My Lies, Your Lies: The emotionally gripping new novel for 2020 from the bestselling author

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I enjoyed this book until about halfway through when it seemed to me that a different person was finishing the story. The characters all suddenly seemed to have a personality transplant and some of the scenarios were frankly absurd. But now she’s ready to tell the story that has haunted her for forty years – about a 15-year-old girl falling madly in love with her teacher.

Then she starts telling 'her' story and it's about a 15yr old girl who 'has an affair' with her 25 yr old music teacher back in the 60s. This was a quick read that everyone enjoyed and would consider reading something by this author again. Susan Lewis is the internationally bestselling author of more than forty novels as well as two memoirs. This book poses the question, if it is a case of statutory rape, and an adult having carnal knowledge of a minor, but both parties are truly in love with each other, does that make it okay? I cried at the end, feeling sorry for all of them but then feeling guilty because I felt sorry for Sir and shouldn’t have.

But it is bonkers in places and there will always be that questions of statutory rape and teacher-pupil relationships and is there ever any excuse. With each chapter, my curiosity increased until the reveal exploded the story and turned it upside down. In my opinion, MY LIES, YOUR LIES took a little too long for interest to take hold - at nearly 30% in, which is a bit too long in my opinion - but then it did admittedly get rather interesting.

I know times were different in the 60s but it is never acknowledged that a 15yr old can't have an 'affair' with her teacher, this relationship is abusive and illegal. Beautifully written, I love the way Susan Lewis explores her characters emotions, bringing them to life.A family drama full of unexpected twists, with a huge amount of optimism and warning that there are two sides to every story.

I was honestly disturbed and thought about quitting the book but I continued because I figured this had to be going somewhere meaningful. I found this book a bit slow to begin with but as the story starts to enfold I started to enjoy it more and there were parts where I just couldn’t put the book down.Having read My Dark Vanessa in January, and quickly naming it one of my top books of the year — regardless of what’s to come, this only solidified my opinion on the matter.

Recently, I’ve also read a few books who have really excelled in their location setting and I would say that this is one of them too. Up until that point, the story was clever and poignantly touched on mental health, but the ending felt a bit rushed and the happy ever after vibe almost felt a bit amateur. You can bet if there was a mad woman running around threatening my family she would not be out of my sight. But Freda keeps harping on this idea that David 'never raped' Marianne so should not have been punished in any way and that Marianne 'lied'.

Freda seems keen to put the blame on the schoolgirl but was she the innocent party taken advantage of? She never intended to leave Joely in the tower for more than a day, she explains, leaving out the detail that she sent her housekeeper away on holidays so even she wouldn't discover Joely. I'll be clear, Marianne 'consented', she was in love with David (or 'Sir' as he is referred to throughout, like this is an ageplay BDSM novel), but that does not make it ok that David had sex with her. Alas, it was not long enough apparently because I couldn't help thinking the other novel was much better than this one.