‘She Lied, She Died’ by Carissa Ann Lynch #BookReview

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Best friend. Teenager. Murderer.

A young girl found dead in a neighbour’s field.

A fourteen-year-old who confesses.

Just a child herself, could Chrissy Cornwall really be a cold-blooded killer?

Years later, the murderer is getting out and Natalie Bryers, unable to forget the night of Jenny’s murder, still has questions.

Did Chrissy lie then or is she lying now? Did she really kill Jenny? And if so, will she kill again?

Aspiring writer Natalie Bryers feels like life is at a standstill. She’s going nowhere, living alone at the old family home, in a dead end job, and making no progress on her writing career. She’s haunted too by the memory of the discovery of the body of a murdered teenager in a field belonging to her family. Years later, her father and brother are dead, and her mother left years ago.

Now the murderer, who was a teenager herself, has been released, and she claims that she was innocent. For some reason, Natalie thinks she might be telling the truth – something about the murder just doesn’t add up. Could hearing Chrissie’s story put those ghosts to rest? And could it kickstart Natalie’s dream of a career as a writer?

This novel has some very good moments, gripping, creepy, intriguing. Natalie is a complicated main character, uncomfortable with her own questionable motivations, selfish at times, but ultimately sad and lonely – you can’t help but hope that things get better for her.

You can’t help but feel sorry for Chrissy, either, even though she is quite hard to like.

So good, well-written characters, an interesting plot, and plenty of twists and turns. The issue for me, however, was that the ending felt very rushed. After a big build up and lots of drama, everything was just tied up very quickly, and I was left feeling a bit ‘meh’ if I’m honest.

So a good story, an entertaining read, but a bit let down by the ending.