"Betrayal" by Lesley Pearse

An audio book.

London 1998. Eve is married to Don. He hits her repeatedly. When she's 30 and has 2 kids (Tabitha and Olly), she leaves him. The same day she and the kids are taken to a women's refuge in Devon, run by Marianne. She gains respect there from the others. She and the kids return to their house, Don evicted. Drunk, he sometimes sleeps in the shed. She sets it alight to scare him, making it look like his fault. He dies.

Months later she meets his parents for the first time. They seem nice. He'd severed contact with them.

There's a big life insurance pay out. She moves to Devon, where the refuge was. She's done curtain-making before. Now she expands into Interior Design (sounds unlikely). She meets George the estate agent and Tom the builder who both make her swoon with desire. Her bag is stolen, maybe by Button, a female investigative journalist who's been hounding her.

Button later talks to her, saying that she too has stayed at the refuge. She says that she knows Eve murdered her husband. She wants money to buy a house. Eve gives her £1k.

When Eve and Tom first sleep together, Eve hadn't thought about birth control issues(!). Their affair last 2 years. She never lets him stay the night because she doesn't want her kids to think that women need a man. He ultimatums her and leaves. Her friends and kids are on his side. After 2 months, George reappears - older than Tom, richer and more upper class. Less exciting in bed. Happier to fit into Eve's plans. Her company (somehow!) become successful. She takes on staff.

Eve catches George in bed with her 15 y.o. daughter and phones the police. He's arrested, and Tabby is taken away. Tabby's pregnant. Olly (14) acts as go-between between Tabby and her mother. He also tries to contact Tom. Tabby tells Eve to confess because the guilt is eating her (Eve) up. Really? It doesn't look like it. Before Eve decides what to do, Tabby has told Tom about it. So Eve confesses to the police.

George attacks Eve with a knife. Tom saves her. George kills himself. Tabby miscarriages. Eve gets off lightly in te court case. Don's parents don't blame her. In the epilogue Tom and Eve are together. Dawn?

No.

Other reviews

• goodreads
• lindasbookbag (What I enjoyed most, however, was Eve’s development over the plot. She couldn’t have been better named as she represents a universality of experience that women have had since the first woman herself. She does not begin in adversity and simply end up in success, but Lesley Pearse puts her through all manner of trials and achievements that make Eve feel vivid and real.)

"Deception" by Lesley Pearse

An audio book.

In 2015 Alice (divorced) meets a man, Angus, at her mother's funeral who says he's her (and her sister's) biological father, and that her mother changed her name. She wasn't always an easy person to be with, but Alice is shocked. She assumed Ralph was her father.

We go back to 1950. Janet, 10, is the result of an affair her drink-loving mother had. She's poor, clever, and wants to be an actress.

We return to the main timeline where Alice is discovering her mother's past. This is interrupted by further scenes from her mother's life - a victim of parental violence; care homes, etc.

She doesn't share the news with Emily her sister or Ralph, her adoptive father. How much does he know? Why hadn't he now revealed to his daughters what the truth was? A friend (retired policeman) does some checking online for her, discovering that Angus was indeed a bigamist and had gone to jail, and that her mother had changed her name several times. She had been an actress. Alice doesn't seem destabilised by this. She'd wondered why she hadn't been told about her mother's past, but had never been especially curious. She tracks down a woman who was in the same play as her mother, and chats to her. She finds out that her mother ran a brothel, etc. The facts (or at least the reasons for the lies) gradually emerge. The only good favour her mother did for someone backfires, Ralph knew little of his wife's previous life. While following up leads, Alice meets a man she likes enough to marry. Meanwhile, her sister's growing bored of her husband.

We're sometimes told an episode twice, from different PoVs, but the viewpoints aren't different enough. Alice never wrongly deduces. The ages of the characters are chosen to make the plot work, but make some of the characters unlikely. And could Angus really (financially) keep one of his marriages secret?

Other reviews

• rachelreadit
• goodreads

"Liar" by Lesley Pearse

An audio book.

London 1970. Post-hippie, with decimalisation round the corner. Emilia finds a body - a young girl about her age - in a rubbish dump. As a consequence she meets a neighbour, Max, an accountant. They've been aware of each other for 2 years (she's been living there 7 years - a haven from her violent father). There's quite a lot about their growing relationship. Emilia works at a newspaper, selling ad-space. She's sent to the girl's family to get a story. Emilia's disappointing life has suddenly perked up - a boyfriend and better job prospects. And she has a friend Cat who works at Harrods as a buyer.

The victim Lucy was an exotic dancer - a nice girl. After 6 weeks there's another local murder of a young blonde. Again Emilia is sent to interview the mother. This time the victim was a waitress and exploiter. Emilia again empathises with the people involved.

Emilia is interested in solving the cases. Max seems the obvious suspect to me - he spends time away mysteriously.

A third beautiful girl is killed. Emilia interviews the father, Mr Lark, a rich industrialist, who tries to rape her. She's given police protection. She's discovered that the 3 dead girls knew each other as girl guides.

Max becoming controlling in several minor ways, and less thoughtful. When he comes back from a trip he starts hitting her, though he's been cold and calculating up to now. He's arrested as a suspect for the murders. His name isn't Max, nor is he an accountant.

One of the police bodyguards, Sam, likes her. A fellow journalist likes her. They like her powers of empathy. Yet she feels she was completely fooled by a person she'd been living with for months. She chats about this to Cat, who is tall (and presumably strong), not pretty, and whose family died in a fire when she was young. When Cat takes her to the secluded house, Emilia sees a knife and lead piping in her bag - the murder weapons. Emilia asks Cat if she's the killer. She says she's been a liar all her life - so much so that her parents had her fostered out. When was a guide the 3 other girls tormented her. In a tussle Emilia knifes Cat in self-defence. Cat escapes. Her real name is Hilary and she works at a newsagent. Emilia calls the police who collect her. It wouldn't surprise me if Emilia now becomes the prime suspect.

The police find incriminating evidence at Cat's. Max breaks into Emilia's flat and ties her up. Sam saves her. Maybe he's going to be the next liar/suspect. She gets a letter from Cat and sees her as she's dying from her wounds. She hands Emilia a confession. Sam and Emilia start living together. We get strong and gentle Sam's potted biography all over again. He persuades her to visit her family so she does. Her father's being dead 3 years, her sister's children are in care, her mother is still drunk and selfish. Emilia's happy - she can start a new life with Sam. She's got promoted. She's been praised for her writing so she's going to write a book about Cat.

"She said sadly" occurs several times.

Other reviews

• goodreads
• Mrs B