*Happy Publication Day* @GeorgiaRoseBook ~ Parallel Lies #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Author: Georgia Rose
Published: 12th October 2017
Category: Romance, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Book Review, Books, Reading

‘My name is Madeleine, Madeleine Ross. It is a name chosen with thought and because it is classy, and that is what is needed here…’

Madeleine Ross has life exactly as she planned it.

Cosy cottage, friendly village, satisfying job.

Company… when she wants it.

It’s an enviable existence for an independent young woman, and one she’s keen to protect.

Twenty-four years old and single, Madeleine Ross has lived on the edge of Crowbridge village for the last four years. Although she’s part of the village community, supports local events and has friendly relationships with people, she doesn’t talk about her life before moving to the village. Her closest friend, Diane (a great character who relishes the local suspicions that she’s a witch) lives next door, and after initially renting the cottage she owned to Madeleine, eventually gave her the option to buy.

From the start the inference that there’s more to Madeleine than meets the eye is apparent, when she helps and advises Kourtney, a young village girl who has a tough home life. Madeleine can sympathise fully with Kourtney’s unfavourable circumstances, reminding Madeleine in some respects of her own upbringing.

“’Ow ‘ave you got where you are, owning yer own ‘ouse an all when yer so young?”

Oh, sweetheart, you really don’t want to know.

I can’t tell her the truth but I do wonder if I can help her out.

Told in the first person from Madeleine’s perspective, we get an increasing insight into her personality and past life as the story progresses, far beyond the image she presents to her neighbours. Her job with an insurance company is interesting, probably unique to say the least, and the mornings spent at the gym show how the lack of parental love and care in her formative years, plus the lifestyle she led prior to moving to Crowbridge, has had a negative affect and left her with harmful emotional issues.

Madeleine’s life takes a new turn when she meets Daniel, her prospective new boss. She’s uncomfortable with change and likes her life just the way it is, which makes Madeleine unsure whether she can work with Daniel. Then, to make the situation worse, the past catches up with her when her ex boyfriend Tag reappears and threatens to destroy the life she’s built. Madeleine devises a daring plan to escape the dark secrets of her past once and for all and take a chance on a whole new future.

Madeleine is a great character. Sympathetic and well defined and we can tell almost immediately she is warm-hearted by her reluctance to deliberately hurt others’ feelings and her concern for Kourtney. I enjoyed how Georgia Rose reveals Madeleine’s past gradually, developing her from someone basically living a lie, although it becomes easy to understand why she chose to live as she did, to an altogether stronger person.

Each of the supporting characters have a part to play and they all add depth to the story. Even Sidney, the ‘less than fragrant’ newsagent proprietor. Parallel Lies is very well written, measured and steady to begin with in keeping with village life, with suspense and tension building progressively as the story unfolds. There’s a message here too, about how early circumstances shape a person’s life, in different ways, and how important the formative years are. Kourtney was determined to rise above the disadvantages, whereas Madeleine didn’t really have a chance. An excellent read.

I chose to read and review Parallel Lies based on an advance reader copy of the book supplied by the author/publisher.

About Georgia Rose

Georgia Rose is a writer and the author of the romantic and suspenseful Grayson Trilogy books: A Single Step, Before the Dawn and Thicker than Water. A short story, The Joker, based on a favourite character from the series followed and is free to download from Amazon.
Her fourth novel, Parallel Lies, a standalone, encompasses crime along with Georgia’s usual blending of genre.
Following a long stint working in the law Georgia set up her own business providing administration services for other companies which she does to this day managing to entwine that work along with her writing.
Georgia’s background in countryside living, riding, instructing and working with horses has provided the knowledge needed for some of her storylines; the others are a product of her passion for people watching and her overactive imagination!
Her busy life is set in a tranquil part of rural Cambridgeshire in the UK where she lives with her much neglected husband and dog. Their son, currently at university, comes and goes and their daughter, having delighted them all for long enough, has eventually moved out, got married, and is discovering the joys of being all grown up and having a mortgage.