Book Review: "Her First Lie" by Lucinda Berry

You can read some of my other reviews of Lucinda Berry's books below. These aren't all of them, but they are a select few:

If you've read that last one entitled Perfect Child, then you'll probably know that Her First Lie is a prequel to that book which deals with the birth mother of Janie - Becky and her life with her mother, Serena plus how she eventually birthed Janie and struggled as the child started to grow. Lucinda Berry's ability at weaving these multi-layered narratives where not everything is black and white in terms of morality is something I have to admire. Normally in thrillers, you can get a clear cut 'person X is good' and 'person Y is bad', but in her books there's so many more layers and sometimes a character doing something terrible can be acting in good faith or can make us see their point of view.

Becky had no idea she was pregnant and thought she was just really sick when she gave birth to a yet unnamed baby. This is something that Lucinda Berry shows us is actually something that happens even though you always think about how it could possibly be so. She leaves nothing out and it can be pretty upsetting when you read about this girl who has no idea she was going to be a mother. Becky is at college studying to be a doctor but eventually she can no longer go on as Janie demands her attention. Janie is a very demanding baby. She cries. She screams. She abuses her mother constantly. But as we know, babies can be difficult and Becky takes everything on, trying her best to protect her baby as much as she can. Lucinda Berry's ability to make us feel bad for Janie and also make us feel bad for Becky is quite something - once we get to know about Becky's own childhood this only intensifies.

As we go along, the book begins to open up to the different things we need to put together the title. Janie is a sickly child and when she ends up in the hospital, the grandmother Lillian comes over to help out. As social services begins to investigate, we see Lillian cover for the two - acting as though she is part of the family and trying to make Becky's life as painless as possible so that Becky no longer has to go to therapy anymore. For once, Becky starts to believe that Janie might have a future after all. But then things start to go awry when demands are no longer met and there is a lie going around that Janie might have cancer. Becky is one of those characters that is always doing what she thinks is best for her daughter. Even if she had to do things wrong, even if she had to do the worst things ever, she proves she would (and feels as though she has to) do everything in her power to protect Janie - especially if she had to protect Janie from herself.

This definitely deals with generational trauma. The women of Becky's family are traumatised and traumatic in turn. They are abused who turned into abusers and alongside Becky's story there is another going side by side. It is quite something that Lucinda Berry does - she paints the picture of how people who are abused often do not have the emotional capacity to do anything but abuse others as that is quite possibly the only emotional landscape they have ever seen, one in which love is conditional. Becky's character definitely exemplifies that.

All in all, I was very shocked at this prequel and I love the fact it basically ends at the beginning of The Perfect Child. I would love to see a sequel to The Perfect Child and where the story goes afterwards. Lucinda Berry's books continue to be a brilliant example of trauma, hurt and twisted tales with psychological issues. The characters are always fleshed out and the character-centric storylines are brilliantly worked together. This is probably just as good as The Perfect Child but has an entirely different atmosphere. I would definitely recommend it if you liked Saving Noah as well as it explores the relationship between a mother and her child.

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