A short and great thriller – check out Bright Lies by AA Abbott.
The plot:
Emily’s dreams come true when her mother marries wealthy painter, David. Thanks to him, Emily’s artistic talents shine. Then he starts teaching her things a 14-year-old shouldn’t know. When Emily escapes from David’s luxury mansion, she’s penniless and forced to sleep in a rat-infested alley.
Bad boy Jack has turned his life around. Working as a DJ with ambitions to open a club, he rescues Emily from the streets when he sees a woman in trouble. He doesn’t know she’s still only 15 – and trapped in a dark web of secrets and lies.
David must find Emily and silence her. As he closes in, Jack faces the hardest choice of all. If he protects Emily from the man who’s stolen her innocence, he’ll kiss goodbye to his future…
If you want an introduction into the thriller genre, Bright Lies would be perfect
The book is centered around a difficult topic – I won’t reference it but drop me an email via my home page if you want more information. It adds to the speediness of the read as you want to find out what will happen, but on the other hand, does have those moments which you just don’t want to read about.
Chapters are split between Emily and Jack, which I quite enjoyed because the tones were clearly different and allowed you to work out what was going to happen, especially with an opening chapter to think back to.
You’re given snippets of information here and there and it remains very pacey throughout – with its length at only 223 pages and short chapters, it doesn’t take long to read. If you want an introduction into the thriller genre, Bright Lies would be perfect.
The plot and characters are incredibly well built. My heart really went out to Emily and Jack, and even those smaller characters who still play a big part.
The synopsis knocked this down a fair bit for me – it covers far too many elements of the book, not leaving much for surprise. It’s definitely thrilling, but I wouldn’t mark this as a ‘psychological’ thriller, and it didn’t have that jaw-dropping twist. A high 3-stars.
Bright Lies, AA Abbott, RRP £8.99 (paperback); Amazon
Pages: 223
Genre: Thriller
