My second ever book review - White Lies by...

The first First Chapters competition produced two excellent winners and some fine runners up. I will never deny that. However, my own entry failed rather dismally at the first hurdle, and I convinced myself that no one would really buy a book based on its opening chapter. I was wrong.

I read Sarah Collins Honenberger's first chapter on her web site, http://www.readwhitelies.com/, and promptly went out and bought the book.

There were several reasons, besides the first chapters competition, that I knew I wasn't going to be persuaded to buy White Lies. It's hardback and I always wait for the paperback, unless it's Harry Potter. It's about a something serious - childhood vaccinations - and Michael Crichton's State of Fear has put me off fiction that pretends to educate. It's about the lives of two separate families, and I hate books with artificial, or artsy connections. It's emotional - I don't want my emotions manipulated. It's written in first person - I know, so was my first chapter, but I'm very selective about reading in the first person. And it involves a lawyer - not another Jodi Picault courtroom scene; I've long since sworn off those overly dramatic surprise conclusions.

So, what was it about that first chapter that sent me racing off to the nearest bookstore?

For a start, Sarah writes very well. In particular, she writes very well in the first person. Just a few paragraphs were enough to create a character I liked and related to. The single scene was so perfectly drawn - a mother remembering the day her child fell ill, providing details that any mother would relate to, retelling emotions that moved me to concern without tears. It wasn't that I became desperate to know what happened next. Rather, I finished the chapter eager to get to know the mother better. So I had to buy the book.

And my concerns?

Well, I did learn stuff from the book - I learned about courts and advocates and medical records and the way laws might be phrased. But Sara wasn't educating me; she was giving me background that brought the story to life. I never felt like she was imposing her opinions or her interpretations on me, or on her characters.

I did become very involved in two separate family's lives. But I never felt I was reading separate stories. There was one story here, with real characters, who had real families and real lives that impinged on the telling.

I found myself emotionally attached to the story - could hardly put it down. But no one was manipulating my emotions; I was excited, angry, sad, concerned, disturbed, because that's what the characters deserved, because the author had made me care.

And the first person writing?

Actually, there are two first person narrators in White Lies. And, amazingly - very expertly - Sarah Honenberger manages to keep their voices so well delineated I never once was unsure of who was speaking. Okay, the chapter headings helped. But when I'm really involved in a book, I don't read headings, and I didn't need to. Not only do the characters have very different narrative voices, but they don't even hear each other the same way as they speak, and it doesn't matter. The mother as narrator is older and wiser than the mother quoted by her lawyer, and yet is still clearly the same person. Both voices are eminently readable - no artificial vocal quirks to distract me. And the narrators grow and change through the course of the book. They form opinions, express opinions, and change their opinions; all the time as real people; people I would want to know.

Sarah's first chapter drew me in. And the book fulfilled its promise. If you're looking for a really good read, with two fascinating, flawed, wise and wonderful lead characters, and an interesting look at the legal and medical systems and their interaction, you should go to the web site for yourself and see if you're not intrigued, just as I was

Or you could take my word for it and go buy the book.

©Sheila Deeth, March 2008