The Lies I Tell: A Novel

This book was spell-binding. A twisty tale of revenge served cold. Female empowerment rising from the ashes of bitterness. The only thing I continue to harp on in my reviews is, the victimization of women through rape. I swear, it’s in every story I read. This one had this plot-point as well. But it wasn’t the full focal point. Not when there was a laundry-list of bad men behaviors overall. But instead, women using this bad behavior as a catalyst for action. And it was definitely action-packed. I loved it!

4.5 stars. Quick read. Very clever and fun changing of perspectives for the reader.

This was an intriguing story. I loved the perspective of knowing both sides and making you sympathize with the con.

3.5 ⭐️ I enjoyed this girl code mystery and couldn’t wait to find out how it ended! Nothing negative to say really besides perhaps a bit unrealistic? 3.5 just feels right 🤷🏼‍♀️

Bestselling author Julie Clark was fascinated by a podcast about a con artist who "went to elaborate lengths to lure in his victims, gain their trust, and then steal everything they owned." She envisioned female con artists being even more effective because women are generally perceived as less threatening than men. She asked herself, "Would people be more inclined to trust them?"

From the outset, Clark makes Meg a richly sympathetic con artist. Early in the story, Meg reveals that her latest target, Ron Ashton, tricked her mother, robbed them of what was rightfully theirs, and is now a powerful politician. Meg's first-person narrative is highly effective and heightens her story's emotional impact. She explains that Ashton "tore my life apart, sending my mother into a downward spiral she never recovered from and leaving me to live alone in a car for my final year of high school and beyond." Meg describes how her mother longed for a true partner, believing women should stand on their own, but fell victim to the scheming, deceitful Ashton. Meg's dreams were crushed and she learned to take refuge in libraries, using the computers there to establish a dating profile that ensured at least three dinner dates per week in order to stay fed. Living in her car, she worked at the YMCA where she was able to shower before her shift and hide her true circumstances from her boss and coworkers. She was never quite able to save enough enough money to get a place to live due to car registration fees, rising gas prices, and parking tickets issued as a result of the ongoing search for a safe place to park and catch a few hours of sleep. She inadvertently fell into a life of grifting when she discovered the profile on a dating site of a math teacher, Cory Dempsey, at her high school. Crafting a fake identity and life story, Meg used her knowledge about the forty-eight-year-old, who had been promoted to high school principal, as a basis for her first scam. Initially, she was motivated by her need for a safe place to live. But as she learned more about him, she formulated a plan to extract revenge and found she enjoyed being someone else. Eventually, Meg reached the point that "harming someone who harmed someone she cared about felt right to her" and found a lucrative career as a con artist.

Meg explains how she creates elaborate, detailed backstories about herself, focuses on specific targets, and "plays the long game," taking time to study her prey. She methodically infiltrates her victims' lives, heavily using social media to establish connections with her victims' friends and business associates. That way, the mutual acquaintance can vouch for her when she finally meets the victim, corroborating details of the identity she has fabricated. And she reinvests in her business, using the money she makes from her cons to fund her future scams. She keeps meticulous records of her pursuits.

By the time Meg meets Kat, she has been spent ten years perfecting her techniques, all in preparation for and leading up to the one big con that will destroy Ashton, the man who ruined her life. As Meg compellingly explains, being a con artist is not just a role she never planned to play. It is a lonely existence and she has no intention of being a grifter indefinitely.

When Kat and Meg's lives intersected a decade ago, Kat's career as an investigative journalist was just beginning. Chasing the Cory Dempsey story, she saw a chance to score an interview with a reluctant witness. It could lead not only to the discovery of new and shocking information about the story, but also, perhaps, to details about Meg herself that would enable her to successfully pitch a story about her and allow Kat to advance in a highly competitive industry. Her risk did not pay off. Instead, her life quickly derailed. She was "collateral damage" as a result of a series of events set in motion by Meg. She has blamed Meg ever since, determined to expose Meg as the fraud that she is and put her life back in order. Clark also employs a first-person narrative to convey Kat's story, pulling readers into her innermost thoughts and motivations in chapters that alternate with Meg's account. Kat reveals that she knows blaming Meg for what happened to her is not entirely rational, but she embarks, like Meg, on a mission to "balance the scales."

Kat is living with her fiancé, Scott, a police detective with a gambling problem, when she learns that Meg has returned. Meg is posing as a real estate broker, and Kat secures a job as Meg's assistant. She plans to infiltrate Meg's life, ingratiating herself in much the way that Meg does with her victims, in order to gather enough evidence to finally write the exposé that will unmask Meg and establish Kat as a credible, respected journalist. She believes that Meg has no idea who she really is, but before long, Kat finds herself being reeled in by Meg, and doubting everything she thought she knew as she strives to keep her life from unraveling yet again. Trust is a theme Clark deftly explores through Kat's experiences. She made the mistake of trusting years ago and the consequences devastated her. But did she learn from the experience? Is her trust in Scott misplaced? Has she learned to trust her own instincts? And could her growing fondness for Meg, despite her knowledge of Meg's actions, undermine her efforts to get her life and career back on track?

The Lies I Tell is a smart, absorbing story about two women who craft false identities and attempt to con each other. Both are motivated by deep wounds inflicted by others who wronged them. In Meg's case, she lost her beloved mother as a result of Ashton's callous wrongdoing. Both women are intent on retribution, believing that they can exact justice and, in the process, free themselves from past hurts and forge for themselves the kind of futures they have long dreamed about. Clark cleverly keeps readers guessing "who is the cat and who is the mouse" in a tale that is simultaneously full of surprises and heart-wrenching. Clark has made Meg a relatable anti-hero for whom readers will find themselves rooting.

And The Lies I Tell is yet another cautionary tale about the dangers of social media. The methods Meg employs to gather insight into her victims and enable her to believably ingratiate herself in their lives illustrate the inherent dangers of posting personal details online. Posts detailing life experiences, birthplaces, current and past residences, jobs held, names of relatives, etc. can easily provide a con artist the entrée he/she seeks.

For Clark, The Lies I Tell is "about justice; it's about taking back what you think belongs to you.” And that theme is particularly poignant, resonant, and timely given that Clark's two protagonists are female and this is still "a world where women often get the short end of the stick."

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.