Never Lie by Freida McFadden

Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams.

But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.

In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance.

Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels.

And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.

The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.

Review

My first Freida book after finding The Housemaid! I read this book a bit more than a year ago. At first I was going to give it 4.5 stars, but going through the things that made me not give it a full 5, it made me realise that actually, I think this book is 4 stars flat.

Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for their dream home when they get caught in a blizzard in one of the houses they’re looking at. The house once belonged to Dr. Hale, a psychiatrist who vanished a few years ago. Naturally, Tricia couldn’t resist snooping around and discovers a secret room where the doctor had taped recordings of her patients’ sessions.

You may think this is a locked-room mystery… but this isn’t quite exactly that.

As Tricia listens to the tapes and we learn about Dr. Hale’s backstory, you really start to get that panic-for-the-main character feeling. Super thrilling.

McFadden is a master at enthralling you into the story. I actually quite liked the direction the story took at the end, but there were some issues that I had in how we got there. No spoilers, but…

I still quite enjoyed this, one of my favourite Freida books.