Book review: The Truth About You by Melissa Hill
1 May
When the baby is found on the doorstep of Ella’s café, everyone asks – what sort of parent would abandon their child?
Jess feels increasingly left out as the only non-mum amongst her friends. Terrified she might lose them altogether, she embarks on becoming a mother too. But is she really ready?
Hollywood actress Ruth Seymour is home in the small town of Lakeview for the summer. But has an ill-advised fling with a handsome co-star resulted in a seriously unplanned consequence?
Nina has come to live with her estranged father, Patrick, after a bad break-up. But will she ever dare tell him about the secret she is concealing?
One thing’s for sure: someone knows more than they’re telling.
And the truth won’t stay hidden forever…
As someone who reads a lot of ‘chick lit’, I love it when a book in the genre really surprises me and ‘The Truth About You’ was a wonderful surprise. It had me gripped from the first page and I found myself absolutely involved in the lives of its characters, driven by the mystery of the plot and not wanting to put it down until I’d got to the end.
The story focuses on three main characters; Nina who is trying to get away and rebuild her life following a bad relationship break up; Ruth, the Hollywood actress whose star is on the rise and Jess, happily married career woman. Each of the women has their secrets and the novel is a brilliant look at how three women face the possibilities of motherhood in their own individual ways. Each woman has a link to the town of Lakeview (somewhere near Dublin in Ireland) where the majority of the story is set; Ruth grew up there, Nina’s father lives there and Jess’s yummy mummy friends have all escaped city life to live there.
The characters are very well written with realistic and believable reactions to the situations they find themselves in. They all have their flaws, particularly Ruth who returns to Lakeview very much the Hollywood diva and can be very self-centred at times. Melissa Hill captures her characters’ thoughts and feelings so well that by the end of the book I felt like I knew all of them.
I loved the element of mystery to the story which is set out in the prologue as cafe owner Ella recounts how she found a baby abandoned on the steps of her Cafe in Lakeview early one morning. The action then moves to ‘several months earlier’ where we are introduced to Nina, Jess and Ruth and as their stories play out Hill keeps the reader guessing right to the end as to the truth about the abandoned child. When the truth did come out, it wasn’t what I expected at all adding a very clever twist to the story.
This is very much a novel about motherhood and explores all the different facets and feelings associated with having children covering the whole spectrum from single parenthood to the pressures on married couples to have babies to keep up with their friends. But whilst there is a serious side to much of the story there are also a lot of humour and ‘The Truth About You ‘never feels like a heavy read.
I can honestly say that this is my favourite chick lit read of the year so far because of the way that it pulled me in and kept me gripped. If you are looking for a plot with pace and realistic, interesting characters, a nice mix of mystery and drama with a little bit of romance too then this is the book for you.
This is Melissa Hill’s ninth novel and I’ll certainly be looking to read more of her work. Her next novel, Something from Tiffany’s is released at the end of May and the paperback version of The Truth About You was released on 28th April.
5/5
I’d like to thank the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review (via Libri Populus). A version of this review also appears at www.libripopulus.co.uk
You can find out more about Melissa and her books at: http://www.melissahill.info/
No comments yet