Book Review: Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent
My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4 stars)
Publisher: Penguin UK

I bought this in paperback last year with a pile of other UK books and this has sat on in a bookcase ever since. I started seeing it pop up in bookworld and found it's to be released in the US in June, so I decided that it was long overdue for it to be more than a shelf sitter and finally cracked it open. I can't give up big spoilers (and just about every revelation unfurled in this story, feels like one!) but I can say that it was difficult to put down and that's the only reason it took me a day and a half to read it.



The book's summary is terrifically spoiler free and really just scratches the surface of the setup of what awaits the reader. We have three main characters in Lydia, mother of Laurence and Karen, sister of the dead woman. Each has POV chapters and clear voices as they relate the story through time, beginning in 1980 and culminating in 2016. I rooted for Karen, hoped for Laurence and Lydia stoked deep dread in me. I can't recall the last character that took me there but Lydia did and she's currently sitting on the throne. I think she may long reign and she's earned it. Annie (Karen's sister) and Andrew (Lydia's husband & Laurence's father) echo throughout the work and are sad tools and testaments to Lydia's will. Karen, with her quest to know what really happened to Annie, was to me, the most sympathetic character. I wanted truth for her and justice for Annie but worried that Karen too would not survive this story. And Laurence? Well, I had sympathy and hope but did not worry about his survival until the last third of the book. The end of the story reminded me that there are fates worse than death and that my capacity for empathy for a dangerous sociopath is more shallow than I'd realized.

If you're in the UK and you haven't read this yet (it's been out since 2016 but it's possible) or you're in the US and want a blistering page turner to add to your summer reading, get a copy and just delight in it. I recommend a free day to read this one because much like one of its main characters, it will keep at you and won't let you alone until you relent.


Summary: The last people who expect to be meeting with a drug-addicted prostitute are a respected judge and his reclusive wife. And they certainly don't plan to kill her and bury her in their exquisite suburban garden.
Yet Andrew and Lydia Fitzsimmons find themselves in this unfortunate situation.
While Lydia does all she can to protect their innocent son Laurence and their social standing, her husband begins to falls apart.
But Laurence is not as naïve as Lydia thinks. And his obsession with the dead girl's family may be the undoing of his own.

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