Blog Tour | Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison

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Thank you to Netgalley and Mira for an ARC of this title. All opinions are my own.

Her Dark Lies takes place on the beautiful Isle Isola, Italy, where the Compton family owns an extensive villa. This is also where Claire will marry the love of her life, Jack Compton, and take her place in the very wealthy and prestigious family. Claire isn’t the first woman to wed the handsome Jack but the details surrounding the death of his first wife ten years earlier are a taboo subject with the Comptons-until they reach the island and suspicious things begin happening, leaving them no choice but to share the truth with Claire. What they don’t know is that Claire has some secrets of her own. 

“How romantic, how very gothic and creepy, and how very Compton to choose an island surrounded by sea monsters and exhausted birds to call their own.”

This is the first thriller to truly entertain and stump me in a long time. There are so many different aspects that I really liked about this book. First being the isolated island setting during severe storms that made leaving the island impossible. Not to mention that the hulking villa perched on the cliffs practically served as its own character with all its twists, turns, and surprises. There are a wealth of characters from the bride and groom and their families to the security and staff and they’re all fair game in this sordid tale of cat and mouse. 

“I have taken so many lives. The first time was the hardest. It gets easier after that.”

I knew who the antagonist was pretty early on but it’s not really meant to be a secret. What the reader is trying to discover is the HOW rather than the who and the fact that you never know who you can trust just adds another layer of suspense to the book. The chapters alternate between a few points of view, one being from the antagonist themselves who isn’t explicitly named but the information you’re given makes it clear that this person is in the villa and watching everything that’s going on and you are left trying to figure out how they are able to maneuver and know so many details without being seen. It’s a very clever storytelling device. 

“Our silences grew from two bent trees into a forest that provided shelter and safety.”

Some suspension of belief is necessary to make the ending and some other outcomes believable- but it was easy enough for me to do so. I was really hoping for a big AHA! moment but it never came resulting in the loss of a star. I felt that so much more could have been done to make the ending more twisty and shocking. As a whole I really enjoyed trying to guess what was happening and discovering the stories behind some of the juicier bits as they were slowly revealed. There was also a grandfather and two dogs in this book and those are two things I always enjoy in my stories. 

I recommend this book to anyone who likes a darker, more gothic mystery thriller with a large cast of characters, multiple points of view, and isolated settings. 

trigger warnings: Drug use (off page), domestic abuse, talk of suicide, loss of a loved one, grief.

All quotes used in this review were taken from an uncorrected proof and are subject to change.

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About the Author

J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 25 novels, and the EMMY® award winning co-host of the literary TV show A WORD ON WORDS. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 28 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens. Visit JT at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more insight into her wicked imagination.