The Lie She Told by Catherine Yaffe

She wanted to slam the brakes on this rollercoaster ride she had unwittingly boarded with her son. Everything she thought she knew, everything she had believed in had been tipped on its axis and if she wasn't careful even the tiniest piece of control would escape her grasp.

The Lie She Told by Catherine Yaffe is a domestic noir/psychological thriller/dark realism fusion.
It is slowly unravelling a bleak tale about lies, survival, domestic violence, and choices we make.

Kate Ward is on the run from her abusive ex. Living in the remote Scottish Highlands under Witness Protection, she is re-building her life, having uprooted her son and herself to find a peaceful life.
She works for Jack Bruce, the owner of the only café in Garrloch, a Lochside village in the Scottish Highlands.

Jack is a good, decent man.

"He had sensed that Kate was looking for security and, having no children of his own, he had taken both her and Joe under his wing. With his guiding hand he had helped them settle into the rhythm of Highland life and now they were an integral part of the small community."

He admires Kate, and doesn't pry into her private life. "She was a determined young woman who clearly adored her son. He didn't know what had happened in Kate's past, and it wasn't really any of his business."

Kate is friendly, but keeps herself to herself. There are too many secrets that she wants to keep hidden.

"Kate herself couldn't confide in him [Jack] about her innermost thoughts and feelings, and she didn't dare strike up a friendship with any of the Gairloch community for fear they would want to know about her past..."

Life goes on undisturbed, until Kate meets Ryan.

Ryan is the blast from the past. He arrives in the spring, and quickly gains Kate's trust, despite being her ex-husband's mate.
Ryan is the black sheep of the family. The villagers don't seem to like him either.
But Kate believes in second chances, and allows Ryan to worm into their lives with ease, becoming dependent on his help as the childminder for Joe.

And it's ever so easy to gain a young child's trust.

"Joe liked Ryan a lot. He was good fun, had taught him all sorts of new games, and was always showing him new places to play, places that mum would definitely not let him go."

Very soon Ryan becomes "an intrinsic part of their lives that she couldn't remember a time without him".

Kate naively believes that "his heart was always in the right place". Ryan is aware of all Kate's secrets, he knows what she did to escape the abusive relationship, and he has an agenda of his own. 

And just like that, Kate allows Ryan to become part of the "family". She is not capable to step back or see the relationship for what it is. Her low self-esteem prevents her from taking stock of a bigger picture.

She loves Joe, "he was her life, her reason for being, the reason she had to break the cycle and escape the nightmare. She would have risked anything, everything, to create the happy life they now had." And yet she doesn't see how she endangers her own child, or how controlling and manipulative her new partner is.

The new world she has so carefully re-built, is beginning to break apart, with devastating consequences. The time is coming for Kate to face up to the lie she told.

The Lie She Told deals with such dark issues as the domestic violence, its psychological and emotional consequences, isolation, trauma and low confidence. 

The main character left me exasperated.
The story is not unrealistic at all, sadly there are too many women who bring dangerous partners in the lives of their children.

On what planet is it OK to trust a man with a criminal past, who took part in the armed robbery and asked you to hide the gun, especially if he was a friend of your abusive ex, and you're in the Witness Protection scheme?!
Wouldn't you contact the police about the "accidental" meeting with such a person? And why would you entrust him to look after your child as an unpaid babysitter?

If you're charitable, you might call the main character naïve. In real terms, Kate is irresponsible and reckless, whatever she has told herself about protecting her son at any cost.

It is also true that some women who escape one abusive relationship, move onto another relationship which is not better than the one they have left behind.

Ryan is cynical about their relationship. "He couldn't believe how easy it had been to win her over. He figured that living in relative isolation for two years would do that to any woman. She'd been starved of affection and he'd had her eating out of the palm of his hand".

For him it's one big game, "he doesn't care it was people's lives that he was playing with".

This is a tense and punchy story, packed with shock twists.

Potential triggers: domestic violence, coercive control, physical abuse.

Purchase Links

UK –https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lie-She-Told-peaceful-destroy-ebook/dp/B08BPJCV77

US - https://www.amazon.com/Lie-She-Told-peaceful-destroy-ebook/dp/B08BPJCV77

Author Bio –

Catherine Yaffe is a former freelance journalist, magazine editor and digital marketing agency owner. Catherine has previously written non-fiction books on Digital Marketing before following her passion for writing crime novels full time.

The Lie She Told is the first in a series of books that challenge the status quo of relationships and makes the reader question how well you know those around you.

Catherine lives in West Yorkshire with her husband Mark and their 2 cats Jenson & Button (she’s also a F1 fan!)

Social Media Links –

Twitter: @catherineyaffe

https://www.facebook.com/CatherineYaffeAuthor

Instagram @cat_yaffe_author

www.catherineyaffe.co.uk

This post is part of the blog tour for The Lie She Told.
Many thanks to Catherine Yaffe and Rachel's Random Resources for my e-copy of the book!