Review: Behind the Lie by Emilya Naymark

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Published: February 8, 2022

Source: Hardcover via Booksforward PR

 

Summary

NYPD detective turned small town PI Laney Bird is in a fight to save lives–including her own–after a neighborhood block party turns deadly.

A transplant to the upstate New York hamlet of Sylvan, all Laney wants is a peaceful life for herself and her son. But things rarely remain calm in Laney’s life–and when her neighborhood summer block party explodes in shocking violence and ends with her friend’s disappearance, she’ll need all her skills as a PI to solve a mystery that reaches far beyond her small town.

As people closest to Laney fall under suspicion, the local authorities and even her colleagues question her own complicity. And then there’s fifteen-year-old Alfie, her complicated and enigmatic son, obviously hiding something. Even as Laney struggles to bury evidence of her boy’s involvement, his cagey behavior rings every maternal alarm.

Laney’s personal life unravels as she’s drawn into her missing friend’s dark secrets and she realizes she and Alfie are in danger. With treachery blazing hot as the searing summer sun, Laney fights to save lives, her family’s included.

 

My thoughts:

This is the second book in Emilya Naymark’s Sylvan series, however it’s the first one I’ve read and I really liked it. I definitely plan on going back and picking up the first one and will certainly be keeping this author on my list of authors to read.

While I usually like to start series from the beginning, timing just didn’t allow for that this time around and I had heard that this one worked well as a stand-alone, so I decided to go for it. Luckily it does and while there are mentions every once in a while of events that happened in the previous book, I don’t think anything is really lost or ruined completely by not having read it. Would I have had a better understanding of the characters and where they were at in this second book had I read the first one, absolutely but did it prevent me from enjoying this new one, definitely not. In fact, it only made me more curious to want to read it.

This new book starts with quite a bang, with a prologue that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat, and I really felt that that intensity never lets up throughout the entire book. There are a lot of moving parts to this story and I wondered how they were all connected but the quick-fire pace keeps you turning the paces so that you find out soon enough.

The story moves back and forth in time and changes points of view so that even though it moves fast, you need to be on your toes but trust me it is so worth it. I loved how cleverly it was plotted and how it really kept me thinking just where it was ultimately heading and what could possibly come next. I liked the characters, especially Laney, Alfie and Jack and I am hoping this is not the last we see of them.

If you like reading stories about strong women, stories filled with twists and turns and a real page-turner, then I highly recommend Behind the Lie. I devoured it in two sittings and will now be ordering the first book, Hide in Place, and will be hoping for more Sylvan tales to come!

 

Books in this series:

1. Hide in Place
2. Behind the Lie