A review by abookwormwithwine
The Five Year Lie by Sarina Bowen

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I fully believe that the tagline for The Five Year Lie by Sarina Bowen should be once you start you can't stop, literally. I did not put the audiobook of this down for a SECOND and if I had to pause it for any amount of time it made me angry. And that's the story of how much I loved it. 🤣 It makes total sense to me why there was a dash of romance in the book now that I know what Bowen's normal genre is, and I have to say I loved how she weaved it in with the suspenseful and mysterious storyline. Her writing sucked me in immediately, and I hope she will write more thrillers, but I feel like it would be a crime not to read her romance now.

The audiobook is narrated by Kathleen Early, Gary Tiedemann & Jason Clarke who all did spectacular jobs, and this was a great book to have a full cast for. Even though there are only 3 viewpoints, the different narrators brought a lot to the story IMO, and I loved every minute of it. The pace moved along nicely without any dull moments, and I completely fell in love with Ariel and her son. She was one smart cookie, and I thought all of the characters were very relatable in at least one way or another, well, maybe not the evil ones. 😜 The Five Year Lie is worth all of the hype it has been getting and gave me The Last Thing He Told Me vibes while being completely different. Clear your calendars people, and make sure you don't put this one off if it's on your TBR!

I received a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.