Thoughts on 3 audiobooks : The Better Liar by Tanen Jones – The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth – The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Posted by Kay on March 13, 2020 12:14 pm in 2 stars reads, 2.5 stars reads, 3 stars reads | 6 comments

I’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks this year so far – I always have one (or a few!) on the go. Most have been really good, but some have left me disappointed. Here are a few thoughts about the books that didn’t quite work for me as I had hoped (but hey, they might work for you!)

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The Better Liar by Tanen Jones
Narration : Lisa Flanagan, Karissa Vacker, Kristen Sieh
Genre : Thriller
Stand alone

About the Book  :

Robin Voigt is dead. If Leslie had arrived at her sister’s cramped Las Vegas apartment just hours earlier, this would have been their first reunion in a decade. In the years since Robin ran away from home as a teenager, Leslie has stayed in New Mexico, taking care of their dying father even as she began building a family of her own. But when their father passed away, Leslie received a rude awakening: She and Robin would receive the inheritance he left them together—or not at all. Now her half of the money may be beyond her grasp. And unbeknownst to anyone, even her husband, Leslie needs it desperately.

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When she meets a charismatic young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Robin—and has every reason to leave her past behind—the two make a reckless bargain: Mary will impersonate Robin for a week in exchange for Robin’s half of the cash. But neither realizes how high the stakes will become when Mary takes a dead woman’s name. Even as Mary begins to suspect Leslie is hiding something, and Leslie realizes the stranger living in her house, babysitting her newborn son, and charming her husband has secrets of her own, Robin’s wild, troubled legacy threatens to eclipse them both.

My Thoughts :

Oh, what to say about this one? I have so many thoughts, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone!

First, I can absolutely see why so many readers enjoyed it. The Better Liar has an intriguing plot with some good twists/surprises. The story is told mostly from two point of views (with an additional third), which is always interesting, and the pace is good.

However, for me, the whole thing simply didn’t work. Without saying too much, some things didn’t add up, and consequently, when I reached the end the answer felt too obvious and easy. I didn’t think it was well built and I wanted more from the story.

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The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth
Narration : Barrie Kreinik
Genre : Thriller
Stand alone

About the Book  :

You’ve lost your daughter.

From the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, Diana, she was kept at arm’s length. Diana was exquisitely polite, and properly friendly, but Lucy knew that she was not what Diana envisioned. But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice who helped female refugees assimilate to their new country. Diana was happily married to Tom, and lived in wedded bliss for decades. Lucy wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.

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That was five years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, a suicide note near her body. Diana claims that she no longer wanted to live because of a battle with cancer.

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But the autopsy finds no cancer.
The autopsy does find traces of poison and suffocation.
Who could possibly want Diana dead?
Why was her will changed at the eleventh hour to disinherit both of her adult children and their spouses?

My Thoughts :

This was my favorite of the three books from this post. The Mother-in-Law was interesting in that I felt it read less like a thriller and more like a fiction with some mystery elements. The book centers mostly on the difficult relationship between Diana and her daughter-in-law, Lucy, and we go back and forth between the days following Diana’s death and key moments of their past.

I actually enjoyed having a thriller that had a bit of a different pace. It’s not as exciting, perhaps, but relationships are something that always interest and intrigue me, no matter what genre I’m reading. My main problem with the book was how much of the plot relied on characters not talking to each other. SO MANY issues between Diana and Lucy would have been resolved by simply communicating in a normal way. The book also used one of my least favorite tropes. But despite all its flaws, I still had a good time listening to this one and thought it was a solide 3 stars at least!

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The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
Narration : Tamaryn Payne, Bea Holland, Dom Thornburn
Genre : Thriller
Stand alone

About the Book  :

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

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She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

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Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

My Thoughts :

I have some mixed thoughts about this one! I thought the story was compelling. I listened to it over a short period of time, often thinking about it when I wasn’t listening to it.

It’s a well built mystery, with a good plot and some interesting characters. It’s creepy and unsettling, and I’m not surprised to see it has received some really positive reviews from readers. However, despite all this, I found I had a hard time really connecting to the story or the characters. I felt overwhelmed by it all (I felt the book tried to do too much with one single story, without fully exploring the complexity of some issues) and absolutely disliked the ending.