Book Review: The Five Year Lie | Sarina Bowen

Sarina Bowen takes a departure from romance novels to write a psychological thriller about a woman who receives a text message from the love of her life who has been dead for years. The Five Year Lie will appeal to thriller readers who love a good love story alongside it!

What is The Five Year Lie about?

Imagine that the person you love breaks up with you suddenly over text. You try to reach him, but he never responds again. A few months later you learn he died in a motorcycle accident. A few months after that, you have his child. Four years after you were left raising a child single and heartbroken, you are at work and you receive a text:

“There’s trouble. I need to see you. Meet me in one hour under the candelabra tree. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”

The text is from him, Drew. The love of your life. How is it possible to receive a text from a dead man? This is the scenario Ariel Cafferty finds herself in. She leaves to go to the tree. She knows the exact one her deceased ex is referring to—the one by his former little rundown apartment. She waits there for hours, but he never shows.

What did I like?

I love when writers explore a story about someone who disappeared or died and then resurfaces. The troubling thing about this scenario is that it isn’t clear if Drew actually did resurface. A text can be faked, right? Especially in this case. Ariel is the daughter of a man named Edward Cafferty who co-owns a tech company with his brother Ray. The company specializes in cameras, particularly those to help law enforcement but also personal home security cameras.

Ariel worked as an office manager for her father when she met Drew, who worked as a programmer. Drew would know how to fake a text, but so would a lot of people in Ariel’s circle. Is someone trying to trick her? Ariel has gone to great lengths to never reveal her relationship with Drew nor the fact that he is her son Buzz’s father. But when the security manager at the office, Zain, approaches her and says he knew about their relationship and offers to help her, Ariel can’t say no.

The twists and turns begin early in this book, starting with more information about the source of the text message and then following Ariel and Zain as they track down more information about Drew and the months leading up to his death. In fact, from the moment he started at the company, Drew had a lot more going on than anyone realized.

Ariel’s story is told in the present time as she and Zain are following a trail of evidence through the system logs retained at the company. In the past, Drew narrates the months leading up to his disappearance. Though Ariel is convinced that Drew was using her, the reader gets a very different version of events from Drew. He fell for Ariel quickly, and mentions multiple times that he knows he shouldn’t get involved with her or it may mess up his agenda, but he can’t help it. There is also a third, anonymous POV that adds intrigue to what exactly is going on before Drew’s death. You’ll find out who that is eventually!

What didn’t work for me?

Only a romance writer like Sarina Bowen could weave such a deep and tortured love story into a thriller plot like this. I enjoyed Drew and Ariel’s relationship and wanted to know what happened to cause Drew to leave her, but I felt that too much time was devoted to hearing Drew pining for Ariel in the past and Ariel pining for Drew in the present. It disrupted the tension from the central mystery and slowed the book down substantially from about 15% to 60%. After that, the book speeds up and the rest flies by as the reader (and Ariel) gets a lot more information.

Personally I think those parts solely about how in love each person was could have been cut in half or even by two thirds. Bowen is talented at writing a love story, so the impact would have been the same and allowed more breathing room for the mystery. I also felt that too much time was devoted to Ariel mothering Buzz and to Ariel working in the glass blowing studio. Those are great character moments, but combined with the love story they detracted from the central story.

In general this is a good book with a fantastic premise, but it could have been tightened up. I think readers who love romantic thrillers will feel differently, though! I would guess many readers will love the balance of love story to mystery.

Final Thoughts

This is an engaging book with a clever premise that I greatly enjoyed. I wanted to understand what exactly happened and how it would all come together. Some parts are far-fetched but that didn’t bother me (though it may bother some readers who need more believability in their thrillers). Ariel is a great character, and Drew I liked as well though he was a bit slippery for my taste. Zain (the cybersecurity colleague and friend helping Ariel) is the breakout character of the book. I adored him!

The interesting premise is slowed substantially through the first half by too much time devoted to the love story between Ariel and Drew, particularly in the past. Those chapters I started skimming because they didn’t reveal anything related to the mystery. The mystery was what kept me turning the pages! Romance readers will surely love that part of the story, though. The end of the book flies by as the timelines meet and a lot more is revealed.

I felt that this book had the opposite problem of many thrillers where it emphasized the character moments too much. The mystery was so compelling, but it felt like it kept pausing to follow parts of the plot that weren’t as essential, such as Drew’s feelings about Ariel, the glassblowing studio, and Ariel and Buzz’s mundane activities. I wanted the mystery to pick up because I was so invested, and when it finally did, the ending was fantastic.

A perfect book for thriller fans who like a heaping side of romance!

If you liked The Five Year Lie, what should you read next?

About the Author

Sarina Bowen is a 24-time USA Today bestselling author, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina holds a BA in economics from Yale University.

A New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country in the 1760s, Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. She lives with her family on a few wooded acres in New Hampshire.

Sarina’s books are published in over a dozen languages with fifteen international publishers.

Thank you to Harper Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.