Living Lies by Natalie Walters (Harbored Secrets; 1)

The Synopsis:

In the little town of Walton, Georgia, everybody knows your name–but no one knows your secret. At least that’s what Lane Kent is counting on when she returns to her hometown with her five-year-old son. Dangerously depressed after the death of her husband, Lane is looking for hope. What she finds instead is a dead body.
Lane must work with Walton’s newest deputy, Charlie Lynch, to uncover the truth behind the murder. But when that truth hits too close to home, she’ll have to decide if saving the life of another is worth the cost of revealing her darkest secret.
Debut novelist Natalie Walters pulls you to the edge of your seat on the first page and keeps you there until the last in this riveting story that will have you believing no one is defined by their past.

I received this book from the author/publisher for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

In this small town murder mystery, we follow Lane Kent, and Marine-turned-deputy Charlie Lynch, as they both race against the clock to solve the murder case and hopefully keep others from dying too.

I enjoy a good mystery novel, but in the past I’ve always stayed away from the “small-town” mysteries because the closeness of the little towns and how the characters always know the suspects is just a little too convenient for my taste, but Living Lies broke through most of those stereotypes!

To be truthfully honest, I only considered picking up this novel because it’s written by an Army wife, and I’m a sucker those books right now, and it was recommended to me by my author friend Vanessa (who wrote Soldier On). Then, Charlie was a Marine *wink*, so I was definitely interested and I’m happy to report that it exceeded all expectations!

I loved the characters so much! All of them, they were so well done and developed, unique in their personalities, and their diversity really drove this novel forward. The “background characters” weren’t in the background as much as most mysteries, and I loved that some of those characters were the ones that made big contributions to the case, because it felt more like reality than a lot of novels that like to keep only one or two characters in the spotlight at all times.

The story is good. Really good. I love to try to solve the mysteries ahead of the characters, but this one had me stumped. There were a lot of suspicions to keep you grappling for leads and even though towards the end, I had my suspect, I couldn’t answer the “why?”. So Mrs. Walters did a great job of keeping the mystery all the way through to the end.

Overall, I really enjoyed Living Lies, and I’m so looking forward to the release of the second book in November, and the third, next May! I give it 4 out of 5 stars!