Or they’ll tell it for you…
Rachel’s childhood is a mess of fragmented memories, and her adult life is no less chaotic.
Her mother and daughter were her only concrete links to the past and now they are slipping through her fingers. Fuelled by the fear of losing them both, she delves into her mother’s past, fast becoming entangled in her own tragic history.
With eerie friend requests filling Rachel’s phone and shocking flashbacks filling her mind, she is plagued by her mother’s past, and soon realises that her entire life might just be a lie.
Will she ever discover the truth?
Firstly I must apologise to the author and publisher for the delay in publishing today's review.
As soon as I saw the synopsis for Amanda Brittany's second novel I knew it was one that I wanted to read so had already bought a copy of Tell the Truth before I received the email invite inviting me to be a part of the blog tour. And boy did this book live up to all of my expectations and some... it truly was a book that messed with my head!
Tell the Truth is a dual timeline, multiple narrative story which combined perfectly to amp up the tension. In the present day we meet Rachel, a young woman who is struggling to cope with recent events, as well as a third mystery person whose identity isn't revealed until the latter stages. But then we also have flashbacks to the 1980's with Laura's story and see how as a single mother she and her young daughter Rachel ended up leaving everything they knew behind and moving from the rural Irish countryside to the hustle and bustle of London.
Rachel was already a character on the verge of a breakdown, struggling to cope following the break up of her relationship plus having to cope alone with the devastating diagnosis of early onset Alzheimers for her mother, before strange things started happening to her. The more sinister calls and messages she received, the more it seemed to unsettle her and make her question everything she thought she knew about her life. Realising that she can't get the answers from her mother she decides to head to Ireland to see if she can get to the answers she's craving for but sometimes it's better to let things lie in the past as sometimes it's better not to know!
As I already said in the introduction, this is a book that will really mess with your mind. As a reader I'm always on the look out for clues as to the potential suspects and the reasons why they are doing what they are doing, and with this cast of flawed characters Amanda Brittany certainly provided us with our fair share of likely suspects. Nearly every character we meet has something they are hiding even Rachel herself, although she didn't know it at the time, and it's only over time as events play out do we come to discover the truth. I found myself questioning Rachel constantly, wondering why she was trying to deal with this alone, and why she didn't report the incidents to the police when they started happening, but then again I guess if she had done we wouldn't have had such an edge of the seat story.
Tell the Truth was a gripping read from start to finish. The pacing was just perfect, starting off slowly to reel you in then ramping up the tension with a twist here or a surprise there, some a little more predictable than others, until we reached the dramatic conclusion. Did I guess right? Well only partly, I had figured out who the sinister third central character was but I couldn't figure out the why and was way off base as to their motive. Well played Amanda Brittany, I look forward to more suspense-filled thrillers from you in the future.
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