"What I Saw and How I Lied" by Judy Blundell

[chesilbeach]

Title: What I Saw and How I Lied

Author: Judy Blundell

Publisher: Scholastic

Rating: 3/5

 

Synopsis (from waterstones.com):

Summer's ending, Evie's stepfather is finally home from the Second World War, and Evie is tired of her glamorous mother treating her like a little girl. Then a mysterious stranger appears: a handsome ex-GI who served with Evie's stepfather. Slowly, Evie realizes that she is falling in love with him - but he has dark secrets and a strange control over her parents. When a sudden tragedy occurs Evie's world is shattered. Torn between her family and the man she loves, Evie must betray someone. The question is ...who?

 

Review:

The cover of this book looks stunning, with a film noir feel, drawing me in to what I anticipated would be a thrilling book with a teenage femme fatale. What I actually got, was a coming of age story for a teenager with the elements of mystery, war, prejudice and adultery, albeit on a fairly domestic scale.

 

I loved the sense of period that the author created, and the language and characters felt authentic for that period. Once the story moves to the setting of the hotel, it does start to feel slightly claustrophic, only adding to the general darkening atmosphere of the plot.

 

However, I don't think it lived up to my expectations, and by the time I got to the end, I was a bit disappointed that the heroine hadn't either been or developed into that femme fatale I'd been hoping for.