Lies Make Perfect by Ellie Banks #bookreview #thriller

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Title: Lies Make Perfect

Author:  Ellie Banks

Publisher: Canary Street Press

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

Page Count:  340

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

About the book:

In a web of lies, one mother fights for the truth…

For popular true crime author Margo Box, the past six months have been a waking nightmare. Ever since her five-year-old daughter, Poppy, vanished—abducted by her own father—Margo has tortured herself the way only a mother could: with unrelenting blame. How could she have let this happen? Had she been working too hard to see the signs?

Despite the guilt and unanswered questions, Margo holds on to the hope that Poppy is somehow still alive. Yet after years of solving other people’s cold cases, her own case proves impenetrable.

That is, until she finds a cryptic letter hidden in a secondhand book in her neighborhood library box. In this letter are clues that someone in the community knows something about the disappearance of Margo’s school friend Sarah nearly two decades ago—the disappearance that drove Margo into true crime and haunts her still. To distract from the pain in her life, Margo throws herself into Sarah’s case, desperate for closure of some kind. But as she digs deeper into her friend’s history, she unearths a disturbing connection to her daughter she never expected to find…

Lies Make Perfect by Ellie Banks is a new thriller novel. The story in Lies Make Perfect is one that covers not one, but two cold cases that are close to the main character with one from the distant past and the other from only months before.

Lies Make Perfect also may look to readers as a debut novel by the author however Ellie Banks is the pseudonym for bestselling author Maisey Yates, who has written over one hundred novels which are usually more from the contemporary romance genre with a few romantic suspense being the closest to this new novel.

Margo Box is a popular true crime author having helped solve cases she’s studied. Now however Margo is living her own true crime nightmare when six months ago her husband vanished without a trace taking Margo’s  five-year-old daughter, Poppy, with him. When Margo comes across a clue to the disappearance of an old friend twenty years before Margo dives right in to investigating that case after having no luck finding her own daughter but Margo soon finds that both cases seem to be connected.

Lies Make Perfect was a solid thriller read incorporating the really popular true crime movement of today. This one however wasn’t without a few flaws that I noticed a long the way while reading. One thing was that some of it seemed a little repetitive where I was thinking haven’t we mentioned that a few times, lets get moving. Which then leads to it seemed to really take a while to take off making the beginning very slow moving which may tie both things together. Overall I finished this one at the three and half stars mark and knowing who the author actually is I will undoubtedly read her work again in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:
Ellie Banks is the pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates, who has written over one hundred novels. Whether she’s writing domestic suspense, romantic westerns or multigenerational family sagas, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. She likes to spend a rainy day knitting and watching true crime documentaries. She lives with her husband and three kids in the Pacific Northwest. You can find more information about Ellie Banks’s stories at elliebanksbooks.com