a well-defined part to play, and she keeps them in character.

Kubica has an engaging style of writing I would gladly read more of, even in that pesky first person point of view.

By Melissa Amster

I’ve been a fan of Mary Kubica’s writing, ever since I read Pretty Baby in 2015. She always keeps me on the edge of my seat, not knowing what to expect. Her latest novel is another example of this talent.

I can’t even imagine (nor would I want to) being in Clara’s shoes. She is running on very little sleep after having a new baby, and her husband just died, leaving behind a lot of secrets and mysteries that start unraveling. Add to that her mother’s dementia. Plus, she has the stress of her daughter’s night terrors, which may even contain some clues to Nick's death. There’s one scene at a grocery store that just feels incredibly anxiety-provoking. Clara doesn’t know who she can trust, including her deceased husband.

I liked how the chapters alternated between Clara in the present and Nick in the not-so-distant past. With each chapter, I thought I’d be putting the pieces together or have some answer as to what was happening. I could also feel Nick’s stress with each passing day. He had a lot on his plate and was keeping some major secrets from Clara.

Mary kept me guessing throughout the entire novel. I thought I’d be able to figure something out before Clara did, but then would get steered in another direction. There were a lot of intense moments. The story was really well-written in this sense. However, the ending was not what I was expecting at all, and I don’t know that it was what I wanted. Also, I had pictured Clara in my head a bit different from what Mary was describing. She waited for a while to give some major clues to her appearance. By then, I already had a set image in my mind. Having said that, the descriptions of other people (especially Maisie), locations, etc. made me feel like I was right in the middle of the town where they lived. I could even feel the summer heat, and not because it’s already so hot here!

Overall, another suspense thriller to add to your shelf. I can’t give half-stars on here, but I’d give this 4.5 instead of the 4 that Goodreads allows. This is because I enjoyed the ride I was taken on, but it came to an abrupt halt for me, and I wish there had been more twists and turns ahead.

In case Hollywood is looking for ideas...
Clara: Rooney Mara
Nick: Scott Eastwood
Connor: Colton Haynes
Emily: Odette Annable
Theo: John Cena
Izzy: Alessandra Torresani
Tom (Clara's dad): Stanley Tucci
Louisa (Clara's mom): Vicki Lewis

Every Last Lie is a standalone suspense/mystery thriller.

The book alternates chapters between Clara (28 year old mother of two small children) and Nick (her husband). Clara's chapters take place in the present. And Nick's chapters take place a few weeks before.

The book begins with Nick being in a car accident. We find out how Clara deals with everything to do with her husband and the accident. We get Nick's perspective in alternating chapters. But his chapters start a few weeks before the accident and move forward till the night of the car crash.

This was a very interesting way to tell the story. Clara finds out so much about her husband that she did not know. And we find out a lot from Nick's chapters too.

I thought that both Clara and Nick were very interesting characters. Clara was pretty much a mess dealing with the accident, a new baby and another child. Plus there was a lot going on with her parents. I liked how the author let us piece together the full story bit by bit. Nick was also compelling. At times I wasn't sure whether to love him or hate him. But I liked how his chapters gave us a much better insight into the story.

The book definitely got very exciting towards the end. And I could not turn the pages fast enough, as I was desperate to find out what had happened to cause the car crash.

To me the ending is everything. And while I found the last lines of the book to be perfection I am not sure if I was completely satisfied with the rest of the ending. We did get a lot of answers and that made me happy. But I still had a few questions that I wish had been addressed. But overall a good mystery.

Thanks to netgalley and Harlequin (US & Canada)/ Park Row Books for allowing me to read this book.

Clara Solberg has a perfect life .... at least up until the day her husband, Nick, and her daughter, Maisie are in a car crash. Nick is killed, Maisie, fortunately, got nothing but a scratch.

The accident is ruled an accident ... Nick had been speeding and apparently lost control and rammed into a tree. However, Maisie is having night terrors, leaving Clara to think that maybe her husband was murdered.

Clara has to find out the truth. She can't sleep, she doesn't eat. She hasn't even told Maisie yet that her daddy is gone. Her grief is overwhelming and she's obsessed with the idea that her beloved husband was murdered.

Her pursuit of truth leads her to secrets that her husband kept from her. She didn't know how much in debt they were. She doesn't know that he had begun gambling. She doesn't know that Nick fired his best friend? What else is there that she doesn't know?

The story is told in part by Clara, the here and now. Nick's story is told in his voice in the months leading up to his death.

This is another highly suspenseful story by this author. The story premise is cleverly written and the characters are solid. The ending was quite different from what I thought it would be.

The only thing I really didn't like is that there seems to be no separation (as in chapters) between Clara's story and Nick's remembrances. They ran into each other. I would be reading Clara and then all of a sudden it would hit me that I was reading Nick. Just a tad disorienting.

Many thanks to the author / Harlequin (US & Canada) / Park Row Books / Netgalley for the advanced copy of EVERY LAST LIE. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

How does Mary Kubica continue to top herself every time she puts the metaphorical pen to paper?

Every Last Lie, her fourth novel, follows Clara Solberg, mother of two, after her husband, Nick, dies in a car crash. Grief wraps its unrelenting hands around Clara’s life, squeezing and squeezing until fear and obsession take its place. Her daughter’s night terrors since the crash prompt Clara to investigate her husband’s death: Was it just an accident, or did Nick commit suicide? Or was he murdered?

A master at telling a chilling story through multiple points of view, Mary Kubica outdoes herself and keeps you up well into the night.

Five stars, two thumbs up. And of course, thank you to the lovely and talented Mary Kubica and her awesome team at HarperCollins for the advanced reader copy.

I enjoyed Mary Kubica's other novels (The Good Girl, Don't You Cry and Pretty Baby) but this one was painful to read. There was no "psychological" suspense at all on my part. The lead female character starts out as a sympathetic but by the end she is just plain annoying. I found myself skipping large portions of her chapters just because I couldn't take even reading what the character was saying or thinking, she would basically just jump to random conclusions without any thought. Seriously, I'm not even a parent, but the characters parenting skills don't seem to be all that great and makes her just all around unsympathetic. I was completely disappointed by the book and thought about not even finishing it, but I powered through and now it was just a waste of money and time reading the book.

**Possible spoilers
This book was painful. My most common thought during listening (I read it as an audio book) was "holy ****, just get to it!" If I had actually been reading it, I'm sure I would've skimmed over half of it. It is in serious need of editing, as there are long, drawn-out passages of unnecessary explanation that do nothing but interrupt the action. I use the word "action" lightly because, though the main characters try to make it seem like there's a big mystery, there's not. It's mostly just a lot of random jumps to conclusions that seem so ridiculous I couldn't help but roll my eyes. There are a lot of unrelated story lines with secondary characters that are never really wrapped up, but you don't care enough about them to be put out by it. Also, the main characters are quite unlikable, and it took all I could to get to the end. I'm also fairly sure I don't want to ever have children, for fear they might end up half as annoying as the little girl in this book.

Four days after the birth of their son Felix, Clara Solberg's husband Nick and four year old daughter Maisie are in a horrific car accident. While Maisie escapes unscathed, Nick is not so lucky. When the little girl starts to replay the accident in the form of night terrors, Clara begins to think that there is something more to the crash that claimed her husband's life.

Told in the alternating perspectives of Nick in the days leading up to the crash and Clara's life afterwards, readers are allowed a front row seat to the events as they unfold. Clara and Nick's stories are compelling, but the focus is shifted away from them on more than one occasion. With the additional side plots concerning Clara's parents, an aide, the next door neighbor, a colleague of Nick's, a former patient, etc., the book ends up so fragmented that the main story suffers. Clara's ineptitude is more than just grief and does not ring true. In the end, I felt that the author spent too much time trying to throw the reader off the scent and not enough time on the actual story. Every Last Lie was an average read for me, but may appeal to other readers who enjoy psychological suspense thrillers.

This book is alternately told by two very unreliable narrators. First is Clara, who is mourning the death of her husband Nick after a car accident that killed him but left their four year old daughter Maisie unscathed. Second is Nick himself in the months leading up to his untimely death. Clara begins to suspect foul play when Maisie has night terrors about a “bad man” in a black car. Can a toddler be trusted to recall what really happened? Nick and Clara certainly can’t be counted on to be honest. Clara is consumed by grief and overwhelmed by widowhood and post-partum depression, while Nick is a coward and a liar by omission. As Clara unravels and convinces herself Nick’s death wasn’t an accident, she learns about aspects of Nick’s life that he withheld from her and becomes increasingly paranoid. Kubica’s writing gives a clear sense of Clara’s isolation and suspicion. And despite Nick’s dishonesty, he is mildly sympathetic and it was compelling how his situation unfolded. While I can’t really empathize with Clara’s situation, the overall plot was engaging and well-paced.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.