Review: Little Liar

Little Liar by Lisa Ballantyne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The accused
While Nick Dean is enjoying an evening at home with his family, he is blissfully unaware that one of his pupils has just placed an allegation of abuse against him - and that Nick's imminent arrest will see the start of everything he knows and loves disintegrating around him.
Because, mud sticks, right? No matter if you're innocent or guilty?
The accuser
When Angela Furness decides that enough is enough - she hates her parents, hates her friends and, most of all, despises what has recently happened at school - she does the only thing she knows will get her attention: calls the police. But Angela is unaware that the shocking story she is about to tell will see her life begin to topple.

Because, once you've said what you've said, there's no way back, right? No matter if you're innocent or guilty?
 
In a nail-biting ride of 'he said/she said', Little Liar illustrates the fine line between guilt and innocence, and shows that everyone has their secrets, even those we ought to trust the most...


I think the fact that I read this in one day speaks for itself. It seems wrong to say I enjoyed it considering the subject matter (the effects of an allegation of sexual assault) but the story is well told and the characters have depth. It's a good debut although I did feel the ending could have been better. I'm not saying the ending needed to be different, just that it felt a little bit rushed compared to the rest of the book.

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Father's Day - 16/6/19

It's Father's Day here in the UK and many other places.

Not a great photo in terms of quality, but this was probably one of the last ones taken of me with my parents.  I think this is in 1980.  Sadly Dad passed away in 1981.  He was 64, I was 22.  He survived WW2 but couldn't beat cancer.  Success rates were not as good back then and by the time he was diagnosed the cancer from his lungs had already spread to his brain.

He was a great husband and a great Dad.  There was never anyone else for Mum even though she survived him by another 31 years.

 A hard act to follow but I found this young man.

He's changed a bit since then - getting married and having kids has that effect!  (Although I think he still has less grey hairs than me!)  He's another great Dad.

 And now the boys have become Dads too, and I'm proud of how they are coping with the job!














Happy Father's Day!

Being sociable - it's not always my thing but...

Today I was sociable.

Social was the prompt for #SoCS today but I haven't been sociable over there for a while so I'm just going to keep this to myself and anyone who visits.  That's what I often do in real life too.

Hubby is much more sociable than me.  He's often out somewhere either with or without his guitar, playing or listening to music.  He's also involved in a community project that gets him out to meetings on a regular basis.

I'm more of a home bird.  I can be content at home.  It's a joke between us though that even though we've been married 35 years now there are some acquaintances of his who probably doubt my existence because we've never met.  We met one such woman on our way out today.  Her reaction was "So you do exist!"  Fortunately it's not the first time I've heard that so it doesn't bother me.  I also think that Hubby wouldn't spot a woman making a play for him unless they were blatantly obvious and possibly not even then so I think I'm safe.  

Anyway getting back to being sociable.  Today was an "open garden" day in our community.  A number of gardens had agreed to open to the public this weekend.  It was organised by our local community garden so we signed up, picked up the map and set off.  The weather wasn't great but we didn't have any really heavy rain, just a bit of drizzle from time to time so we made our way to 6 of the gardens on the list.  It's interesting to see what others have done in their gardens and all of them were quite different today.  I came home with a few ideas for mine too.

It was nice to meet people and chat and be sociable for a change.

And yes, I know, I should do it more often!

I didn't take many photos but one front garden had these figures which I was impressed with:

Lethargy strikes!

After the buzz from completing the A-Z challenge this year I have definitely struggled with my blogging.  I know that I'm tired - 3 days of Grandsitting a week is exhausting.  Lovely, but exhausting.  I will be glad when the summer holidays start and I'll be back to 2 days a week.  But it's not just that.  I seem to have lost a bit of enthusiasm. That coupled with the fatigue and it's been a struggle just to keep up with reading and commenting on your blogs let alone finding inspiration to come up with my own posts.

Of course having a big O birthday coming up doesn't help.  I think I'm a bit in denial over that.  It's just a number after all.  I keep getting asked what I'll be doing.  Will there be a party? etc etc.

Well no there will not be a party.  We are going away the weekend after with all the kids and Grandkids so I'm looking forward to that but I'm hoping it will be quite low key.  I just love spending time with them all, especially watching the interaction between the little ones.

I'm even struggling to come up with suggestions for a family present.  Nick's family always collect for big O birthdays and I was asked what I'd like and I'm finding it hard.  I have thought of a few things but I really need to sit down and sort out some ideas for the organiser.

I feel a bit in limbo at the moment.  There are things I want to be getting on with in the house but our daughter is trying to move and there is a small possibility that if the timing doesn't work well they could have to stay with us for a little while.  We are more than happy to help out if we need to but the next job we need to get done in our house will mean a lot of disruption in the kitchen so I'm waiting on that for now.

And now I feel like a moaning minny but I guess I just wanted to explain my absence and lack of visits and comments.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon and I did manage to count my blessings for a Friday's Fave Five post this week.  I definitely have a lot of blessings to be thankful for, especially this lot: