Living, Breathing Lies
by Gloria Mallette
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gloria MalletteEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-06-15
ISBN: 0967878926
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Gemini Press
Book Reviews of Living, Breathing Lies
Book Review: a powerful character study
Summary: 5 Stars
When her parents died eleven-year-old heiress Nadirah Lewis moved into the home of her paternal Aunt Stephanie Richards. Whereas Aunt Stephanie is cruel and abusive to everyone, her spouse firefighter Lester was very kind and loving to his niece as was her twin sibling older cousins Les and Lynn. A few years later, an accident leaves Stephanie physically crippled and Nadirah emotionally crippled as her guardian blames her ward for causing the trauma. Just under a decade after Nadirah joins the Richards family and long after the cousins moved out, Lester dies.
Stephanie uses guilt as a weapon to keep Nadirah home with her. However, the elementary schoolteacher is turning thirty in ten months and besides inheriting a four million dollar plus trust fund from her late parents, she begins to want out of jail, but is afraid to go it alone. Lynn, who left her acrimonious mother almost seventeen years ago, encourages Nadirah to make the break. However, it is her at risk eight years old student Bree, who desperately needs help and that leads Nadirah to believe she can do it especially if she wants to become the child's guardian. A desperate Stephanie fearing being left to die alone, does what she does best; spreading lies of a teacher-student affair that harms her niece especially when Bree's unstable family surface with demands of the teacher.
LIVING, BREATHING LIES is a powerful character study that focuses in on dysfunctional interrelationships built on fabrications. Each of the Richards are unique, but the most profound protagonist is Aunt Stephanie who is a household Machiavelli as she manipulated her husband to do what she wanted and likewise her niece; in the latter guilt is tight handcuffs. Nadirah is also fascinating as a willing victim filled with guilt that her aunt insures overflows. As the web of lies that go much wider than Nadirah knows begins to unravel one thread at a time, readers will demand more angst family dramas like this tense tale.
Harriet Klausner
Summary of Living, Breathing Lies
Breathe a lie, live a lie. That's what Nadirah Lewis learns when she uncovers the stunning lie she was forced to live for seventeen years. Nadirah was twelve years old when she was blamed for crippling her Aunt Stephanie. Guilt and her trust fund kept Nadirah a prisoner in Stephanie's home and the object of Stephanie's cruel tongue, but it took another vicious lie and a threat to Nadirah's career as a teacher to infuse her with the energy to fight back.Nadirah's fight, however, is not just for herself. It is also for one of her young students, Bree Morrison. When Bree is hospitalized after drinking a near fatal dose of poison, Nadirah petitions the Administration for Child Services for guardianship. Bree's mother has inexplicably disappeared, and what Bree won't say is what Nadirah needs to hear before Bree's aunt Erma, a she-devil on wheels, wins the custody battle.
Erma, the soon-to-be ex-wife of Austin Gray, Nadirah's handsome new landlord, and close friend of Lynn, Nadirah's cousin, lets Nadirah know in no uncertain terms that she will never get Bree or her husband. But what unforgivable lie does Erma live that could stop her cold yet devastate all around her?
And Lynn, as well put together and as orderly as her life is, what shameful lie lurks behind her picturesque suburban doors?
While the revelation of many of the lies give Nadirah the courage to find herself, she must accept the fact that those same lies may well destroy the lives of those closest to her. Unveil the shocking, real life truths of Living, Breathing Lies.
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