Would I Lie to You? is Aliya Ali-Afzal's just released debut novel.
Faiza seems to have it all - she's a stay at home mom with a loving, hard working husband, three wonderful children, a beautiful home, a small, tight group of friends and a larger group of acquaintances. It's that last one that has been the hardest for her...

"At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish white mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She's learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of fashion and vacations and haircuts. You'd never guess, seeing her at the trendy kids' parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that her childhood was spent being bullied and being ashamed of her poor Pakistani immigrant parents."

And then Tom loses his job - and Faiza is in a panic. To keep up appearances, she's been borrowing from their emergency fund - and Tom doesn't know. What is she going to do? How is she going to find and replace the money?

I quite liked Faiza as a lead character. She's loving, funny, kind and caring. But, I must admit, her trying to 'keep up with the Joneses' saddened me. The lead mother of the in group made my blood boil with her thinly veiled racism. Now, that thread is part of the overall plot, but the need to replace the money is the driving device of the plot.

Faiza's efforts to save her home - and her marriage are band aids that keep falling off. Each new solution brings it's own set of problems and the deception and lies continue to grow. I did wonder about Tom's ignorance as to their money situation. But I just rolled with it.

Ali-Afzal tackles a lot of issues in Would I Lie to You?, including workplace harassment, friendship, family and (I loved this....) "how much more should she sacrifice to live someone else's idea of the dream life".

Ali-Afzal is a fresh voice on the fiction scene, successfully combining a fun tale with a number of truths. ( )

“At first, I thought it must be a mistake, that I was reading the statements incorrectly. I ran my nail across the line, following the string of numbers with my fingertip. However many times I checked it though, the figure remained the same.”

Would I Lie To You? is a sharply observed, entertaining and thoughtful novel from Aliya Ali-Afzal.

When Faiza’s husband, Tom, is unexpectedly retrenched from his high paying banking job, neither believe he will be unemployed for long. Thankfully Tom’s redundancy payment will provide them with a six week buffer and if needed, Tom suggests, they can always draw from their ’emergency’ fund. The mention of their nest egg makes Faiza uncomfortable, she’s dipped into the account a time or two over the years. Raising a family in London is expensive, and fitting in is important, especially when, as a brown skinned, Pakistani Muslim, Faiza stands out among the other mothers at the gate of her children’s private school. Faiza is aghast when she checks the bank balance and realises that there is nothing left of their savings, she can’t possibly admit to her fiscally responsible husband that she has unintentionally frittered away £75,000, and so she lies. Now Faiza has six weeks to put things right, but as her desperation grows so do the lies she has to tell, threatening to destroy everything she is trying to protect.

Some creative accounting and questionable decisions allows Faiza to juggle each immediate crisis, but repeatedly makes her overall predicament worse. It’s inevitable her lies will eventually be found out, and the anticipation of the consequences, not just for Faiza but also others, creates a genuine sense of tension in Would I Lie To You?. There are several themes and subplots that add to the drama too, including prejudice, an alleged theft, depression, an acute illness, and workplace sexual harassment. It’s a lot really, verging on too much at times, but I think readers will find elements to relate to, and there are lighter moments that provide needed warmth and humour.

Despite Faiza’s poor decision making, her desire to assure her family’s well being is always what’s most important to her and I empathised with her concerns about her husband, her children, and her ageing parents. As the story progresses Ali-Azful reveals how Faiza’s sensitivity to her lower class background and her parent’s disagreements about finances feeds into her uncomfortable relationship with status and money, while her insecurities about acceptance given her racial and cultural background, are often reinforced by micro-aggressions among her, mostly white, social group. Though I can’t directly relate to Faiza’s issues on these matters (given I’m white and broke, with no status to speak of), I could understand how they influenced her decisions, which made Faiza a more sympathetic character who I really grew to like. ( )

Oh Faiza! What a tangled web you got yourself stuck in. She seems like a typical yummy mummy but it's been a struggle for her to fit in with her friends (well, if you can call most of them that). She's just about cracked it but then her husband, Tom, loses his job in the city and all of a sudden they're reliant on the emergency fund, the one that Faiza has been dipping into for years. The account is empty! It was a hand over the mouth moment for me when I read how she had frittered away £75,000.

Rather than confess all, Faiza tries her damnedest to replace the money but at every turn she seems to face setback after setback. It's a pretty horrendous situation and I kept wondering what I would have said and done if I was her. I have no idea, by the way!

I thought this was a brilliantly addictive read. There were so many of those shocking moments when I felt like shouting out "no Faiza, don't do it". I loved all the scenarios the author created for her and whilst this is a relatively light book in many ways, there are also some serious issues of race, judgement, background and culture differences, prejudice, money worries and harassment at play.

I was punching the air every time I thought Faiza was going to get back on her feet and disappointed for her when things went wrong. For a debut novel this is one accomplished piece of writing. I really cared about Faiza and her family and wanted everything to work out for them. There are so many twists and turns in the story, so many ups and downs, and I just loved reading them. I thought the author plotted it all brilliantly, keeping the momentum going constantly and keeping me completely hooked. It's a fantastic novel and I'm really excited to see what Aliya Ali-Afzal does next. ( )