The Good Lie

The Good Lie Novel Synopsis
As Paul Wakefield paddles his kayak across Mouat Channel toward the Marina Harbour on Vancouver Island, he hears the engine of a yacht as it cuts through the fog toward him. In an instant, the cruiser swamps Paul and the young girl paddling beside him, then disappears into the fog, never to be seen again. Dumped into the winter ocean, the girl panics and submerges Paul in her frenzy to survive. To save them both, Paul smacks her with his paddle a blow that sends her into a coma and unleashes an unpredictable series of events. The story moves from the ocean surrounding Victoria, Canada, into the hearts and souls of the characters who struggle to adapt to this utterly senseless accident. Paul Wakefield is in his late 30s, happily married to Valerie Burbank and father to their son, Eliot. Reg and Fran Jensen are the distraught parents of Jenny, the young girl who now lies comatose in a local hospital. Their pleas to Paul for sympathy soon turn into rants and confrontations. Within a few weeks Reg Jensen loses his composure and begins to stalk young Eliot. When Paul learns that Reg is an ex-con with a record of violence, Reg challenges Paul and Valerie with a series of escalating threats and irrational behaviours. As he cranks up the tension, Paul must rise to the occasion, or collapse under the strain. Barely able to manage himself and protect his family, Paul is dragged toward the harrowing finale by Regs overt madness an act that culminates in a vicious double murder. More than most psychological thrillers, The Good Lie has a strong literary flavour and a number of well-drawn minor characters who serve as Pauls allies. The most notable of these is the real-life Canadian painter, Jack Wise, who provides the spiritual guidance Paul requires. Paul also gathers support from his father-in-law, his aging next-door neighbours and their dog who becomes the first victim of Reg Jensens brutality. Beneath these currents runs a love story defined by Paul and Valeries enduring romance, a bond tested by the events that gradually consume them. Their narrative slips backward in time to explore their relationship through its shifts and turns until we reach the novels last paragraphs and the beginning of their affair. The Good Lie also explores the fluidity of time and one individuals struggle to contact the essence of universal intelligence in order to find purpose in a world seemingly governed by chaos and destruction. Prayer, meditation and blind belief all are pressed to deliver some
form of redemption. The reader is left to ponder the possibilities that Paul discovers through the course of the novel.
THE SECRET GARDEN

Mary Lennox, a ten-year-old girl, is born in India to rich British parents. She is unwanted by her mother and taken care of primarily by servants, who pacify her as much as possible to keep her out of the way. Spoiled with a temper, she is unaffectionate, angry, rude and obstinate. A cholera breakout in the manor kills her parents and many servants. She is discovered alone but alive after the house is abandoned. She is sent to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven. At first, Mary is her usual self, sour, disliking the large house, the people within it, and most of all the vast stretch of moor, which seems scrubby and gray after the winter. She is told that she must stay to her two rooms and that nobody will bother much with her and she must amuse herself. Martha Sowerby, her good-natured maidservant, tells Mary a story of the late Mrs. Craven, and how she would spend hours in a private garden growing roses; an untimely accident kills her, and Mr. Craven has the garden locked and the key buried. Mary is roused by this story and starts to soften her ill manner despite herself. Soon she begins to lose her disposition and gradually comes to enjoy the company of Martha, Ben Weatherstaff the gardener, and also that of a friendly robin redbreast to whom she attaches human qualities. Her appetite increases and she finds herself getting stronger as she plays by herself on the moor. Martha's mother buys Mary a skipping rope in order to expedite this, and she takes to it immediately. Mary's time is occupied by wondering about the secret garden and a strange crying that can sometimes be heard around the house which the servants ignore or deny. While exploring the gardens, Mary comes across a badger hole and finds a key belonging to a garden nobody has tended to for over ten years. She chances to ask the housekeeper (Martha) for garden tools, which Martha has delivered by Dickon, her twelve-year-old brother. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a soft way with animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, she reluctantly lets him into the secret of the garden, which he agrees to keep. That night, Mary hears the crying again. She follows the noise and to her surprise finds a small boy her age, living in a hidden bedroom. They discover they are cousins: he is the son of her uncle; his mother died in childbirth, and he suffers from an unspecified problem with his spine. Mary visits every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with stories of the moor, of Dickon and his animals and of the garden. It is decided he needs fresh air and the secret garden, which Mary finally admits she has access to. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the garden, the first time he's been outdoors in years. While in the garden, the children are surprised to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children there in his late mistress' (Colin's mother's) garden he admits he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands out of his chair to prove him wrong and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from disuse.
Colin spends every day in the garden, becoming stronger. The children conspire to keep Colin's health a secret so he can surprise his father, who traveling and mourning over his late wife. As Colin's health improves, his father's mood does as well, and he has a dream of his wife calling him into the garden that makes him immediately pack his bags and head home. He walks the outer wall in memory but hears voices inside, finds the door unlocked and is shocked to not only see the garden in full bloom with children in it, but his son running. The servants watch as Mr. Craven walks back to the manor, and all are stunned that Colin runs beside him.

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The Good Lie Novel Synopsis

THE SECRET GARDEN

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