Things We Knew Were True

Nicci Gerrard is one half of Nicci French, the highly successful pseudonymous crime novelist created with her husband journalist Sean French. But anyone expecting the tensely wrought psychological thrills of the Nicci French books in Things We Knew Were True, this first novel written under her own name, will be in for something of a surprise. This is a poignant and expressively written narrative of a sensitive schoolgirl, Edie, ill-at-ease with herself, who loses her virginity to a boy from a local council estate and is embarrassed when her father discovers the couple in a compromising state. Later, her father Vic loses his job and endures periods of black depression before committing suicide. Edie finds that she is forced to grow up very quickly, and puts her teenage romance in the past. Decades pass, and Edie's mother dies, bringing back painfully unresolved situations.

This utterly absorbing novel has an acute and perceptive grasp of the tensions of family life, and Nicci Gerrard has a genuine skill in conjuring up the agonies of adolescence. The real achievement of Things We Knew Were True is the handling of the abrupt, enforced changes that take place in Edie's personality and the shadow cast over her life by the death of her father; this is a theme explored with both power and sympathy. While the intensity and danger of the Nicci French books is not to be found here, there is much of the subtle and intelligent observation of human character found in the books of William Trevor, and it's clear that Nicci Gerard has all the possibilities of enjoying separate success as a novelist along with her crime writing achievements with her husband. --Barry Forshaw

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Weak Heroine - Rated
I read this book on holiday and like other reviewers found it stayed with me for some time afterwards but probably for different reasons. I found the heroine of the story to be weak-willed in relation to her first love and couldn't understand why she made her confession to her husband. So I guess I found her weak-willed AND cruel as her action at the end of the book was only to make herself feel better. I kept thinking to myself 'but WHY did she do that?'. So ultimately I was annoyed with the heroine and anything I'd enjoyed about the first half of the book was wiped out for me.

Wow - Rated
It has been a long time since a book has tugged on my heart strings in the way that this one did, i felt that i emphasise with Edie because i could understand the wrongs she made, i would recomend this to everyone as it was truley enlighting. It made me weep and it made me laugh but most of all it made we think.

Haunting female characters - Rated
I read this book last year and this year I read Solace also by Nicci Gerrard. Although the genre of these two books is quite different to the style created by husband and wife team Nicci French, both Nicci Gerrard and Nicci French books feature the most haunting, vulnerable female characters who genuinely seem to be alone and dealing with strong emotional situations. You can genuinely appreciate the link between most of the female lead characters right across these novels.
This book deals with female relationships between sisters, mothers, grandmothers, as well as male- female relationships and is a most haunting and emotional read. I could barely put it down and it has the most simple yet effective images of the way that a family and the individual members in it deal with loss and how it affects them all.
Worth a read, especially if you like Nicci French already.

Hauntingly sad but a brilliant read - Rated
I agree with what the other reviewers have said about this book ... it is beautifully written and whilst I was reading the book, I really felt as though the characters became part of my life. It has some very sad and profound moments, and so much that I could relate to. It is the first book in a while that I really got my teeth into and therefore I thoroughly recommend it.

A haunting tale of lost love and childhood innocence. - Rated
This book was a sad, poignant tale of how past tragedies and distant memories can surface when we least expect them to. It focuses on Edie, middle child to parents Louise and Vic. Edie's childhood is filled with love and security as she grows up in the midst of a comfortable chaos that three daughters ultimately bring to a household. But her beautiful, elegant mother and quiet, gentle father are always there to protect and care for her. At the age of sixteen Edie meets Ricky and she experiences the passion and tenderness of first love, but tragedy is around the corner and soon something happens that will shape Edie's destiny and destroy her childhood innocence.

The story is told in two parts, the first recalling Edie's childhood and the second looking back twenty years later, remembering those distant memories and observing the past as it finally catches up with the present. It is a sad tale, but beautifully told, simmering with memories of more innocent times. Gerrard's description of Edie's youth is so empathetic and accurate that it makes the reader relive their own childhood memories and is doubly thought-provoking. I took a trip back in time with this book as it stirred up memories of the first house I grew up in and I recalled fond images of my parents and I, and remembered those wistful days of being young and in love. But Gerrard shows how the past can sometimes return to haunt you as she effectively links this with Edie's present as she gets a chance to relive those 'what if's' from long ago.

I've read Gerrard's other books collaborating with her husband as 'Nikki French' and this is worlds apart from those, so don't buy this thinking it will be similar, you couldn't be more wrong as the genres are hugely different. But although I enjoy both genres I much preferred this novel as this was the first book I've read of hers where I actually empathised with the characters and could understand the reasons for their wrongs. I warmed to all the characters in this book, they seemed real, making mistakes but genuinly regretful as they did so.

Ultimately this is a beautifully written, bittersweet tale of love, tragedy and how the past sometimes creeps up to collide with the present. Highly recommended.