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amyschmelzer's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
Police procedural that takes place at Christmastime but without any cozy Christmas vibes that I like in December. Catrina is morally gray. She’s a cop but she doesn’t spill her secrets or suspicions when a woman from her past (and her father’s) turns up murdered.
The writing took me at least 15% before I got into it. Hard to explain but to my American ears, the author’s words were more British than I am used to. Definitely some vocabulary that I haven’t seen before. Her sentence structure caused me to reread paragraphs on more than one occasion. For example, if I am used to seeing 1 2 3 4 5 6, then the sentence might be written 1 2 4 5 3 6. I said it’s hard to explain.
Police procedural that takes place at Christmastime but without any cozy Christmas vibes that I like in December. Catrina is morally gray. She’s a cop but she doesn’t spill her secrets or suspicions when a woman from her past (and her father’s) turns up murdered.
The writing took me at least 15% before I got into it. Hard to explain but to my American ears, the author’s words were more British than I am used to. Definitely some vocabulary that I haven’t seen before. Her sentence structure caused me to reread paragraphs on more than one occasion. For example, if I am used to seeing 1 2 3 4 5 6, then the sentence might be written 1 2 4 5 3 6. I said it’s hard to explain.
emmabeckman's review against another edition
4.0
Well that was pretty good! I guessed the official final reveal pretty early, but the roundabout reveals were surprising to me. It’s definitely a slow moving police procedural, so if you don’t like those, you won’t like this. This book was a lot like Tana French, without all the useless repetitive information that would have make it 200 pages longer. I liked that the main baddie wasn’t the one who monologued in the end, it was more a baddie-by-proxy. But I would have preferred that whole situation to have been slowly uncovered by the police rather than in one big reveal. Lastly, the one thing I really didn’t like was that the case that Cat dealt with before that caused her to go to therapy seemed SO irrelevant and everything we learned from that were things we learned just from her present and her relationship with her family. It didn’t add to our understanding of her character, just repeated what we already knew. And it just seemed like a plot device where she could talk things out in a dialogue instead of the author just telling the reader if that makes sense. Still, I’d definitely check out her next book coming out this year!
Bonus: this is never officially stated, but I think Cat can definitely be read as bisexual which I loved.
Bonus: this is never officially stated, but I think Cat can definitely be read as bisexual which I loved.
tielredfearn's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
karenholmes's review
5.0
Solid debut, interesting procedural with dashes of psychological novel with a well built cast. Cat Kinsella is a policewoman torn between work and family. Her dad is a charming man with a foot out of the law. Once, she was her dady's little girl, but when she discoverd him lying to the police, she has been suspecting him of wrongdoing eversince.
With a new case, Cat has to do dig deep in the family roots and at the same time keep the other detectives of doing the connection that will kick her forever from the force.
With a new case, Cat has to do dig deep in the family roots and at the same time keep the other detectives of doing the connection that will kick her forever from the force.
martianfromhell's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
eljoseph24's review
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bibliophilebookclub's review against another edition
3.0
I had heard good things about Sweet Little Lies so of course I had to check it out to see what it was like.
Sweet Little Lies is the winner of the Richard & Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and I can see how it won. Packed with unreliable narrators, twisty and with plenty of diffferent themes and avenues explored it definitely follows the psych thriller rules in that sense!
Caz Frear has a great writing style, and a knack for creating characters that the reader will love to hate I think. One thing that made me smile was reading about my hometown and a nightclub from the 1990’s. I love feeling a connection like that when I’m reading, and its not often that Galway gets a mention!
Sweet Little Lies is an interesting tale. It has good plot and divisive characters and it deals well in showing how relationships and secrets can destroy lives.
Recommended!
Sweet Little Lies is the winner of the Richard & Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and I can see how it won. Packed with unreliable narrators, twisty and with plenty of diffferent themes and avenues explored it definitely follows the psych thriller rules in that sense!
Caz Frear has a great writing style, and a knack for creating characters that the reader will love to hate I think. One thing that made me smile was reading about my hometown and a nightclub from the 1990’s. I love feeling a connection like that when I’m reading, and its not often that Galway gets a mention!
Sweet Little Lies is an interesting tale. It has good plot and divisive characters and it deals well in showing how relationships and secrets can destroy lives.
Recommended!
dovesfalling's review against another edition
3.0
I'm surprised by the effusive reviews I've seen on GoodReads regarding Sweet Little Lies. While I think it's a fairly solid debut from Caz Frear, I wouldn't call this a triumph, or groundbreaking for the genre. It's a standard police procedural, with some characters who add elements of colour (DC Steele is the best of the lot), bogged down a bit by others (Cat Kinsella is a brat).
The book kicks off with the discovery of a body in London. Alice Lapaine is found dumped on the side of the road and when Kinsella is called to the scene, she's annoyed to find herself back in the area where she grew up. Tied in with the mystery of Alice's murder is the disappearance of Maryanne Doyle. Maryanne was an acquaintance of Kinsella's during her childhood, and last seen chatting with Kinsella's father. As such, Kinsella's distrust of her father - along with her grief over her mother's death - is rampant and unwavering. She's estranged from her family, but must make inroads in order to connect the dots between Alice and Maryanne.
Toward the end, the action kicks into gear, but I found the denouement convoluted and unlikely. I think I would read another in the series, because this IS a good debut. I'll be interested to see how Frear's talent grows as she writes more in the genre.
The book kicks off with the discovery of a body in London. Alice Lapaine is found dumped on the side of the road and when Kinsella is called to the scene, she's annoyed to find herself back in the area where she grew up. Tied in with the mystery of Alice's murder is the disappearance of Maryanne Doyle. Maryanne was an acquaintance of Kinsella's during her childhood, and last seen chatting with Kinsella's father. As such, Kinsella's distrust of her father - along with her grief over her mother's death - is rampant and unwavering. She's estranged from her family, but must make inroads in order to connect the dots between Alice and Maryanne.
Toward the end, the action kicks into gear, but I found the denouement convoluted and unlikely. I think I would read another in the series, because this IS a good debut. I'll be interested to see how Frear's talent grows as she writes more in the genre.
writings_of_a_reader's review against another edition
2.0
What happens when the trust has gone?
Cat Kinsella was always a daddy's girl. Until the summer of 1998 when she sees her father flirting with seventeen-year-old Maryanne Doyle.
When Maryanne later disappears and Cat's father denies ever knowing her, Cat's relationship with him is changed forever.
I was expecting Sweet Little Lies to be suspenseful, but it was more of a police procedural. Although I thought the mystery was rather intriguing at times, ultimately I did not find it all that compelling of a read. Parts of it felt really drawn out and I had a hard time wanting to pick it up and read it when that happened. The main character, Cat was not all that likable to me either. The good thing about this book is that I did not figure all the details of the mystery out. On a random note, since finishing this I've had the Fleetwood Mac song stuck in my head.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Bonnier Zaffre for giving me a copy of this book for review.
Review also posted at https://writingsofareader.blogspot.com/
Cat Kinsella was always a daddy's girl. Until the summer of 1998 when she sees her father flirting with seventeen-year-old Maryanne Doyle.
When Maryanne later disappears and Cat's father denies ever knowing her, Cat's relationship with him is changed forever.
I was expecting Sweet Little Lies to be suspenseful, but it was more of a police procedural. Although I thought the mystery was rather intriguing at times, ultimately I did not find it all that compelling of a read. Parts of it felt really drawn out and I had a hard time wanting to pick it up and read it when that happened. The main character, Cat was not all that likable to me either. The good thing about this book is that I did not figure all the details of the mystery out. On a random note, since finishing this I've had the Fleetwood Mac song stuck in my head.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Bonnier Zaffre for giving me a copy of this book for review.
Review also posted at https://writingsofareader.blogspot.com/