The Liar’s Daughter by Claire Allan

Posted on January 29, 2020 by J-LBRBSBLOGS

A gripping suspense novel about deadly secrets and lies. No one deserves to be taken before their time. Do they?

Book blurb

Joe McKee – pillar of the Derry community – is dead. As arrangements are made for the traditional Irish wake, friends and family are left reeling at how cancer could have taken this much-loved man so soon.

But grief is the last thing that Joe’s daughter Ciara and step-daughter Heidi feel. For they knew the real Joe – the man who was supposed to protect them and did anything but.

As the mourners gather, the police do too, with doubt being cast over whether Joe’s death was due to natural causes. Because the lies that Joe told won’t be taken to the grave after all – and the truth gives his daughters the best possible motive for killing him…

My thoughts

This is a hard-hitting, dark story of Joe, his daughter, Caira, and his stepdaughter, Heidi. Joe finds out he has cancer and not much time left. He wants to reconcile with his estranged daughter Caira. Heidi, his stepdaughter has become his main carer but she doesn’t like Joe any more than Caira does. Heidi and Caira haven’t got too good a relationship either. Perhaps unsurprisingly since Joe walked out on Caira and Marie, her mother and Joe’s wife, to live with Heidi’s mother. Moreover, when Heidi’s mum died, also of cancer, Joe stayed to raise Heidi. So why dislike him so much?

His sister, Kathleen, comes back from England to see Joe, Caira comes to see Joe, Heidi carries on and they all help with Joe.

Joe dies. They prepare for the funeral. The funeral directors are preparing the body but they find something of concern. The police are brought in. So did someone kill Joe? Apart from the Priest and the doctor only the family saw Joe. Why would someone kill a man dying from cancer?

As we read and find out about the various characters in the story we learn that, if Joe was killed, there are several candidates who could have done it. We understand why as we read devastating things from Heidi and Caira as they recall the past. How they were so badly damaged by Joe.

Claire Allan has written sensitively whilst unfolding a complicated story of experiences and dark, hidden secrets that are exposed as the characters remember what Joe did. The story builds to a tense confrontation between Caira and Heidi, revealing how their scarred lives have shaped their relationships with those closest to them and then a surprising admission is revealed. Can it really be true? When more devastating truths are exposed it leads to an appalling and deeply affecting conclusion.

A breathtaking and remarkable book from Claire Allan.

Thanks

Thanks to Sanjana Cunniah at Avon for the invitation to review The Liar’s Daughter by Claire Allan, join the BlogTour and providing an eCopy of The Liar’s Daughter via NetGalley.

BlogTour

Want more? Take a spin around the BlogTour of The Liar’s Daughter by Claire Allan

Information

Published: Avon (23 Jan 2020 – eBook, Audio & Print In Ireland)

Buy:

Author:

Claire Allan is a former journalist, turned bestselling author from Derry in Northern Ireland.

She graduated with a Masters Degree in Newspaper Journalism from Ulster University in 1999, before starting work as a staff reporter with the Derry Journal – covering an array of news from politics to human interest stories. She was the paper’s first female columnist in its 200 year history. She also worked for a time as acting news editor.

The highlights of her career in journalism with the included being part of the award winning team that covered the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday, and covering Derry’s year as the first UK City of Culture. She maintains the best part of the job was always meeting ‘ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell’.

In 2006, Claire decided to try and fulfil a lifetime ambition to write a novel and spent six months writing ‘Rainy Days and Tuesdays’ – loosely based on her own experienced of post-natal depression. This was published by Poolbeg Press in Ireland in 2007 and became an instant bestseller.

Seven more women’s fiction novels followed before Claire decided to leave journalism to concentrate on writing, and also to try her hand at writing psychological thrillers. Ten years after ‘Rainy Days and Tuesdays’ was written, Claire began to write ‘Her Name Was Rose’, which was published by Avon Books in 2008. It became a bestseller in the UK, Ireland, Canada, America and Australia.

It was followed by Apple of My Eye (Jan, 2019) and ‘Forget Me Not’ (May, 2019). Her fourth thriller is pencilled for release in January 2020.

Claire still lives in Derry, and is a very proud Derry Girl. She is married and has two children – the Teen and the Wee Doll – and two cats, Alfie and Kitty Purry, and a puppy called Izzy.

Claire also writes as Freya Kennedy her brand new alter ego. Claire has published eleven novels. Now, as Freya, she is writing warm, funny women’s fiction for Boldwood – with the first title to be published in May 2020.

Claire Allan Website

@claireallan

Books – Claire Allan