You’re driving on the highway and an eighteen wheeler in front of you kicks up a little rock, which hits your windshield with a surprising, loud snap. That stone, probably no bigger than the nail on your little finger, leaves a tiny, almost invisible chip. And even though at first you can barely see it, eventually it’s going to spider. That minuscule rupture has created fissures that compromise the stability of the whole. Eventually, everything you see through it will become fractured and broken, and another blow, however small, might cause the entire thing to collapse in a deadly, slicing rain.

Beautiful Lies, Lisa Unger

Quidam, the stranger, the anonymous passerby. The man walking in the rain on the street after mid night. The sound of a violin through your apart ment wall. The homeless man asking for change on the steps of a church. The old woman next to you on the bus. Disconnected from your life but joined to you by a moment in time. All the choices and events of his life and the choices and events of yours have led you to be in the exact same place at the exact same time. Think about it.

Beautiful Lies, Lisa Unger

Ridley Jones sets out on a quest to unlock the secrets of her murky past after the faded picture of a man, woman, and baby girl is delivered to her door with a note asking “Are you my daughter?”.

If Ridley Jones had slept ten minutes later or had taken the subway instead of waiting for a cab, she would still be living the beautiful lie she used to call her life. She would still be the privileged daughter of a doting father and a loving mother. Her life would still be perfect — with only the tiny cracks of an angry junkie for a brother and a charming drunk with shady underworld connections for an uncle to mar the otherwise flawless whole.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, those inconsequential decisions lead her to perform a good deed that puts her in the right place at the right time to unleash a chain of events that brings a mysterious package to her door — a package which informs her that her entire world is a lie.

Suddenly forced to question everything she knows about herself and her family, Ridley wanders into dark territory she never knew existed, where everyone in her life seems like a stranger. She has no idea who’s on her side and who has something to hide—even, and maybe especially, her new lover, Jake, who appears to have secrets of his own.

Sexy and fast-paced, Beautiful Lies is a true literary thriller with one of the freshest voices and heroines to arrive in years. Lisa Unger takes us on a breathtaking ride in which every choice Ridley makes creates a whirlwind of consequences that are impossible to imagine . . . .

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