The Lies That Bind by Emily Giffin

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date:  June 2nd 2020
Pages: 352

2001; Cecily Gardner has just broke up with her longtime boyfriend Matthew. Feeling totally down and out, she heads to a bar in the city where she lives, New York. She questions everything, if she should move back to the midwest and if breaking up with Matthew was the right thing to do. Just when she is about to call him on her cellphone a guy standing outside of the bar says to her; "Don't call him, you will regret it''. Just before she knows it she is having a very nice time with this guy that is named Grant that evening with him at the bar having drinks and talking about everything. He goes to home with her and the next morning she decides that that just should be it, but apparently it's not. They have a great connection and keep seeing each other and keep phone contact daily, she even goes with him to his mountain cottage in the Adirondacks and makes visits with him to his ill brother in the hospital. And that leads to a travel together to London for medical treatment for his brother. It seems they start to have a real relationship.

But then on september 11 2001, two planes fly into the world trade center where  Grant works as a stock broker. She can't get in touch or find him anymore, and apparently he has died during the attacks and the collapse of the twin towers. Cecily spots his face on a missing-person poster, and realizes she is not the only one searching for him. Her investigative reporting instincts kick into action as she vows to discover the truth. But the questions pile up fast: How well did she really know Grant? Did he ever really love her? And is it possible to love a man who wasn't who he seemed to be?

I totally didn't know what to expect when I started reading this book. But oh, it was just such a nice surprising read! When Cecily starts talking back to Grant for the first time, she just doesn't have clue where she is gotten herself into in a few months. Let alone that she will lose him and gets in touch with his wife, and becomes friends with her. His wife doesn't know though that she and Grant had something going on. Cecily starts to meet Matthew again, and their relationship that was broken recently gets a new start that results in a wedding proposal and planning. But then at one moment she finds out a secret that turns everything upside down.. Without revealing any spoilers, that was the great plot twist of the book that you can't see coming as a reader.  The story is full of other amazing twists and turns as well, and beside the amazing main and side characters that is whay I loved the most about this fantastic new book by Emily Giffin!!