Liz Between The Lines

 Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent I want to preface this post by stating that Liz Nugent is one of my favourite authors of all time, therefore read my thoughts below with more than un peu de sel (I'm learning French here - a pinch of salt), albeit warranted praise given the Irish author's first-class narrative skills. The book started with five pages of reviews and praise from other renown authors and not a single lie was uttered.  A supreme skill of the author is encapsulating a steady plot, not just to get the reader to a resolution at the end of the book, but also unravelling the main character on a journey through their life. In fact, the detail (or what we'd expect to be the killer plot twist) is usually provided upfront in the early stages of the book. In this story, we're told in the blurb already that Sally's father has died, and she has followed his instructions to the tee by putting his dead body out with the rubbish. We then follow Sally's life as ...

Disclaimer: I am just an avid thriller and suspense reader; not an expert. This recipe is based on nothing but my observations and what I like when reading. Suspense, Crime or Mystery Thriller books are some of the highest earning genres of books (2nd only to Romance/Erotica). With so many books already published, how do authors still manage to write bestsellers? I've decided to compile a recipe from what I've observed from a few of my favourite authors. 1. UNRELIABLE NARRATOR  This is the main ingredient in The Perfect Thriller recipe. Unreliable first person narrators do not necessarily lie (except Amy Dunn from Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl) but give the reader just omit enough material information to steer the reader in the direction they want them to go. Your narrator must be pretty convincing for this to work. 2. TRUST and SECRETS I love a mess. Fragile relationships between the characters due to a lack of trust or keeping secrets from each other helps drive th...