Is she the next victim? Or is she the culprit…?
Alex South is a high-functioning alcoholic who is teetering on the brink of oblivion. Her career as a television journalist is hanging by a thread since a drunken on-air rant. When a series of murders occur within a couple of miles of her East London home she is given another chance to prove her skill and report the unfolding events. She thinks she can control the drinking, but soon she finds gaping holes in her memory, and wakes to find she’s done things she can’t recall. As the story she’s covering starts to creep into her own life, is Alex a danger only to herself – or to others?
This gripping psychological thriller is perfect for fans of Fiona Barton, B A Paris and Clare Mackintosh.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for I Never Lie by Jody Sabral today. Many thanks to the author and Ellie Pilcher from publishers, Canelo for inviting me and for providing an intriguing extract from the novel which I'm delighted to be able to share with you.
January 2017
Dear Diary,Today has been really rough. I feel physically sick: all I want to do is throw up. My brain isn’t working. My body has the shakes and is behaving in ways I’ve never known it to before. The optimism I felt about kicking the drink has all but vanished. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing by stopping. My body hurts. My brain is like jelly. I feel like I’m about to die any minute. I can’t get out of bed, but I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything. I can’t function. Detoxing is so hard.
It’s been two weeks since I went to my first AA meeting with Alex. I thought it would get easier, but it’s not getting easier, it’s getting harder. Alex told me she went to a walk-in clinic recommended by her GP before she tried AA. She is trying to cut down because her partner is really fed up with it. She says we exist in a state of oblivion to escape real life. A woman at AA asked me why I drink, and honestly, I don’t know. I’ve just been doing it for so long that I don’t know how to do anything else.
God, I feel terrible today. My stomach aches, my joints ache, everything aches. My body isn’t reacting well to the withdrawal. It’s shaking. A woman in the AA group, Lorraine, recounted how she went through violent shakes when she quit and how it’s actually quite dangerous for you to just stop drinking. She said it can kill a person, said that it’s better to cut down slowly, wean yourself off it, which I hadn’t even thought of before. Even so, I decided to go cold turkey. It’s as if I have something to prove to myself. Although now I’m not sure it was such a good idea.
I can’t really imagine my life without drink. It’s like trying to take the roots from a tree, I just don’t see how it will work, but I’m up for giving it a try. My mum isn’t helping. On the contrary, she is being moody and aggressive as usual. She was really angry last night because she doesn’t like me talking about it. I told her about the meeting in the church, but she just thinks I’ve joined some crazy cult. She doesn’t get it. She’s in denial, like I was until Alex saved me.
I don’t know why I expect my mum to behave any differently really. For as long as I can remember, she’s said I was a mistake. That I ruined her life. That she was going places until I came along. She says I bring her down. She blames me for everything. Nothing is ever her fault, always someone else’s. She was so moody last night, I had to leave the room after she threw a plate across the kitchen. I’m used to her blaming me for her failed life, that’s nothing new, but the difference now is I’m starting to feel it isn’t about me at all, because AA is helping me to see things differently. The group tells me not to believe my mum. That it is her own frustrations that make her angry. That I’m not responsible for my mother’s life. That people are responsible for themselves. I’d never thought about it this way before.
In a way, I feel sorry for my mum, because I am a bit of a burden if truth be told. I still live at home and I don’t pay rent. I wanted to be a writer when I left school but I haven’t written anything since I was sixteen. After I got back from the last AA meeting, that’s when I decided to stop drinking altogether and write this diary. Maybe one day it’ll mean something. Maybe I have a book in me after all.
I have accepted that I am an alcoholic and I want to get better. I really want to get sober so I can have a successful life like Alex. It’s tough, though, I won’t lie. All I can think about today is having a drink.
It’s probably a good thing that I can’t get out of bed because there is a lot of alcohol downstairs in the lounge. We always have lots of booze in the house. It’s quite normal for my mum to drink before lunchtime. In fact, I’m starting to think it’s my mother who taught me to drink the way I do and that’s a good reason to stop, because if I don’t, I may end up like her. I repeat: I may end up like my mother. She bitches at me all the time yet needs me at the same time. I’m starting to think about our relationship differently. It’s something I need to change, and I need to get sober to do that. I must not drink today.
I want to read more! I already have chills thinking about what this psychological thriller has in store, unfortunately my reading schedule is so tight that I wasn't able to accept a review slot for the blog tour but it's most definitely on my TBR list now.
If you've been tempted, I Never Lie can be purchased from the following sites;
Amazon UK
Kobo UK
Google Books UK
Apple Books UK
Don't forget to check out some of the other stops on the blog tour, details are below.
About the Author
Jody Sabral is based between the South Coast and London, where she works as a Foreign Desk editor and video producer at the BBC. She is a graduate of the MA in Crime Fiction at City University, London. Jody worked as a journalist in Turkey for ten years, covering the region for various international broadcasters. She self-published her first book Changing Borders in 2012 and won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2014 for her second novel The Movement. In addition to working for the BBC, Jody also writes for the Huffington Post, Al–Monitor and Brics Post.
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