Tag: Lies

Guest Post from TM Logan

Hi everyone,

Today I’m thrilled to have a guest post from TM Logan, the author of the recently released book, Lies which was published on January 17th 2017.

First though, here’s all of the things you need to know about Lies ad TM Logan:

About the book:

lies

When Joe Lynch stumbles across his wife driving into a hotel car park while she’s supposed to be at work, he’s intrigued enough to follow her in.
And when he witnesses her in an angry altercation with family friend Ben, he knows he ought to intervene.

But just as the confrontation between the two men turns violent, and Ben is knocked unconscious, Joe’s young son has an asthma attack – and Joe must flee in order to help him.

When he returns, desperate to make sure Ben is OK, Joe is horrified to find that Ben has disappeared.

And that’s when Joe receives the first message…

Click HERE to get your copy!

About the author:

TM Logan was born in Berkshire to an English father and a German mother. He studied at Queen Mary and Cardiff universities before becoming a national newspaper journalist. He currently works in communications and lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children. LIES is his first novel – published on January 17th 2017 (ebook) and May 4th 2017 (paperback). Follow him on Twitter @TMLoganAuthor

tm-logan

And now, I’ll hand you over to Tim who has written a great piece fot you guys to read…

 

Truth, lies and social media

My debut thriller LIES is about the things that are important to all of us: love, trust, loyalty, family. But it’s also about betrayal, adultery, revenge and the lies that grow when obsession takes hold. It’s about a man trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not – at a time when we have more ways to lie and deceive each other than ever before.

Don’t get me wrong, social media and technology in general have changed the way we live in lots of wonderful ways. I always have my mobile with me, and feel lost without it. I think social media is great – it helps us to stay connected with people and have friendships that might never have happened a few years ago. But what about the other side of that? The darker side? Haven’t you ever secretly wondered who your nearest and dearest is really talking to, messaging, texting, tweeting, when they’re transfixed by their mobile phone? Of course you have…

One of the themes of LIES is whether we can ever really know those closest to us, when technology has made deception so easy. Another is how it can blur the lines between fantasy and reality, which is an idea I wanted to explore as my protagonist Joe Lynch fights to save his family and clear his name.

My research for LIES showed me the blurring of fantasy and reality can have deadly consequences in real life, as this study by Birmingham City University found in looking at 48 criminal cases from around the world. The researchers identified six different types of Facebook criminal according to how the social networking site featured in their crimes – from ‘predator’, ‘imposter’ and ‘fantasist’, to ‘reactor’, ‘informer’ and ‘antagonist’.

And it’s not just at a personal level those lines get blurred, but also in the way we perceive the world in general. Do you believe what the politician says on News at Ten? Or what you read on your Facebook news feed? Do you trust your instincts, your gut feeling, or do you believe something shared by fifty or a hundred or a thousand people on your Facebook feed?

Here’s a quick test. Did you read a news story about the Pope endorsing Donald Trump during last year’s presidential election? Or an FBI agent investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails being found dead in an apparent murder-suicide? Or President Obama banning the US Pledge of Allegiance in schools a month before the election?

These stories all had a couple of things in common. They all had more than 500,000 engagements on Facebook. And they’re all totally bogus. Made up. Fake news posted on social media, and sent viral with hundreds of thousands of views and shares on Facebook and other platforms. There were dozens of fake news stories circulating during the election, and the traction they got on social media suggests many people simply couldn’t tell where the truth stopped and the lies started.

Now imagine what it would be like if your life depended on sifting out the lies. If everything you held dear was at stake…

@TMLoganAuthor

Huge thanks to Tim for writing such a great piece! I’ve been lucky enough to read and review Lies as well as take part in the blog tour, so you can click the links below to catch up on those posts too! 🙂

Lies by T. M. Logan

*Blog Tour* Lies by TM Logan

*Blog Tour* Lies by TM Logan

Hi everyone!

So today is my stop on the blog tour for Lies by TM Logan, which incidentally, is out today. I’ve got a great guest post from the author about his favourite opening lines, but more on that in a bit. Here’s all the important bookish info first:

About the book:

lies

When Joe Lynch stumbles across his wife driving into a hotel car park while she’s supposed to be at work, he’s intrigued enough to follow her in.
And when he witnesses her in an angry altercation with family friend Ben, he knows he ought to intervene.

But just as the confrontation between the two men turns violent, and Ben is knocked unconscious, Joe’s young son has an asthma attack – and Joe must flee in order to help him.

When he returns, desperate to make sure Ben is OK, Joe is horrified to find that Ben has disappeared.

And that’s when Joe receives the first message…

Click HERE to get your copy!

About the author:

TM Logan was born in Berkshire to an English father and a German mother. He studied at Queen Mary and Cardiff universities before becoming a national newspaper journalist. He currently works in communications and lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children. LIES is his first novel – published on January 17th 2017 (ebook) and May 4th 2017 (paperback). Follow him on Twitter @TMLoganAuthor

tm-logan

And now I’ll hand you over to the author…

Seven favourite first lines in fiction

‘An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.’

I didn’t say this (I wish I had) – it was Stephen King. As usual, he’s spot on. The first line is so important in hooking the reader, pulling them in and making a connection with them. The first line sets the stage, gives a hint to the reader about what’s in store – and why they should stick around to find out.

The first line of my debut novel LIES was inspired by my son, Tom. He was obsessed with cars from a very young age and would recite their names in traffic whenever he saw the badges – just like the son of my protagonist, Joe Lynch. In LIES, this seemingly innocent habit is the trigger for a terrifying chain of events that send Joe’s life spiralling out of control in a whirlwind of betrayal, obsession, lies and revenge.

Here are some opening lines that I love, from some of my favourite books.

  1. ‘You never meant to kill him.’

– The Innocent, by Harlan Coben

Coben is the master. Just six words in his opener here, but he’s already given you situation, subject, death and regret. Not bad going. He’s written a lot of great thrillers – The Innocent is just one of many.

  1. ‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’

– 1984 by George Orwell

One of the all-time classic openings, combining the familiar and the unfamiliar, hinting at a world that has somehow tilted on its axis. This was one of my favourite books as a teenager.

  1. ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.’

– The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Another one of my childhood favourites. For me it came after CS Lewis’s seven Narnia books (I still have the box set) and before the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’ve cheated a bit here because it’s two sentences, but Tolkien was a master at painting pictures with words.

  1. ‘I was arrested in Eno’s diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.’

– Killing Floor by Lee Child

OK, I’ve cheated again here. This is the opening paragraph rather than just the first sentence. But he manages to convey so much about Jack Reacher in a few dozen words that we feel we’re on the way to knowing him already. This is the first time readers met Reacher, but 20 books later, he’s still going strong (and still drinking coffee).

  1. ‘We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.’

– Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

One of my favourite journalist-authors. Hunter S Thompson’s gonzo journalism style is way out there – part fact, part fiction, part drug-induced hallucination – and this opener gives you a taste of the craziness in store. You know right from the first line that it’s going to be a wild ride.

  1. ‘The old lady had changed her mind about dying but by then it was too late.’

– City of Bones by Michael Connelly

I’m a massive Michael Connelly fan. To be honest I could have chosen almost any of his books, but the City of Bones opener is a fine example, taking us inside the mind of LA cop Harry Bosch.

  1. ‘I’m pretty much f***ed. That’s my considered opinion.’

– The Martian by Andy Weir

This is a great adventure story. But it’s also got healthy doses of humour and a sheer bloody-minded refusal to give up in the face of impossible odds that makes you root for the hero from the very first line.

These are just a few of my choices, but everyone has their own favourites opening lines. What are yours? Let me know @TMLoganAuthor

Huge thanks to Emily at Bonnier Zaffre and TM Logan for having me on the blog tour!

Make sure to follow the blog tour!

I also read and reviewed Lies last year, you can click Lies by T. M. Logan to read it!

Lies by T. M. Logan

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*Many thanks to the publisher for my Netgalley review copy*

About the book:

When Joe Lynch stumbles across his wife driving into a hotel car park while she’s supposed to be at work, he’s intrigued enough to follow her in.
And when he witnesses her in an angry altercation with family friend Ben, he knows he ought to intervene.

But just as the confrontation between the two men turns violent, and Ben is knocked unconscious, Joe’s young son has an asthma attack – and Joe must flee in order to help him.

When he returns, desperate to make sure Ben is OK, Joe is horrified to find that Ben has disappeared.

And that’s when Joe receives the first message…

My thoughts:

Lies is a prime example of those psychological thrillers that are saturating the market lately! Gripping, full of twists and turns, it’s very hard to put it down!

Following average Joe (see what I did there?! 😂) and his mundane life, Lies shows exactly the kind of implications that keeping secrets can have. When poor Joe sees his wife with a friend of theirs having what appears to be a heated conversation, what follows is a super twisty read that leaves the reader eager to see what could possible happen next!

There is some interesting characterisation in Lies, and I have to be honest, I didn’t get on with some of them. But isn’t that a good thing sometimes? If characters evoke emotion in the reader that means the author is doing a good job.

There is a very modern theme running through Lies too. Social media is omnipresent in today’s world, and Lies does a really good job of showing its often time murkier side. It’s very believable and I could easily see how it was being used throughout the story.

I’m not going to go into any proper plot details for fear that I might say something out of turn. I will say that Lies is a gripping thriller, with elements of the psychological so if that’s your thing, then Lies is a book for you!