Beautiful Lies (Ridley Jones series #1)
Lisa Unger, 2006
Crown Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307388995
Summary
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. (From the publisher.)
Sliver of Truth (2007) is the second in Unger's Ridley Jones series.
Author Bio
• Birth—April 26, 1970
• Where—New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• Reared—The Netherlands, UK, and New Jersey, USA
• Education—New School for Social Research
• Currently—lives in Florida
Lisa Unger is an award winning New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world.
She was born in New Haven, Connecticut (1970) but grew up in the Netherlands, England and New Jersey. A graduate of the New School for Social Research, Lisa spent many years living and working in New York City. She then left a career in publicity to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.
Her writing has been hailed as "masterful" (St. Petersburg Times), "sensational" (Publishers Weekly) and "sophisticated" (New York Daily News) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press).
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Her own words:
I have always most naturally expressed myself through writing and I have always dwelled in the land of my imagination more comfortably than in reality. There’s a jolt I get from a good story that I’m not sure can be duplicated in the real world. Perhaps this condition came about because of all the traveling my family did when I was younger. I was born in Connecticut but we moved often. By the time my family settled for once and all in New Jersey, I had already lived in Holland and in England (not to mention Brooklyn and other brief New Jersey stays) for most of my childhood. I don’t recall ever minding moving about; even then I had a sense that it was cool and unusual. But I think it was one of many things that kept me feeling separate from the things and people around me, this sense of myself as transient and on the outside, looking in. I don’t recall ever exactly fitting in anywhere. Writers are first and foremost observers … and one can’t truly observe unless she stands apart.
For a long time, I didn’t really believe that it was possible to make a living as a writer … mainly because that’s what people always told me. So, I made it a hobby. All through high school, I won awards and eventually, a partial scholarship because of my writing. In college, I was advised by teachers to pursue my talent, to get an agent, to really go for it. But there was a little voice that told me (quietly but insistently) that it wasn’t possible. I didn’t see it as a viable career option as I graduated from the New School for Social Research (I transferred there from NYU for smaller, more dynamic classes). I needed a “real job.” A real job delivers a regular pay check, right? So I entered a profession that brought me as close to my dream as possible … and paid, if not well, then at least every two weeks. I went into publishing.
When I left for Florida, I think I was at a critical level of burnout. I think that as a New Yorker, especially after a number of years, one starts to lose sight of how truly special, how textured and unique it is. The day-to-day can be brutal: the odors, the noise, the homeless, the trains, the expense. Once I had some distance though, New York City started to leak into my work and I found myself rediscovering many of the things I had always treasured about it. It came very naturally as the setting for Beautiful Lies. It is the place I know best. I know it as one can only know a place she has loved desperately and hated passionately and then come to miss terribly once she has left it behind.
But it is true that we can’t go home again. I live in Florida now with my wonderful husband, and I’m a full-time writer. There’s a lot of beauty and texture and darkness to be mined in this strange place, as well. I’m sure I’d miss it as much in different ways if I returned to New York. I guess that’s my thing … no matter where I am I wonder if I belong somewhere else. I’m always outside, observing. It’s only when I’m writing that I know I’m truly home. (Author bio from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A tightly written thriller.... The action is depicted with satisfying breathlessness.
San Francisco Chronicle
Perfect pitch, characters we can recognize as versions of ourselves.... Lip-smacking good.
Chicago Tribune
Unger's well-crafted, suspenseful debut fiction, in which a bright, resourceful young woman finds her everyday world turned upside down in true Harlan Coben-thriller fashion, is done no favors by this off-kilter audio rendition. The main problem is that reader Lamia sounds a decade younger than the novel's narrator, Ridley Jones. As the book's heroine drifts into and out of jeopardy, fearlessly searching for the truth about her birth and parentage while defying powerful adversaries determined to keep a particularly evil secret, the mood should be noir. Lamia's sound is strictly YA, more girly than gritty. Her performance isn't one note; she makes all the right emotional choices. But she is not vocally versatile enough to do justice to the novel's cast of characters. Asking her to convey the audio image of a rotund, sinister lawyer issuing dire threats, to take one example, is a little like hiring Paris Hilton to stand in for Orson Welles. Not her fault, exactly, if she falls short of the mark.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Unger takes readers on a pulse-pounding ride through the Big Apple in this outstanding debut that will please both pace-obsessed thriller fans and those who want to savor the more subtle aspects of character development. —Jenny McLarin
Booklist
A cozy, personable debut about a young New York City journalist who inadvertently begins to unravel her own identity. Ridley Jones's 15 minutes of fame occur when she leaves her East Village apartment one morning to catch a cab and saves a toddler from being hit by a van. Ridley's face is plastered over the news for days, thrilling her New Jersey parents and former fiance Zack, whom she dumped in order to become her own person. Ridley's privacy is further compromised when she receives notes from someone claiming to be her long-lost daughter. Simultaneously, an attractive, rather nosy new neighbor in her building, Jake, turns out to be a PI with all kinds of scary baggage and a bullet scar on his shoulder. He helps connect Ridley's mysterious messages to the case of a missing girl, Jessie Stone, who disappeared in 1972 after the murder of her mother (probably by her boyfriend). Unger effectively builds suspicions around the men in Ridley's life: unknown, duplicitous Jake, who seems to follow her everywhere; obtuse and overprotective Zack, a pediatrician like her father; bitter, damaged older brother Ace, an itinerant drug user estranged from the family who drops hints of their parents' perfidy without evidence; and even Ridley's beloved, dead Uncle Max, who overcame an abusive childhood to make his fortune in real estate and establish a humanitarian agency that shelters mothers with children frightened for their safety. Ridley's parents also come under her scrutiny, since her father served as pediatrician to Jessie as well as to other missing children. The story is told from the perspective of Ridley, who is proud and occasionally spooked to live on her own in the big city. Cleverly handled suspense for chick-lit readers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. One of the novel’s main themes is choice, and how both big choices and little ones can have a profound impact on a person’s life. Did Ridley have a choice in finding out the truth about her past? If she’d chosen to ignore the first picture and note, could she have avoided all the questions and secrets that arose?
2. Would it have been possible for Ridley to ignore the events of the past and still have developed a true sense of self? Would you be able to?
3. On page 17, Ridley says, “Freedom, I’d have to say is probably the most important thing to me, more important than youth, beauty, fame, money.” Does this freedom Ridley craves influence the lies that have been told to her her entire life? Or is this freedom what could have protected her from asking questions about her past?
4. Throughout the story, the author compares Jake to Zack. Are there any similarities between the two men? In the beginning, what does Ridley admire about each of them?
5. Why did Jake keep the truth from Ridley for so long? Would it have been easier to tell her who he was from the start? Would she have believed him? Would you?
6. The author brings up the idea of parental (and adult) control over children, even after these children have grown up. Is there a control parents will always have over their child? Or at some point is control relinquished to the child to live his/her own life? How could Ridley’s parents have handled the situation differently? Would it have worked?
7. On page 51, Ridley says, “When you love someone, it doesn’t really matter if they love you back or not. Having love in your heart for someone is its own reward. Or punishment, depending on the circumstances.” By the end of the novel, has Ridley’s view of her family and Jake altered this idea of love? How has it altered? If her family and Jake followed the same definition of love, would their views have been altered by the events of the story?
8. What do you think of the nature of Project Rescue before Teresa Stone’s murder? Was there another or better way to protect children from abuse or neglect? What do you think of the systems in place to protect children today in your own society?
9. Do you believe Ridley’s father and Max should both be penalized or blamed for what happened? What about Ridley’s mother and Ace? Did any of these people have a responsibility to tell Ridley what happened to her? Why or why not?
10. If you were Jake or Ridley, would you have looked into all the cases of missing children, as they did, or would you have focused solely on finding the truth of your own past? What was to gain by looking at all the cases? Could they have found the truth about their own life without looking at the others?
11. Do you think Ace’s drug addiction and problems with his parents were related to Ridley’s history, which he overheard their father and Max discussing one day? How do you think Ridley would have handled the truth had she been told by her parents instead of finding out the way she did?
12. On page 252, Ridley says, “I was operating under a faith that the universe conspires to reveal the truth, that lies are unstable elements that tend toward breaking down.” Do you think the truth would have revealed itself to Ridley without Jake’s involvement? Would it have been easier or more difficult to take without Jake?
13. On page 368, Ridley asks, “Isn’t that so often true with family, that we see them through the filters of our own fears, expectations, and desire to control?” How does this apply to each of her family members? How is it affected by the truth that’s come out, and how will it affect their relationships moving forward? Can Ridley, or anyone, project fear, expectation, or desire to control onto how she views anyone else now?
14. By the end of the story, what do you think of Zack’s and Esme’s role in Project Rescue? Was it right for Esme to help Max as she did because of her love for him?
15. On page 369, Ridley says, “We don’t have control, we have choices.” And on page 371, she says, “In life there are only good and bad choices. And sometimes even choices can only be judged by their consequences. And sometimes not even then.” Is it really as simple as a matter of choice? How would any of the characters agree or disagree with these ideas?
16. When Ridley confronts Jake on the Brooklyn Bridge, she wants to know how he found her to begin with. He tells her that he saw her picture in The Post, just like Christian Luna. Can this be the truth? Or is Jake hiding more than Ridley ever realizes even as the book ends?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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