Richard & Judy Introduce The Woman Who Lied by Claire Douglas

We loved the concept behind this extremely clever story. A writer who prides herself on her imaginative murder storylines begins to notice that out there in the real world, someone seems to be committing copycat killings. And as if that wasn’t weird and disturbing enough, one day someone she actually knows is murdered – in the same way as a victim in the book she’s currently writing, as yet unpublished. The Woman Who Lied is, to coin an old-fashioned phrase, a proper page-turner. We devoured it.

Richard's Review:

You like creepy? Well, THIS book is creepy. In real life, there have been rare (fortunately, very rare) cases of novelists who blurred the lines between reality and the fictional worlds they created. In short, they went mad, unable to distinguish between imaginary characters and real ones. Solitary writing can be a lonely, sometimes mind-altering place. Claire Douglas has put a brilliant twist on this psychological oddity. For Emilia Ward (Claire’s central character) the confusion between fiction and reality comes, not from within, but without. The murder plots she spins into successful best-sellers are beginning to be replicated out there in the real world. Coincidence? Or something far, far more sinister?

Judy's Review:

Oh, sinister! AND threatening. Emilia lives a relatively ordinary life: a suburban mother of two who somehow manages to shoehorn writing novels into the spare corners of her day. By the time we meet her, she’s busy on what will be her tenth title – and then an incident from one of her earlier books occurs in real life. At first, Emilia writes it off as pure coincidence. But then it happens again. And again. What’s going on? A question that takes on infinitely greater urgency when someone Emilia knows personally dies in exactly the same way as a victim in her current – unfinished and unpublished – work. How could anyone know what she’d written? And if the killings are getting closer, could Emilia herself – or her family – be next? A thrilling read.