Blog Tour Review & Giveaway ~ Dead Lies by Cybele Loening

Welcome to my tour stop for Dead Lies by Cybele Loening! In her debut novel, Loening has written an intriguing mystery novel surrounding murder and long held family secrets! The Dead Lies tour runs from October 22nd thru 30th with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts. As a special treat you can read free chapters from the book at DeadLiesBook.com! Head over to the tour page for more information and be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of my post for your chance to win one of five audio-book copies of Dead Lies!!!

Rating: 5/5 Stars
Author: Cybele Loening
Available Formats: eBook, Paperback, Hardback, Audio
Publishers: Balboa Press 
Publication Date: 06-11-2014                  Pages: 331 

Former NYPD cop Anna Valentine just landed her first homicide case: the grisly double murder of a wealthy young couple. But it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Recovering from personal tragedies, the young police office just moved with her traumatized child to the suburbs where she hoped to pursue a quiet life and heal. To complicate matters, although she’s sworn off men until she and her son are happy and whole again, Anna feels the pull of attraction to the handsome twin brother of one of the murder victims, a man who has yet to be crossed off the suspect list. Teaming up with lead detective Jerry Kreeger, a 57-year-old veteran cop who’s lonely, broke and close to burnout, Anna chases a crafty killer and ultimately exposes a family’s shocking secrets that will rock a town.

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Go to http://www.deadliesbook.com/ for free chapters!

My So-Called Review:

Dead Lies, by Cybele Loening, is a mystery surrounding the death of a wealthy young couple who seem to have no enemies. Web is at his parents’ house celebrating the Christmas holiday along with his younger sister Beth; they haven’t quite kicked off their evening as they’re still waiting for his twin sister Serena and her husband Bill to arrive. When Web finally receives a phone call from Serena he assumes she’s going to apologize for her and Bill running late, as usual. What he hears instead are the gruesome sounds of Serena slowly dying, sounds that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Web is panicked and doesn’t know what to do in order to help her, and then just before she dies she says something strange and cryptic to him. Web can’t make sense of it and has no idea if what she was trying to say holds a clue to who murdered his sister and brother-in-law, but he’s determined to find out. 

Homicide Detective, Anna Valentine has recently moved from New York to a nice, quiet suburb with her very young, traumatized son. Her hope is that they can both begin to recover and heal from the horrific tragedy they both suffered in the last year. She’s just been assigned the murder case of the young, wealthy couple and is working alongside veteran detective, Jerry Kreeger. The two work well together and are quickly on the trail of a killer who seems to have no reason to target the young couple. Once they start digging into their lives it becomes apparent there was more going on with the couple than anyone could have possibly know. Not even her twin brother and best friend, Web, could have guessed what shocking secrets lay burry beneath his family’s seemingly perfect exterior. 

I loved every moment of Dead Lies! I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect going in as I’ve never read anything by Cybele Loening, but I did know I was drawn in by the book’s cover, it’s quite beautiful and haunting. To categorize a book as a “mystery” is leaving it pretty open-ended since there are so many sub-genres in today’s book world. I typically stick to dark, gritty psychological thrillers because these are the stories I’m drawn too, I love twisty plot twists and long buried secrets :) It didn’t take long for me to realize this book was giving me everything I usually love in dark thrillers yet it maintained a clean, good old-fashioned mystery style. I loved this aspect and was honestly surprised by how well it worked here. This is a character driven mystery so we see each of these characters flaws, not just our main characters either, each character is dealt with in the same way so you end up with such a sense of knowing these people and caring about them. Our three main characters Web, Anna and Jerry seem to have the most flaws and each one is at a crossroads of sorts in their lives. Again, this isn’t typically information I want in my thrillers but it just worked so well here, what they were each going through could happen to any of us and in some ways it was this realization that really made the book for me! 

What was even more amazing is that this story never slows downs and there’s quite a few surprises at the end that I wasn’t expecting! The first (don’t worry, no spoilers here) was in how the mystery itself played out, we find out pretty early on who the murderer is, I loved this twist because it then made me question what was going on and what I thought I knew. Once again, this was one I thought I’d figured out in the beginning only to discover that although I’d been looking in the right direction, I was actually way off! I swear I must be losing my touch because this has been happening to me a lot lately Lol Can’t really complain though because the reveals are so much more fun when I discover I’ve been wrong the hole time :) The second big surprise for me was the romance. We had two potential love interests for Ana throughout the novel and both had something to offer for her and would have been a good match. I liked one slightly more than the other, in the sense of having a relationship with Anna, and was convinced that she’d choose the other one in the end but nope, I was wrong here too! At least this was a pleasant surprise and one that really leaves the door open for book two. 

I highly recommend Dead Lies for any type of mystery fan and with this being such a character driven story it would also make a great Book Club choice. I’m putting it in the pool for my own book club because I just really need to discuss this book with my girls!! I want to get other opinions on the twists, the big reveal at the end, which guy Anna ended up with and where this fabulous detective and author might take us next. There will be a next right? I do hope so because Anna’s story isn’t over yet ;)

A huge thank you to publishers, Balboa Press, for providing me with a review copy of Dead Lies in exchange for my honest review. And thank you to CBB Book Promotions for inviting me to be a part of this fabulous blog tour!!

Reviewer Quotes: 

“Top marks…five stars…” Self-Publisher’s Showcase

“Loening is a master of her craft.” Main Street Magazine

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About the Author:

Becoming a novelist was a dream come true for Cybele Loening, and one that was many years in the making. Like many aspiring writers and creative types, when she completed her education, she didn’t think she could make a living doing what she loved. So, she took a job that was related to writing but not actually writing: She became an editor. She loved editing but never gave up her dream of writing a novel someday.

It wasn’t until she was in her late thirties that she finally realized “someday” was right now. After many years of working in Corporate America, she was burned out of her job and exhausted by city living. She realized she was giving her best energy to a career and life that no longer fit. So, she took a huge leap of faith and quit her job to write full-time. The book she began writing eventually became Dead Lies.

Quitting her job was a scary step, but it changed her life. Tapping away at her keyboard, she realized she was happier than she had been in a while. She felt creative and energized again and was thrilled to have discovered her passion, her life’s work.

That one brave step into the unknown led to other wonderful changes in her life. For years she had dreamed of living in the country, so she began renting a cottage in Litchfield County, Connecticut, to see how it felt. She never looked back. And it was in this idyllic place that she met her soul mate and now husband, the life and business coach, Brooke Loening. They married a few years later, and together they renovated a home in which they now both live and work.

Spending her days writing and living in a place she loves, she has found bliss she never thought possible.

A spiritual seeker and lover of all of life’s mysteries, Cybele is hard at work on the next book in the Anna Valentine Detective Series and a memoir. She is also a blogger with a global mission: to help women achieve their dreams and live their very best lives.

You can find her at www.cybeleloening.com, and on Facebook (Cybele Loening and Cybele Loening Mysteries) and Twitter (@CybeleLoening). 

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GIVEAWAY:

5 audio-book copies (through audible.com) of DEAD LIES
by Cybele Loening (INT) Ends Nov. 4th, 2015

Prizing is provided by the author, hosts are not responsible.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.