His & Hers

What was your favourite twist in the book?

‘In the future, I expect people will long for fifteen minutes of privacy, rather than fifteen minutes of fame.’ Given that Anna is such a private person, why do you think she pursued a career as a TV journalist? Was it to please her mother on some level? (Who named her after the newsreader Anna Ford).

‘Home is not always where the heart is. For people like me, home is where the hurt lives that made us into who we are.’ The quintessential English village of Blackdown is a fictional setting, but places like it do exist. What makes some people desperate to escape tight-knit communities, while others never want to leave?

‘Popularity can spoil a place just like it can spoil a person.’ What do you think the killer meant by that?

‘Wine is always the most reliable crutch when it feels like I might fall.’ Several characters in the book could be described as functioning alcoholics. Attitudes to smoking have dramatically changed in recent years. Is alcohol simply Anna’s generation’s drug of choice?

‘Funny how often life seems to work in reverse. We were children masquerading as adults and now we are adults acting like children.’ The changing roles we play in life, family and work feature several times in the book. Why did it take Anna so long to start looking after her mother?

‘It might be true that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but sometimes the apple can roll down a hill, far, far away from where it landed.’ How much do Anna and her mother really have in common?

‘Youth fools us into thinking there are infinite paths to choose from in life; maturity tricks us into thinking there is only one.’ Age discrimination is an interesting topic in this novel. Is society too quick to judge the elderly?

‘Worry makes her world go round.’ Several of the characters suffer from one or more forms of anxiety. Did that hinder them? Or, did it somehow make them more determined to achieve their goals?

‘Memories are shapeshifters. Some bend, some twist, and some shrivel and die over time.’ Sometimes Anna’s and Jack’s memories don’t quite match. Do two people ever really remember things the exact same way?

‘The sting of loneliness is only ever temporary, like that of a nettle. If you don’t scratch at the solitude, it starts to feel normal again soon enough.’ Loneliness is such a big theme in this book, and affects almost every character on some level, regardless of their age. Is life in 2020 more or less lonely than it used to be?

‘People rarely see themselves the way others do; we all carry broken mirrors.’ Is anyone who they first seem to be in this novel?

Read on for an extract of the international bestseller, Sometimes I Lie. Soon to be a major Warner Bros. TV series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Available to buy now!

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:

I’m in a coma.

My husband doesn’t love me any more.

Sometimes I lie.

Now

Boxing Day, December 2016

I’ve always delighted in the free fall between sleep and wakefulness. Those precious few semi-conscious seconds before you open your eyes, when you catch yourself believing that your dreams might just be your reality. A moment of intense pleasure or pain, before your senses reboot and inform you who and where and what you are. For now, for just a second longer, I’m enjoying the self-medicated delusion that permits me to imagine that I could be anyone, I could be anywhere, I could be loved.

I sense the light behind my eyelids and my attention is drawn to the platinum band on my finger. It feels heavier than it used to, as though it is weighing me down. A sheet is pulled over my body, it smells unfamiliar and I consider the possibility that I’m in a hotel. Any memory of what I dreamt evaporates. I try to hold on, try to be someone and stay somewhere I am not, but I can’t. I am only ever me and I am here, where I already know I do not wish to be. My limbs ache and, I’m so tired I don’t want to open my eyes – until I remember that I can’t.

Panic spreads through me like a blast of icy-cold air. I can’t recall where this is or how I got here, but I know who I am: My name is Amber Reynolds; I am thirty-five years old; I’m married to Paul. I repeat these three things in my head, holding on to them tightly, as though they might save me, but I’m mindful that some part of the story is lost, the last few pages ripped out. When the memories are as complete as I can manage, I bury them until they are quiet enough inside my head to allow me to think, to feel, to try to make sense of it all. One memory refuses to comply, fighting its way to the surface, but I don’t want to believe it.

The sound of a machine breaks into my consciousness, stealing my last few fragments of hope and leaving me with nothing except the unwanted knowledge that I am in a hospital. The sterilised stench of the place makes me want to gag. I hate hospitals. They are the home of death and regrets that missed their slots, not somewhere I would ever choose to visit, let alone stay.

There were people here before, strangers, I remember that now. They used a word I chose not to hear. I recall lots of fuss, raised voices and fear, not just my own. I struggle to unearth more, but my mind fails me. Something very bad has happened, but I cannot remember what or when.

Why isn’t he here?

It can be dangerous to ask a question when you already know the answer.

He does not love me.

I bookmark that thought.

I hear a door open. Footsteps, then the silence returns but it’s spoiled, no longer pure. I can smell stale cigarette smoke, the sound of pen scratching paper to my right. Someone coughs to my left and I realise there are two of them. Strangers in the dark. I feel colder than before and so terribly small. I have never known a terror like the one that takes hold of me now.

I wish someone would say something.

‘Who is she?’ asks a woman’s voice.

‘No idea. Poor love, what a mess,’ replies another woman.

I wish they’d said nothing at all. I start to scream:

My name is Amber Reynolds! I’m a radio presenter! Why don’t you know who I am?

I shout the same sentences over and over, but they ignore me because, on the outside, I am silent. On the outside, I am nobody and I have no name.

I want to see the me they have seen. I want to sit up, reach out and touch them. I want to feel something again. Anything. Anyone. I want to ask a thousand questions. I think I want to know the answers. They used the word from before too, the one I don’t want to hear.

The women leave, closing the door behind them, but the word stays behind, so that we are alone together and I am no longer able to ignore it. I can’t open my eyes. I can’t move. I can’t speak. The word bubbles to the surface, popping on impact and I know it to be true…

Coma.

Then

One week earlier – Monday, 19th December 2016

I tiptoe downstairs in the early morning darkness, careful not to wake him. Everything is where it ought to be and yet I’m sure something is missing. I pull on my heavy winter coat to combat the cold and walk through to the kitchen to begin my routine. I start with the back door and repeatedly turn the handle until I’m sure it is locked: