All my lies are true (by Dorothy Koomson)

(Amazon UK link)

The first time I read Dorothy Koomson’s gripping novel ‘The ice cream girls’, I felt that there were some unfinished threads; I knew the author only wrote stand-alone novels, but wished she would write a sequel. So I was very pleased when I learned that she had done so, some years later. I was given ‘All my lies are true’ for my birthday a few months ago. I didn’t read it immediately, however; I waited until a few weeks after I had reread ‘The ice cream girls’, to remind myself of the characters and details of the story.

It probably isn’t necessary to have read it first, but I would definitely recommend it, even though this novel is complete in itself, and starts ten years after the end of ‘The ice cream girls’. This one mainly features Verity, daughter of Serena and Evan, who is now in her mid-twenties. She’s moved out of the family home but, until a year or so previously, was very close to her parents. But she’s grown more and more distant. Serena is sure she has secrets, but is pushed away any time she tries to approach the topic - or any other conversation.

As with other books by this author, the timeline moves back and forwards regularly, with each section headed by the date. So it’s not long before we learn that Verity has been dating a man in his thirties called Logan. He spends a lot of time in her flat, and they have declared their love for each other. But they haven’t told either of their families anything about their relationship, and neither of the has met the other’s family. 

The reason for this is soon clear. Logan is the younger brother of Poppy, one of the original ‘ice cream girls’: the one who spent twenty years in jail. Poppy is finally getting her life together; she has a daughter whom she adores, called Betina, and an off-and-on relationship with Alain, a journalist. 

Poppy has trust issues, which isn’t surprising. She was seduced and abused by a teacher called Marcus when she was in her mid-teens; and although he’s been dead for thirty years now, she still has feelings for him. Then (in the earlier book) Alain betrayed her trust by getting close to her without revealing that he was a journalist, hoping to get an inside story from her. Her parents haven’t been very welcoming since she’s come out of jail, and still think she probably did commit the crime although she insists she’s innocent. But her sister Bella and Logan have both been very supportive.

Poppy and Serena never wanted to see each other again, and would both be horrified at the relationship between Logan and Verity. But he wants to tell everyone, to let them know that he’s in love, while she is still strongly resistant. He wants to make an announcement at her father’s 50th birthday party; she is terrified that he will. 

And then he turns up, outside the party, having been mugged and clearly in a very bad state. Verity’s father is a doctor so he does some first aid, then gets him to hospital… and for the first time she admits who he is, and that she’s been seeing him for the past year.

Then the police investigations start, and Verity is a prime suspect…

The book is extremely well written, meticulously plotted so that I found it almost impossible to figure out what was going on until quite late in the book - and it’s not a short novel. My paperback edition runs to 550 pages. But there’s a lot going on - the viewpoint switches between Verity and Serena at first, then there are sections from Poppy’s point of view. I had no idea who could be trusted. There are some cleverly orchestrated sections which contrast Logan’s point of view (in the form of a diary) with Verity’s. And things start to look pretty bad for her…

‘The ice cream girls’ was open about the horrors of teenage crushes on older men who take advantage, and clear physical and emotional abuse. This one uncovers a much subtler form. Someone is evidently twisting facts, gaslighting, showing narcissistic tendencies. There’s no physical abuse or violent threats.  But there is a pattern of manipulation, leading to half-truths, and a lot of lies that aren’t exactly deliberate untruths, but a deliberate distorted viewpoint.

It was also enlightening to see examples of how ‘truth’ can be manipulated by lawyers trying to intimidate defendants, to see how they could push for an interpretation of facts that differed from how the defendant saw them. And to see how very careful people needed to be to stay on the right side of the law - that if Verity was going to court, anything negative about her lifestyle or relationships would be brought up, even if not directly relevant. 

My only gripe with the story was a couple of scenes that were too explicit for my tastes - and they didn’t seem to add anything to the story itself. I much prefer a closed bedroom door with no more than a hint before or after what is evidently taking place. And there’s more ‘strong’ language than I’m comfortable with, but on the whole it wasn’t inappropriately used. 

Other than those few pages which I skimmed, I was totally engrossed in this novel which I could barely put down by the time I was about a third of the way through. Despite it being such a long novel, I read it in less than four days. It makes an excellent sequel, and the ending ties up almost all the threads in an entirely satisfactory way.

Definitely recommended, particularly if you have read ‘The ice cream girls’. 
 

Review copyright 2026 Sue's Book Reviews