Eden Radley's mother left her with her father for another man when she was a young girl. Tara Radley became Tara Darby and had a baby boy with her new husband, Flynn. Sadly, their baby, Jeremy, was born with a rare but debilitating disease that causes death at a very young age. The Darbys moved away to a city closest to a clinic that specializes in this disease. Eden rarely spoke to her mother after that, and she never met her little half-brother.

One night Eden is in her favorite bar waiting for a date that she had set up from a dating website. While she waits, her mother texts her and asks if she can talk. Eden ignores the text and finishes her drink which turns out to be on the house because the cute bartender is flirting heavily with her. Her date never shows so she thanks the bartender who tells her his name is Vince and goes home.

At her editing job for a big publishing house, she opens her computer and sees a report of a murder/suicide. A mother has apparently killed herself as well as her young disabled son by carbon monoxide. This mother and son turns out to be Tara Darby and her son Jeremy.

Eden is in shock. She flies to the city where her mother was living and attends the funeral. She also meets Flynn Darby and is not impressed. During her stay there, she talks to the police as well as a couple of insurance agents. The police feel that it is an open and shut case while the agents have received a tip that it might have been something more of a suspicious nature.

Feeling that she owes it to her mother and little brother to make sure that what the police believe is true, she begins her own investigation into their deaths. At the same time, she is informed by her publishing company that Flynn Darby has written a book about the relationship between Tara and him, and he has requested that Eden be the editor. Working with the despicable Flynn is the last thing she wants to do. However, she decides that having to be closer to him might help her in solving what really happened to her mother and brother.

The problem is that there is someone who does not want Eden to find the answers she seeks. This puts her in more danger than she would have expected. While she may get the answers to her questions, she may not live long enough to share them.

I have been reading Patricia MacDonald's books forever and she has always been a favorite of mine. Packed with plenty of suspense, creepiness, mystery and characters who fairly leap off the pages into your living room; this is a writer who never disappoints her readers. Solid plotlines filled with very different endings form all of her books and DON'T BELIEVE A WORD is no exception. You will never believe what is really happening here until you reach the jaw dropping finale.

DON'T BELIEVE A WORD is one of those books that you just want to keep reading and hate when it ends. You are carried right along with Eden as she does everything she can to find out what really happened to her mother and little brother. The guilt she feels at the resentment she has held her entire life for her mother leaving her as well as having never even met her little brother Jeremy is shared with you in a way that you will feel just as deeply as she does.

Suffice it to say that DON'T BELIEVE A WORD delivers everything that a great mystery book should. The answers to all of the questions are there and you will learn them all by the final page.

Book Summary

A daughter sets out to discover the truth about her mother’s death in this absorbing novel of psychological suspense.

Eden Radley had a strained relationship with her mother ever since Tara deserted the family nine years before to run off with her much younger lover. But when she’s told that her mother has killed herself and her severely disabled young son, Eden’s half-brother, Eden is ridden with guilt. For her mother had tried to get in touch with her on the night she died, and Eden had ignored her text. Was Tara calling for help?

Heading to Cleveland, Ohio, for the funeral, Eden discovers there was so much she didn’t know about her mother, nor about her enigmatic, troubled stepfather Flynn Darby. And the more she learns, the more convinced she becomes that Tara’s death was no suicide. Could Flynn really be guilty of murder …?