Never Lie by Freida McFadden - A Book Review
Synopsis:
Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams.
But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.
In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance.
Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels.
And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.
The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.
Genre: Suspenseful Mystery-Thriller Fiction
Tropes:
- Toxic Relationship
- Manipulation
- Secrets
For letter N of my reading challenge, I was torn between Never Lie by Freida McFadden and Never Never by Colleen Hoover, so when I saw Never Lie was on sale for 99p, my decision was made for me.
This year I delved deeper into the work by Freida McFadden and I have to say, I’ve loved every second of it. I have been hoping to find an author who writes similar to Colleen Hoover’s Verity and I think I’ve found her.
The last book I read by Freida was The Wife Upstairs, which I absolutely loved, so you can imagine my excitement when it came to read Never Lie.
Never Lie follows newly weds, Tricia and Ethan as they explore a new home far from where they currently live. Only when driving to their possible future home, a blizzard starts – leaving them stranded at the home without any contact signal.
Tricia has uneasy feelings towards the home, after discovering it belonged to the famous Dr Adrienne Hale who went messing and was never found. When Tricia reveals her feelings to her husband, she’s reassured by him as he believes the home will be a brilliant place for them to raise future children.
As they are left stranded at the house and without a way of contacting help, the pair spend the night at the home with the plan of leaving the next day. As they spend the night, Tricia begins hearing weird and strange noises, leading her to believe they are not alone. When presenting these worries, Ethan reassures her that she’s being paranoid. Tricia becomes further paranoid when she discovers fresh food in the fridge, despite the house being abandoned for a while – Ethan reveals it would have been the estate agent, which Tricia isn’t so easy to believe.
With the home being left vacant for so long, there’s no electricity or heating, meaning that they will have to entertain themselves and use Dr Hale’s remaining clothes to keep warm. Tricia discovers tapes from Adrienne which she begins listening to, to help pass time.
The story flicks between past and present, solely focusing on the present but reflecting on the past, as and when Tricia listens to a tape recording. These tape recordings are of Dr Adrienne’s session with her patients.
Tricia slowly starts to listen to the tapes, where she learns of Adrienne’s patient EJ, who began blackmailing her, in exchange of free therapy sessions after his mother requested to end them. The deranged patient witnessed Adrienne vandalise a car after they beat her into a space and therefore, recorded her as blackmail for continuing their sessions. With her career at stake, Adrienne has no choice but to continue the therapy sessions.
In present time, Tricia becomes more and more paranoid of the house and its haunted history, when items from around the home start to appear in different places. Tricia’s paranoia leaves her feeling even more uneasy, after it is revealed that she is pregnant and is yet to tell Ethan.
During Tricia’s listening session, she learns that Adrienne became well known for her published work, where she produced a book containing patient stories – one of which was from a traumatised survivor who witnessed the brutal murder of her friends and fiancé after they were attacked by an unknown and unfound person.
After listening to that tape, Tricia begins reflecting on her own previous engagement where she reveals it ended because it didn’t work out. Tricia details how her friends believed her new marriage with Ethan was a red flag and were concerned with how quick their relationship progressed.
When Tricia can’t sleep, she decides to go into Adrienne’s office to listen to more tapes. During this, she picks out a tape for another patient labelled GW where Adrienne’s patient believes everyone is out to kill her, including her own son. Tricia listens as Dr Hale discusses the patient case and how she can overcome the anxiety she’s experiencing. Tricia is interrupted of the tape, when she hears a noise from outside the office. When she exists, she discovers a painting of Dr Hale had been put back on the wall, despite it being removed by Ethan the night before.
By listening to the tapes, Tricia is able to piece together that Adrienne had a boyfriend.
During the past, Adrienne revealed the blackmail of her patient EJ, to her boyfriend Luke, to enlist the help of him to hack into the EJ’s computer to delete the file. Adrienne’s boyfriend is apprehensive at first, but decides to help her out after being manipulated by her.
In order to gain access to EJ’s house, they drug him so they are able to retrieve the keys to his house. Only after Adrienne’s boyfriend deletes the files, the blackmailer reveals he knows it was her, leading to further blackmail.
After Adrienne suggests killing her blackmailer, Luke decides to leave her. This doesn’t stop Adrienne, as she discovers that her survivor patient PA, fabricated the whole story and actually killed her friend and fiancé herself, after discovering their affair. Adrienne enlists this patient to help her take out her blackmailer, which her patient does – only she becomes concerned about what Adrienne will do with the body and whether she will turn the survivor in.
Upon Adrienne mysteriously disappearing, her boyfriend Luke was named as the first person of interest within her disappearance and possible murder. Luke was arrested, but was ultimately let go due to insufficient evidence.
After things in the house become more and more eerie, Ethan finally believes his wife Tricia’s concerns. The pair begin looking through Adrienne’s office, where they find a secret latch under her desk and after moving furniture to investigate inside, they discover the body of EJ.
This prompts Ethan to set up a plan to leave the house to find help, so they can get out of the house. Only before he leaves, they discover they were in fact not alone in Dr Hale’a abandoned home and they were unknowingly joined by Luke, Adrienne’s boyfriend.
The pair begin to tie Luke up, out of fear he was responsible for Adrienne’s murder, with Ethan demanding Tricia not to visit Luke whilst he’s gone looking for help.
The story reverts back to present day, where Tricia reveals that she is PA(Tricia) and she was the one who killed EJ (Edmund) in order to help Adrienne escape her blackmailer. It is also revealed that GW is Gail Wiley, who is Ethan’s mother who he killed after needing money and wanting her insurance payout. Tricia further reveals how she knew all along about Ethan’s role in his mother’s death and how she brought Ethan to the house to hide the body of EJ and to push Ethan to confess. She also reveals that she was the one responsible for moving things around the house in an attempt to make her appear innocent.
After being paranoid about Adrienne’s intentions of EJ’s body and whether she’ll hand PA(Tricia) in, Tricia visits Adrienne herself demanding answers. Only when Adrienne refuses to let Tricia in on her plans following her blackmailers murder, Tricia decides only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead – leading her to kill Dr Adrienne Hale herself.
Tricia’s plan was set into motion after Tricia learned that her mother was good friends of Gail, who would regularly discuss her son. This lead Tricia to befriend Gail where she could learn more information about Ethan, before finally gaining contact with him.
Tricia catches Ethan burning the tapes of the sessions his mother had with Adrienne, resulting in her to push Ethan to reveal the truth, before Tricia reveals her own truth to Ethan. This leads Ethan to conclude that Luke will be an issue and therefore, will need to be killed.
The story concludes with Ethan and Tricia living in the home of Dr Adrienne Hale with the bodies of their past, as they step into family life, raising their daughter.
When I set out reading this book, I was convinced I had the plot of the story figured out instantly! I believed that Dr Hale was murdered by EJ because of his obsession with her, who became sour after being rejected by her. I also believed EJ to be Ethan, who love bombed Tricia into a fast marriage, in hopes of Tricia filling in the void of Dr Hale. Oh how I was so wrong!
What I love the most about Freida’s writing is that she always directs you towards a certain prediction, but then blindsides you by going in the opposite direction, which you don’t realise until it’s happening! I think after revisiting the plot, I’ve come to realisation on how she does it! Frieda is able to blindside the reader by withholding information from the reader, that upon its revealing, is very obvious to the reader. For example, as a reader, I only saw the initials of Adrienne’s patients, but then towards the end, we learn of their full names which can then be tied to other characters. Pa(Tricia) we knew as PA and only knew Tricia as Tricia, which we learned the truth in the reveal. I’ve come to the conclusion that Freida only gives got the information she wants you to know so that the plot of the story isn’t instantly given away.
I really didn’t see it coming that Tricia was a patient of Adrienne Hale, who was known as Patricia and survived a fake knife attack. I didn’t suspect that Tricia was lying because we were literally reading about her POV! I didn’t even make the connection when she mentioned having an ex fiancé that didn’t work out.
I think I would’ve rated it higher, if I hadn’t of been so tired when reading it. Because I was so tired at the time of reading the ending, I ended up putting it down for the evening, which meant I was in the middle of the reveal, so I almost prevented myself from feeling the full shock factor and heart racing moment.
I also feel like I had a lot of questions after I’d finished it and I think that’s partially to do with the fact that we read from Tricia’s perspective and we were sort of lied to at times.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Georgia
♥
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