For fans of Nine Perfect Strangers and Little Fires Everywhere, Tell Me Your Lies is the gripping debut thriller from one of British TV’s most successful producers and screenwriters.
Tell Me Your Lies by Kate Ruby published April 28th with Simon & Schuster. A Richard & Judy Book Club pick, it is partly inspired by the true story of a well-heeled therapist who turned the daughters of Britain’s elite against their parents.
Tell Me Your Lies delves into the dark side of psychotherapy whilst exploring the toxicity of family secrets and the complexity of mother-daughter relationships. Kate Ruby has extensively explored therapy herself – via both conventional and unconventional modalities – and weaves these experiences into Tell Me Your Lies.
I am delighted to be joining the blog tour today, courtesy of Midas PR, and am sharing an extract with all to whet your appetite so I do hope you enjoy.
[ About the Book ]
Lily will do anything to protect her picture-perfect life and family. She’s made ruthless choices to make sure their secrets stay buried, and she’s not going to stop now.
When her party animal daughter Rachel spins out of control, Lily hires a renowned therapist and healer. Amber is the skilled and intuitive confidante that Rachel desperately needs. But as Rachel falls increasingly under Amber’s spell, she begins to turn against her parents, and Lily grows suspicious.
Does Amber really have Rachel’s best interests at heart or is there something darker going on? As more and more family secrets are exposed, one thing is certain: either Rachel’s mother, or her therapist is lying. Never quite knowing who to believe, untold truths expose this picture-perfect family as anything but flawless.
[ Extract ]
The breath honked out of my nostrils like I had some kind of disgusting flu.
‘That’s it,’ said Amber. ‘Puff it out. Faster! Expel that rage from your body.’
We were sitting cross- legged on the floor of her treatment room, cushions spread out all around us. I’d arrived half an hour ago with tears streaming down my blotchy face, trying to avoid the nosy looks from the market traders setting up their stalls for the day. I’d called her the night before in desperation, and Amber – caring, kind Amber – had carved out an emergency appointment for me at 7.30 a.m. It was two days since my dinner with Mum and the emotional rawness that I’d been feeling before it was now more like an open wound. I had to work. I had to live. I couldn’t afford to bleed out.
I collapsed back against the bank of cushions, exhausted. Amber smiled down at me from above, her dark fringe swept across her high forehead, her lips smudged with a sticky red gloss. She looked so beautiful and fierce.
‘Your body was holding on so tightly, wasn’t it? You did so well, expelling that rage. Pushing it out of your cells.’
If only it were that easy, I thought. Of course, she knew that’s what I was thinking.
‘What’s she talking about, right?’ she said, eyes dancing.
‘Trust me, I know how hard it is unravelling the bonds of a toxic relationship with someone you love.’
The words were like an electric shock.
‘I don’t think . . .’ My thoughts were scrambled, impossible to order. ‘Do you really think that’s what it is with Mum?’ I said. ‘Toxic?’
Amber looked down at the woven ethnic rug we were sitting on, her fingers playing with the fringing.
‘I’m sorry, that was me going too fast again,’ she said, her gaze coming up to meet mine. ‘Sometimes, when I can feel your pain in my own cells so acutely – it makes me try too hard to help you heal. I’ve been tuning into you since you called. It’s been agony, hasn’t it?’
Everything she said made our bond sound so tantalizingly intimate. It was food for my unhealthy craving to know her better – to understand her pain, to be more than just another name on her fat roster of paying clients. I’d tried a deep- dive online, but nothing had come up – no Facebook account, no Twitter. I’d had high hopes for an Instagram account stuffed with inspirational quotes and photographs of her pretzeled into complex yoga poses against Ibizan sunsets, but there was nothing there either. If I was really devious, I could use the servers at work to penetrate way further than Google could, but so far I’d resisted the urge.
Extracted from Tell Me Your Lies by Kate Ruby from Simon & Schuster
[ Bio ]
Kate Ruby is a producer and screenwriter, with a highflying career in television. Tell Me Your Lies, a psychological thriller, is her debut novel and is currently in development for a major TV show.
As an executive producer for drama, she spent a decade at the BBC, working on shows including Spooks and Being Human. Currently Head of Television for a global production company, she has worked on major Netflix shows including Watership Down, Traitors and The English Game.
She has recently worked on the BBC/HBO adaptation of JP Delaney’s bestselling thriller The Girl Before, starring Gugu Mbatha Raw and David Oyelowo
Twitter ~ @katerubybooks
Thanks for sharing the extract!