Unraveling Oliver

When Oliver Ryan hits his wife Alice so hard that it leaves her unconscious on their kitchen floor, everyone is shocked. How could this be a part of the beloved, acclaimed children’s book author they thought they knew? Through well-written and riveting chapters that alternate between different characters, the audience finally learns why Oliver Ryan hit his wife that day and unlocks who Oliver Ryan truly was.

There are some interesting characters in this book and we here from the following

Oliver: best-selling authors of a children’s book series and Alice’s husband

Barney: a neighbor of the Ryan’s and Alice’s former boyfriend

Veronique: the woman who owned the vineyard in France where Oliver worked for a summer during college

Michael: the brother of Oliver’s ex-girlfriend, Laura, who also worked for Veronique in France. 

Eugene: Alice’s mentally-handicapped brother

Along the way you’ll learn how Oliver and Alice ended up together, what Oliver’s childhood was like growing up mostly abandoned by a former Priest father who never told him of his mother. You’ll discover what truly happened in France, both to Laura, Oliver’s ex-girlfriend and to Veronique’s father and son. You’ll learn how Eugene ended up in a home and how fires got started and how everything ended up with Alice in a hospital bed and Oliver on trial and you’ll be gripped the entire time.

AJ Finn, the author of the Woman in the Window, blurbed this book as ““Searing, searching, finally scorching. Think Making a Murderer via Patricia Highsmith: an elegant kaleidoscope novel that refines and combines multiple perspectives until its subject is brought into indelible, tragic focus.” and I definitely agree. I love mutli-POV books because they can give so much insight into characters and events and this book absolutely succeeded. As Oliver’s backstory became unraveled, I was pleasantly surprised by how no person contained all the secrets but that they all contributed to a greater whole of the story.  It was deftly done! Also, I listened to the audiobook which was great. Each narrator was so unique in their voice and their tone and their inflection. Well done overall.

Liz Nugent’s next book, Lying in Wait, is on sale on June 12th. Here’s the Amazon blurb:

My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it.

On the surface, Lydia Fitzsimons has the perfect life—wife of a respected, successful judge, mother to a beloved son, mistress of a beautiful house in Dublin. That beautiful house, however, holds a secret. And when Lydia’s son, Laurence, discovers its secret, wheels are set in motion that lead to an increasingly claustrophobic and devastatingly dark climax.