Review of Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

I received a copy of this title via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher's life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold—until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.

North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.

What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?

My Review:
5 Stars

I greatly enjoyed reading this story. You are bouncing back between two different time frames, but its done in a way that easy to follow and understand.

Morgan was forced to do the right thing. Forced to do something that would ruin her future in order for another's to be saved. There is suddenly a light at the end of the tunnel when she is approached with an offer. An offer that would include her freedom, but at a cost she isn't sure she can come up with.

While Morgan attempts the job that secures her freedom she is thrust into a past that she doesn't understand and that at times can be frightening. Who was Anna Dale and what frame of mind was she in to have produced something so visually alarming and mind boggling.

A great story that involves equal levels of mystery and self discovery.