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Do you know your spouse? Think again when you read Lying Next to Me


Sophie Warner watches from shore as her husband rows their daughter out into the water.

The three-year-old is entranced with her first experience crabbing.

But then, the unthinkable. A man approaches, attacks Sophie, and she's never seen alive again.

Author Gregg Olsen is a master of weaving truth within lies. Throughout the book I had several moments where I was sure who was behind Mrs. Warner's disappearance, but each time I had an "aha", my finger turned on another character. With so much to gain, and even more to lose, everyone seemed to have a stake in the kidnapping and murder of the young mother.

The novel was so gripping, I had a hard time putting it down and spent most of the last 24 hours walking the house with my kindle in my hand, stealing a quick paragraph here and there as I went about my day. I even got scolded for reading through dinner, something we banned long ago to focus on our family time.

"How dare you read at the dinner table, Mommy," my kid said to me.

"It's a good book," was my only answer.

The most compelling part of the story was the underlying current of motherhood; both the having of it, and the desiring for it by those struggling with infertility. As someone who has known the struggle of conceiving, the outright desperation for Kristin, the Warner's neighbor on vacation, absolutely hit home. It gave me pause and caused me to wonder how far I would have gone had my son not shown up suddenly all those years ago?

Lying Next to Me is an absolutely gripping murder mystery that uncovers the dirty secret behind law enforcement. Sometimes, the evidence itself is an unreliable witness.

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