The Book of Lies
- 3 Mar 2011
- 9780857860460
- £7.19
- 336 pp
In a few words
Longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award
Extraordinary
A true original
More about
the book
On this island your friends and your enemies quickly end up the same . . .
-1985-
When fifteen-year-old Catherine sees her best friend slip from a wild cliff path she vows never to say a word. But Catherine was the last person to see her alive.
-1940-
Charlie is also holding back a secret from the adults on the island. As German soldiers arrive on Guernsey, he carries out an act of rebellion with consequences that will reach far into the future – and into Catherine’s own life.
The Book of Lies is a powerful novel about friendship, love and betrayal. Weaving together two lives across the decades, it proves that no truth is as simple as it seems.
Delights in upsetting expectations The Book of Lies manages to link the twin stories to create an impressive fable about the relativity of truth and the deceits that make living on a small island possible
She has your undivided attention. The end is brilliantly double-edged, bearing witness, as does the book, to human nature's complexity
A joy - funny, endearing, credible
Pitch-perfect . . . exceptionally satisfying
Mary Horlock
View profileMary Horlock spent her childhood in Guernsey, moving to England at the age of eighteen. She read History and History of Art at Cambridge, and was previously a curator at Tate Britain. Mary lives in London with her partner and their two children.
