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    The Book of Lies
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    The Book of Lies
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    The Book of Lies
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Book of Lies

    Written by Mary Horlock

    Narrated by Emerald O'Hanrahan and Matt Bates

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A stunning and original debut which takes us on a journey through Guernsey’s hidden history, with two captivating characters that the reader will not forget. Guernsey,1985. Catherine Rozier is fifteen years old and a murderer. Scribbling frantically in her journal, she recounts the events that led to Nicolette's death, only to discover that history has been repeating itself. Charlie Rozier, a teenager during the German Occupation of the island, is frustrated by the lack of resistance to the occupying forces. Determined to fight back, Charlie sets on a path that will change the Rozier family's life forever.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Audio
    Release dateJan 7, 2011
    ISBN9781407487281
    Unavailable
    The Book of Lies
    Author

    Mary Horlock

    MARY HORLOCK was born in Australia but grew up on Guernsey in the Channel Islands, moving to England at the age of eighteen. She studied at Cambridge and went on to work as a curator at Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool. She is a former curator of the Turner Prize. Mary lives in London with her partner and their children and is currently writing a book on art and camouflage in the Second World War. Although she has written widely on contemporary art, this is her first novel.

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    Reviews for The Book of Lies

    3.5/5

    70 ratings11 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. As the author points out in her acknowledgements, the title is deceptive because there is plenty of fact within the fictional story. Told in a journal/diary style by Cat Rozier and her late father Emile, it is set on the island of Guernsey in 1985 and the 1940s respectively. Emile's journals, written in the 1960s, are based on information left by his older brother concerning the lead up to their father's death, shot by the occupying German forces in 1942. Teenager Cat's diary deals with both the death of her own father and her "best friend" Nic. Cat tells us at the beginning of the novel, that she has killed Nic by pushing her off a cliff at Clarence Batterie. Thus begins a gripping story which I found hard to put down. Although events take place 40 years apart, there are striking similarities between their two stories. Deception, lust, murder and misunderstandings abound. The historical portrait of Guernsey during the German Occupation is really fascinating. Being such a small island of just over 3 miles across, everyone knows everyone else and it would appear to be difficult to keep secrets. This is most definitely not the case in both the 40s and 80s. It is these secrets and misunderstandings which form the fabric of this story. Some of the characters have lived their whole lives beieving things which are not true and the sadness this brings is well handled here. I would recommend this book, both as enjoyable fiction and an insight in to how the people of Guernsey dealt with a very difficult time in their history. It appears that they were treated very shabbily by the British Government during the Second World War and this novel highlights their struggle and how it altered the whole community structure for many many years.This book was made available to me, prior to publication, for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      What a cracking book! Two stories twist about each other; both wrapped in the way that we lie to each other; and even worse, to ourselves. Sometimes, they hardly seem like lies; and sometimes we are confronted by the evil of a character's lies, only to find that there is another perspective which diminishes the guilt of, or exonerates the perpetrator completely.The stories pirouette right up until the final page where, as in real life, we are left on something of a cliffhanger (pun intended - and if you want to know what the pun is, then read the book: you really should!)Mary Horlock was born on Guernsey and, I would guess that some of the dislike of a captive group of islanders is autobiographical. The stories are those of two young girls in 1985, one popular and one less so, and a family in occupied Guernsey - as recreated in 1965. The claustrophobic atmosphere of fear, lies and more lies runs like a thread through this book whilst, somehow, makes one laugh at the same time. Mary is better than most authors at writing from the perspective of young people: her characters are all believable and the stories, which would sound preposterous were I to retell them, read as eminently realistic. It is surprising how many deep issues are confronted by a book that initially appears to be a light read: for example, one is presented with the hopelessness which the people of Guernsey must have felt when occupied, their feeling of a lack of sympathy from the Allies when rescue came and the difficulty of a young person coming to terms with their family history, to name but two (or is that three?) The book does not spoon feed the reader and, as we are warned in a letter from Catherine to her mother, near the end of the tale, we need to read between the lines, as well as the printed word. Lots to chew over: I shall watch out for further works by Mary Horlock with interest.
    • 2/5
      In looking at everyone else's ratings for The Book of Lies, I'm the odd woman out. I could not get into this novel and couldn't find any sympathetic characters in it. I quit reading about 1/3 of the way through it, which is unusual for me.This just reinforces for me that each person sees a novel very differently..
    • 3/5
      Hard to follow the logic in a book all about lies, but an interesting story nonetheless.
    • 4/5
      Set on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1985 and, in memories and flashback, during the German occupation of the Islands during WWII. Told from the point of view of a teenaged girl who is hiding her involvement with the death of a school mate. A well-told story with lots of new-to-me information.
    • 4/5
      Cat Rozier is a murderer. She's lived all her fifteen years on the Channel Island of Guernsey, where (she will be happy to tell you) the only things for people to do are drink, have sex, and kill each other. The person she's killed is Nicolette, her best friend. Well, former best friend. It's complicated.

      Cat's uncle was a murderer too, or at least that's what she tells people. He was also a prisoner of the Nazis during the Occupation of the island, and he never really got over it. Cat never met her uncle, but the history of the Occupation was her father's obsession. After her father died, Cat went through all his papers looking for answers. She found...quite a few of them.

      The Book of Lies is made of documents: Cathy's manuscript confession, addressed to her mother, and transcriptions of Charles's story, and notes and letters from Cat's father's researches. The story goes from 1940 to 1985, through three generations of the Rozier family, and straight through the center of Cat's life.

      I literally could not put this book down. I started it a week or so ago, then picked it back up to read on my breaks at work and stayed up all last night to finish it. Cathy is a wonderful narrator, the kind of cynical, intelligent, painful thing I remember being at fifteen. She's not a reliable narrator, though; far from it. (You don't have the self-awareness to be reliable at fifteen.) She's mostly telling the truth on one thing, though; she is a murderer.

      The Book of Lies is equal parts historical drama and bildungsroman. I knew a little bit about Guernsey during World War II before I started the book; I knew that England basically abandoned the Channel Islands during the war and then looked down on them for failing to effectively resist the Germans without weapons or soldiers. It was fascinating to read a story - even told so second-hand - about life in such an awkwardly occupied state. Even the occupiers didn't want to be there, but strategically, they just couldn't leave. The things people did under the strains of the occupation make up a large proportion of the titular lies of the story.

      Most of the rest come from Cathy's adolescent fury. Seen from the outside her story is terribly predictable - her father dies, she starts hanging out with new friends, she starts drinking and causing all kinds of trouble, her grades go... - but of course we aren't seeing it from the outside, but from Cathy's perspective, written as a justification after the fact for her friend's death. Teenagers are mostly made up of lies anyway, but one in her situation much more so.

      The big lie, though, is the one lurking in the subtext and in between the lines of the whole story. As Cathy tells her mother in the final pages of her narrative, it's perfectly visible once you get to that point. Cathy's not out to expose anyone, just to make sure they all understand one another. It's clear she's grown up a lot throughout the course of the story.

      In a sentence: The Book of Lies is a fascinating story about truth, lies, and mutual understanding, and I highly recommend it for your next book club selection.
    • 3/5
      I did and I didn't like this book. I liked the voice. I thought the dynamics of the teenage relationship were well observed and written. I thought it had a really good sense of place which I found believable.What I didn't like - the secondary story: the account of what happened in the war. I found that slightly *too* confusing and it didn't quite sit properly for me re motivations. I feel it missed a trick or two with what could have been done.As a side note, this book has footnotes in it. I was reading it on Kindle and, if you've never experienced them, footnotes on Kindle are epically annoying. At the end of every chapter the footnotes appeared without a paragraph break or owt. I'd recommend picking up a hardcopy rather than the Kindle version (unless you're less easily narked than I am, obviously.)
    • 2/5
      The history was interesting, but I never quite connected to the main character. Her personality was past quirky and headed toward disturbing. I kept hoping the ending would redeem the book, but this did not happen for me.
    • 3/5
      I found The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock to be both interesting and informative, but unfortunately I also found myself struggling to finish the book. I didn’t mind that I disliked all the characters, they were well developed and distinct, but the stories just didn’t hold my interest or were able to draw me in. I say stories as the book, set on Guernsey Island, actually covers two, in one we are introduced to a 1980’s teenager, Catherine, who informs us that she has murdered her best friend. She is writing down the events that led up to this tragedy and we learn how insecure, truth-stretching Catherine was ever so grateful for the friendship Nicolette offered, that she apparently didn’t see how Nic was using her for her own benefit. Nic eventually turned her back on Catherine and ensured through her bulling and belittling that Catherine once again was a social outcast. Along with Catherine’s story, is that of her uncle’s anguish over events that happened on Guernsey during the German occupation of the 1940’s. These are stories that are about the truth, but as seen through the eyes of one who only knows half the story, the truth becomes rather flexible. The lines here are blurred and fluid. I did feel that the author, who grew up on Guernsey, captured the claustrophobic feeling of living on an small island where everyone either knows or is related to everyone excellently I found it slightly jarring to be in one time period and then suddenly in another. I was surprised that of the two, I actually preferred Catherine’s story and I did quite like how these stories were wrapped up. Overall, The Book of Lies was an original idea but for me, it just feel short of the mark.
    • 4/5
      This is primarily the story of Catherine Rozier, a teenager living on the island of Guernsey. Her friend has died falling from the cliffs and Catherine tells the story of the friendship and what happened. Alternated with her story is a transcript of a taped interview with her uncle who died twenty years earlier, and his story goes back to the German occupation of Guernsey during World War II.This is an intriguing read. It took me a while to get fully into it and to really understand the different voices. Catherine's voice is slightly irritating at times, but by the half way point I’d got used to it. And I did enjoy the story that her uncle told about his experiences during the war.What was particularly interesting about this book was the details about the German occupation and the effect it had on the islanders as some people collaborated with them, some had to work with them, and some were totally against them. The book doesn't really do a lot for Guernsey tourism though, with Catherine's bleak view of island life.This is quite a dark book really, underneath the teenage woes, and I found myself racing through it.
    • 3/5
      Life on the tiny island of Guernsey has just become a whole lot harder for fifteen-year-old Cat Rozier. She’s gone from model pupil to murderer, but she swears it’s not her fault. Apparently it’s all the fault of history.A new arrival at Cat’s high school in 1984, the beautiful and instantly popular Nicolette inexplicably takes Cat under her wing. The two become inseparable—going to parties together, checking out boys, and drinking whatever liquor they can shoplift. But a perceived betrayal sends them spinning apart, and Nic responds with cruel, over-the-top retribution.Cat’s recently deceased father, Emile, dedicated his adult life to uncovering the truth about the Nazi occupation of Guernsey—from Churchill’s abandonment of the island to the stories of those who resisted—in hopes of repairing the reputation of his older brother, Charlie. Through Emile’s letters and Charlie’s words—recorded on tapes before his own death— a “confession” takes shape, revealing the secrets deeply woven into the fabric of the island . . . and into the Rozier family story.I really wanted to love this book. It had an interesting premise and takes place on Guernsey Island, a place I have been fascinated with since reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.I found Cat interesting and that we find out right at the beginning that Cat kills Nic. However, it kind of goes downhill from there. The story is very fractured as it moves from Cat's story to that of her father and uncle. I don't mind an alternating story, but this wasn't done very well. I wouldn't get far into either story before it would switch and it just didn't hold my interest.I did enjoy the history of the island and I think that it this could have been a great novel. But it was mediocre at best despite it's potential. Hopefully, the author will have better luck with her next book. my rating 2.5/5