Friends & Other Liars is Kaela Coble’s debut novel, and it’s an ambitious one, told in multiple points of view and past/present timelines. In it, five friends (Ruby, Ally, Danny, Murphy and Emmett) have known each other since grade school in Chatwick, a small Vermont town. They form the main cast of characters which ebbs and flows over time as various girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, and husbands are added. The group swear to always be honest with each other, yet end up keeping secrets that threaten their friendships and their lives. The first few pages I found the characters so unlikeable I nearly put the book down. I ended up being glad I persisted. I discovered a universal angst in the lives of these characters. I could identify with Ruby who wanted to leave town at all costs yet felt ties to her childhood home that follow her travels around the world. In the “present” of the novel, Ruby gets a phone call that Danny has died of a heroin overdose and she returns to Chatwick for the funeral for the first time in ten years. Danny has left each person a letter containing the worst secret he knows about him or her along with a veiled threat that their secrets will come out—one way or another—unless they share their secrets with each other. Friends & Other Liars is loaded with dysfunctional families, dysfunctional personalities, psychodrama, death, and of course, the secrets mentioned above. The cast covers a wide spectrum of personalities and are well executed.
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