| Publisher | Michael Joseph |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 07 July 2022 |
| ISBN-10 | 0241529980 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0241529980 |
| Format | hardcover |
| Pages | 448 |
| Price | £ 14.99 |
More Than You'll Ever Know
by
More than 30 years after the murder of her husband, Lore Rivera agrees to talk about the killing to a journalist. Until then, she had been silent to protect both herself and her children from old, deep wounds.
Review
More Than You’ll Ever Know takes place in two timeframes, 1983 and 2017, and is written from two points of view. Lore Rivera is the woman who fell in love with two men and conducted both marriages at once – albeit in different cities.
Her first husband was convicted of the murder of her second and it seemed to be an open and shut case of a wronged man taking revenge. After decades of silence, Lore makes the decision to talk about the affair and its consequences to Cassie Bowman, a young true-crime blogger and journalist who has a commission to turn the story into a book. The fact that Lore has agreed to talk surprised Cassie, but she has no idea of Lore’s true purpose until months into their relationship.
This is a long book. The slow developing of the trust and depth of feeling between Lore and Cassie takes time to develop. Lore’s complicated love life is not something that can be intimately spoken of immediately. Is she the fabricator that Cassie is warned about or is there a deep truth in her emotional life?
Over time, Cassie comes to believe there is more to the story than simply an immoral woman taking two men for all she can. The writer becomes almost assimilated into Lore’s family, breaking down the barriers between her and her sons, seeing them and speaking to them regularly. Naturally there are suspicions and doubts about her impartiality and her ability to write a balanced account, but over months she gains their trust.
In return, Lore works her way into Cassie’s private life. Equally slowly and reluctantly, Cassie gives up her secrets and her backstory. In many ways her story is equally impassioned – and whilst by no means similar, the traumas they have suffered give the two women a bond. As time drifts past, Cassie becomes more and more sure that Lore is still hiding something, and when the truth is finally unlocked Cassie must decide what to do with the knowledge.
Reviewed 17 December 2022 by Kati Barr-Taylor
Kati Barr-Taylor lives in her ‘cosy pigsty’ in the Dordogne. She satisfies her literary cravings by translating, writing, editing and reading.
