Last Friday night I found myself in a familiar situation. I was almost finished a book I'd been reading, and I happened to glance at the clock. It was 12:30 a.m. Well, it was the end of the week, I didn't have to wake up early the next morning, and I just had to see how it all turned out. At a certain point, I thought I must not have read the sentence correctly. So I read it again--and then the next sentence, and the next, astonished by the ending of The Liar's Diary. I can recall only one other book that so stunned me with its ending and left me so in awe of the author's skill at leading me to it--Affinity, by Sarah Waters. As I read The Liar's Diary, I marveled at Patry Francis's ability to create and to use tension--to portray the tension in relationships--between husband and wife, parent and child, between friends--and to incorporate tension into the plot. The Liar's Diary was a wonderful discovery. I'll be checking Patry Francis's web site, http://www.patryfrancis.com, to see how she's doing, of course, but also to find out what she's working on. She's a writer I want to read more of. http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Diary-Patry-Francis/dp/0525949909/sr=l-l/qid=1162927817/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-6587572-6890517?ie=UTF8&S=books