Review: Big Lies in a Small Town (by Diane Chamberlain)

My Rating: 4 stars

This may be only the second of Diane Chamberlain’s works that I’ve read, but based on how much I enjoyed this book as well as her previous one (The Dream Daughter, which came out back in 2018), I already know that I will likely be adding her to my “favorite authors” list very soon. 

With Big Lies in a Small Town, Chamberlain once again gives her readers a well-written, emotionally resonant story with realistic, well-developed characters and a wonderfully laid-out plot. Through a dual timeline narrative alternating between two time periods, both set in the small, sleepy town of Edenton, North Carolina, we get to meet two female artists from different generations – Anna Dale in 1940 and Morgan Christopher in 2018 – both of whom share the similarity of being “called” to Edenton to work on art projects, but their lives end up going down drastically different paths.  I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot outside of what the summary already gives, as this is one of those stories where it’s best to go in not knowing too much and see where things take you. Usually with these dual timeline narratives, I tend to prefer one timeline over the other, but in this case, I felt that both of the timelines were extremely well done and also came together beautifully in the end.  Crafting stories like this one — where the present and past timelines play off each other, with the present slowly revealing clues to the past, but in a restrained manner so as to still have elements of surprise for the reader — is definitely no easy feat and I feel that Chamberlain masters that here. Even though I already had an idea of where the story would go after the first few chapters (and I ended up guessing correctly), I still found the story thoroughly engaging to the point that I kept wanting to turn the pages to find out what happens next.  

Aside from the intricately-crafted plot, the other thing I appreciated most about this story were the well-developed characters.  I love stories with strong, yet flawed female protagonists at the center whom I am able to connect with and witness their growth — both Anna and Morgan encounter different hardships and, at times, end up having to bear consequences from poor decisions that were made, but yet they face these challenges head-on and grow from the experiences.  

Like some of Chamberlain’s previous works, I found it difficult to place this in any one particular category, as there were definitely elements that spanned different genres.  At the center is the “mystery” surrounding the mural that Morgan is tasked with restoring and the fate that befell its artist Anna Dale, yet there were also historical elements with the story’s setting in the real-life town of Edenton, especially during the 1940s timeline.  There were also elements of women’s fiction in terms of the experiences that Anna and Morgan went through, but the depth of the story gives it a bit of literary bent as well.

Overall, this was a hugely satisfying and enjoyable read, one that I definitely recommend.  I know Chamberlain has an extensive backlist of books that I’m hoping to get the chance to explore at some point, but I’m also looking forward to her next work and seeing what else she may have in store for us.  

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.