A nail-biting whirlwind of a read – if you’re a thriller fan, All Your Little Lies by Marianne Holmes is for you.

The plot:

Annie lives a quiet, contained, content life. She goes to work. She meets her friend. She’s kind of in a relationship. She’s happy. Not lonely at all.

But everything changes the night Chloe Hills disappears. And Annie is the last person to see her.

This is her chance to prove to everybody that she’s worth something.

Until she becomes a suspect.

I enjoyed every minute of reading this

All Your Little Lies ticks all the boxes for me; it has suspense, a well-built protagonist, a good twist and is very fast-paced, not dragging at all.

My favourite thing about this book is the narrative – the protagonist is shockingly unreliable, and you pick this up within the first few pages. There are things she says and does which gets your detective-senses tingling, and this really carries on throughout. One minute, I understood Annie’s thought-process, and the next I couldn’t believe what I was reading – talking about psychologically thrilling!

It’s a speedy read because you’re really inside Annie’s brain – not only does the aforementioned unreliability keep you intrigued, but you’re really trying to establish what happened and unravelling all the lies as and when they happen. You also have excerpts of another story (no spoilers, so just read this book!!!) which really keeps the intrigue alive.

I enjoyed the writing however it isn’t stand-out – it’s similar to lots of other thrillers, which is why I got settled into it so easily. There are definitely wonderfully curated sentences, especially when it comes to describing a person’s mentality, but there’s also a lot of conversation over description.

The plot twist was good, and it is literally embedded into the text as if it’s nothing – another ticked-box for me. It starts to provide explanations and meant I could start to work out why certain things had been said.

I do wish for more closure on one topic, but for other readers I could see the way it ended could be a thrill.

I found myself really connecting with the small-town vibe and some of the worries the protagonist had, and it really shines light on how things can be taken out of proportion.

I brushed over a lot of the other characters – likely because you’re seeing them through Annie’s eyes. The plot itself is intense and I enjoyed every minute of reading this.

A fantastic 4-star read – the unreliable narrative really did it for me, and I will definitely be picking up Holmes’ debut, A Little Bird Told Me.

All Your Little Lies, Marianne Holmes, RRP £8.99 (paperback); Book Depository

Pages: 299

Publisher: Agora

Genre: Psychological Thriller