PRETTY UGLY LIES by Pamela Crane is a domestic drama noir novel. This is a powerful and thought-provoking novel, and one that you will not forget too easily.

“A chilling look at the secrets mothers will hide for the sake of their families, and the gruesome reality of what can break an everyday woman."

How could a woman murder her whole family?

The story opens with a woman awaiting the arrival of the police to the brutal murder scene of her husband and children. What a tension opener!

What follows is alternating chapters that follow four married women with children that live in the same neighborhood, dealing with their own struggles.

Jo's daughter is abducted and the only way to find her is to unravel her dark past.

Ellie is a devoted wife... until she discovers the pain of betrayal. Now she wants revenge.

Party-girl Shayla suffers from bipolar disorder. When she's confronted with a life-shattering choice, it will cost her everything.

June knows suffering intimately, though the smile she wears keeps it hidden.

These women have it all…but still complain and are not happy. I wanted to shake these women and tell them to be grateful for what they have.

The lives of these four women will soon intersect and one of them will go off the deep end! In this novel we are given a glimpse of what could cause a woman to snap and carry out such a brutal attack. This novel will make you look at your family in a different light.

Many thanks to Bloodhound Books via Netgalley for my digital copy.

A great psychological suspense story. A page turner. I couldn't predict what was gonna happen and I also couldn't put it down. Book some time for this. Highly recommend!

A pretty good domestic thriller. I had the killer figured out pretty early on, but still, what really happened isn't what I thought it was going to be. I recommend this if you like this genre.

Finally! A twisty little novel that kept me intrigued the whole way through. I perversely enjoyed the fact that i couldn't pick who the killer was as it could have been any one of them with all the motives they had, also the fact we didn't know who the people murdered were. Definitely one to read and keep you entertained.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book started off with a bang. Too bad it didn't continue that way.

My first major problem with this novel were the names of the main characters. Okay, I know this may sound petty at first. But think about it: Jo. Jayne. Jude. Janyn. June. Seriously, why?! The names did NOT have to be this similar and it made it so hard for me to distinguish them. Not only did their names sound the same, it was also hard to differentiate their personalities at times. It became cumbersome for me to read this book, so much so that I needed to make a little flowchart of who everyone was and how their story line was developing. That is way too much work for a reader.

I also had a problem with their "problems" with their marriage and role as mothers. Now, I'm not a wife or a mother so there's a limit to how much I can understand about the pressures of both of these roles. But some of the problems they mentioned just seemed so bizarre. For instance, one mother described taking care of her kids as a thankless and suffocating job. And I get the suffocating part because I know (from my own mother's exasperation with me and my sister) that kids can completely consume one's life. But do you honestly expect your little children to constantly thank you? In that case, all children are thankless, terrible monsters. Some of the perceptions about marriage and children seemed a little too naive, or rather, too dramatic. I just couldn't understand why the women were making certain complaints about things that are honestly very common? But like I said, I'm not a mother or a wife. Maybe once I get to that stage, the emotions that these women were feeling would make more sense to me. But there was just something about it that was overly dramatic and I didn't enjoy that. I guess I just don't like characters that are materialistic and whine a lot.

I think the writing style and the plot itself were both interesting. Despite the negatives mentioned above, I did want to know what was going to happen and how things would be handled. I thought the writing was very poetic and flowed nicely. The pacing was spot-on and the twists were well executed. Some of the parts of the story were quite predictable, but while the ending took me aback, I wasn't as convinced with the motive behind it; it just seemed so weak and could have done with some more development.

This novel just didn't work for me on a lot of fronts. I think the writing style was good but the final reveal combined with the lack of connection with the characters was a real downfall. For that reason, I'm giving this a 2/5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A quick, captivating read that gives a seriously dark side of motherhood! It kept me interested throughout with the various twists and turns. My only negative is that the characters don’t flow together as much as I would have liked.

While I was in the mood for a quick read, at 65% mark I had to ask myself, “are these four stories somehow connected?” Each chapter was titled after the perspective of the person in charge, but I found myself confused at times.

One common thing with each woman was an annoyance with their children. That was a little hard to stomach considering I have an 8 month old. I read this book while nursing him, and sitting in the rocking chair while he slept. I can’t imagine a time where I will find him obnoxious.

Suddenly about 80% of the way through, all 4 of the stories overlapped. Maybe they always had, and I was just confused? The book wrapped up nicely, and I think I would read more from this author.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book starts with a crime, a horrendous crime. Then it moves to a neighborhood that could be anywhere USA. The main characters in the story could be your neighbors, even your friends. How well do you know them? A well written story that raises many more questions than a reader may be comfortable with. Take the time to read this one, it's well worth it.

Written in an interesting way.. Everyone has secrets. No one knows anyone - even husbands don't know everything about their wives and vice versa. Never assume you know someone. People will let you think what they want you to when it comes to what they know about you.
Remember that!

PRETTY UGLY LIES by Pamela Crane is a great suspense novel. This is the first novel of Crane's that I have read and I can't wait to read more of her novels.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Bloodhound Books and the author, Pamela Crane, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Pretty Ugly Lies in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
I found the storyline to be well thought out and fast paced. It had me hooked from the beginning.
Will definitely be reading more from this author.
Well worth a read.

Wow! This book was fantastic! There were parts early on where I felt confused or not sure of which woman I was reading about but in the end it was all wrapped up! This was a great read, especially for those who enjoy thrillers! I really appreciated that this was not a typical thriller that you figure out early on. This author kept you waiting until the very end and things unraveled most unexpectedly.

A quick read , characters could be frustrating but that's not to say that the book was bad. A great read and would recommend it to others. I was really attracted to the cover .

A fast read, this one would be good as a slightly darker holiday read by the pool or on the beach. Pretty Ugly Lies brought up a few good questions about what you have and what it would mean to lose it. The characters were not perfect, and they were propelled to deal with their lives as they began to spiral out of control, each woman approaching their challenges in a different way.

This book kept me so captivated, It had tragedies that we could relate too. Great book. I am going to buy this book.

Well, well, well. Pamela Crane. We have to stop meeting like this. By “like this,” I mean: you write a book, I accidentally request it, I hate it. Why does this keep happening? Why haven't I learnt my lesson yet? Why do I keep getting so blindly trigger-happy on Netgalley. Note to self: this must not be allowed to happen again in the future.

If life came with a 'replay' button, would we keep pressing it every time when life felt overwhelming and we knew we would sink soon? This was the question the book left me with.

My first book by Author Pamela Crane had me scrambling to keep up the lives of the 4 mums all of whose lives got seeped in the daily drudgery, responsibilities of kids and school, uncaring husbands, loss of careers. Frustrations, anger, secrets past and present, maintaining a "all' s well" facade, soon led to the cracks getting formed, too wide to jump chasms appeared, and friendships were all these mums struggled to hold on to.

Pamela Crane's domestic noir was a full-on thriller, it had a wife murdering the husband and kids and another mum's daughter getting kidnapped. The story was depicted on the background, and sometimes on the foreground of these events, which led me on a merry ride, skipping into the past and coasting on the flimsy paths of the present.

My only niggle, the book initially had me confused as it told me the story in multiple points of view. I was lost in the lanes of the names of mum, kids, and husband. That kept slowing me down. I certainly don't like my thrillers slowing me down.

But I could read this in a few hours, so I liked the book. Enjoyable!

This book had me enthralled from the first chapter. This was my first Pamela Crane novel, but it will not be my last! As a mother, I got really emotionally involved in the stories of these women, and could understand the characters. The characters weren't really likable, but I could see how some women would feel that way about their lives.

“But darkness hid behind closed doors, climbed up the walls, wove a web that would eventually entrap them in misery. I’d been caught in that web.”

How well do you think you know your neighbors? How about your friends - your spouse? Can you truly ever know someone?

Pretty Ugly Lies is a dark, slippery, twisty tale of deceit. It makes you ask yourself, “what would happen if one day you realized that everything you thought you knew were just lies?”

“Lies piled on top of lies. Secrets smoldering secrets.”

What would you do if your world came crashing down all around you? Would you snap? 4 stars for Pretty Ugly Lies

This book will immediately grab your attention as it at once thrown in a murder scene, and a murder of a family at that, in its opening chapter. The suspect is in the center of the carnage waiting for the police to come and get her. Who would not be interested to know who would commit such crime? Told in the POVs of four women, Jo, June, Shayla, and Ellie, we get a glimpse of what they are going through and how they come to resent the family they used to love. The alternating perspective set a steady pace and keeps the suspense coming one after the other as each woman have gripping stories to tell. They all have different family issues they’re dealing with but the common factor would be their struggles of being a mother. At first, they appear whiny and just unlikeable. But the more I read about them, the more I am convinced that their frustrations and resentments can actually happen. That there are people out there going through the same thing. That sometimes, they longed for peace and quiet. I can’t relate to the characters on that matter but I can very well understand their plight. Theirs struggles felt real and I can’t help but sympathize.

The author did a great job of writing an engaging novel but also creating realistic and well-developed characters. It was impressive how she managed to cast doubts on each character that it was hard to guess who could be the killer. On my part, I get to spot it, but not easily and definitely not that surprising twist. Pretty Ugly Lies is indeed a thrilling yet disturbing novel. It was not an easy read as it can be depressing at times. It also is very dark, as the opening scene alone will prove that. And so, it is safe to say that this novel would not be for everyone’s taste. Thought-provoking but I can do with less whining. Still, a good read overall.