Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.

I mean, what could be a more intriguing beginning than that!?

Amber Reynolds is in a coma. She's been in an accident and is lying in a bed in a hospital. She doesn't know what happened and she can't speak to those around her. But she's aware of everything going on around her. As her sister and her husband visit and wonder what happened to Amber, she travels her memories leading up to the accident, revisiting her own past in an attempt to figure out what's going on. And the hints she picks up on don't point to anything good. Was she in an accident, as everyone says? Or was the accident anything but? And if the latter, who is responsible?

Sometimes I Lie is a thriller with the most unreliable of unreliable narrators. First, she's fully admitted on the opening page that sometimes she lies, which of course sets the reader up to wonder exactly what she's lying about and when. Second, she can't remember how she ended up in the hospital. She's an observer to her own present tense - one without all the information.

It's only in revisiting the events of her past that she can begin to piece together the pieces of her present.

The story alternates between Amber and childhood diary entries. We aren't sure, until the end that is, whose diary entries these are, but they add a massively dark tone to the book as a whole.

I had the chance to listen to this one on audio, narrated by Stephanie Racine. It was a short listen, one that I didn't want to turn off once I started. Trust me, I found plenty of activities to occupy myself so that it was permissible to listen almost straight through!

In the current trend of domestic thrillers with unreliable narrators, there have been some smash hits and some bombs. Fortunately Sometimes I Lie is a great one!