Tear Me Apart

by J. T. Ellison

Overview

The follow-up to her critically acclaimed Lie to Me, J.T. Ellison’s Tear Me Apart is the powerful story of a mother willing to do anything to protect her daughter even as their carefully constructed world unravels around them.

One moment will change their lives forever…

Competitive skier Mindy Wright is a superstar in the making until a spectacular downhill crash threatens not just her racing career but her life. During surgery, doctors discover she’s suffering from a severe form of leukemia, and a stem cell transplant is her only hope. But when her parents are tested, a frightening truth emerges. Mindy is not their daughter.

Who knows the answers?

The race to save Mindy’s life means unraveling years of lies. Was she accidentally switched at birth or is there something more sinister at play? The search for the truth will tear a family apart…and someone is going to deadly extremes to protect the family’s deepest secrets.

With vivid movement through time, Tear Me Apart examines the impact layer after layer of lies and betrayal has on two families, the secrets they guard, and the desperate fight to hide the darkness within.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778330004
Publisher:	MIRA Books
Publication date:	08/28/2018
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	66,931
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

J.T. Ellison is the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 novels, and the EMMY-award winning co-host of A WORD ON WORDS, Nashville's premier literary show. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 26 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/09/2018
At the start of this outstanding domestic thriller from bestseller Ellison (Lie to Me), 17-year-old Mindy Wright, a championship skier who’s on track to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team, breaks her leg in a downhill race in Vail, Colo. At the local hospital, the girl’s parents, Jasper and Lauren Wright, are at first hopeful that their daughter will be able to ski again. But healing from the injury becomes the least of Mindy’s worries when doctors discover that she has leukemia and is desperately in need of a stem cell transplant. The pressure grows on her seemingly perfect family as her physicians are unable to find a stem cell match. DNA tests show that Lauren, who’s hiding some big secrets, is not her biological mother. Meanwhile, Mindy’s older sister, a DNA tech with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, does some digging and comes up with a startling match with Mindy’s DNA. The intense plot, enhanced by flashbacks that gradually reveal the truth of Mindy’s birth, builds to a stunning conclusion. Ellison is at the top of her game. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Outstanding...Ellison is at the top of her game."-Publishers Weekly, Starred review, on TEAR ME APART

"A compelling story with a moving message."-Booklist on TEAR ME APART

"Well-paced and creative...An inventive thriller with a horrifying reveal and a happy ending."-Kirkus Reviews on TEAR ME APART

"Exceptional...Ellison's best work to date." –Publishers Weekly on LIE TO ME

"Comparisons to Gone Girl due to the initial story structure are expected, but Ellison has crafted a much better story that will still echo long after the final page is turned." –Associated Press on LIE TO ME

"Immensely readable...lush." -Booklist on LIE TO ME

"Fans of Paula Hawkins, A.S.A. Harrison, Mary Kubica, and Karin Slaughter will want to add this to their reading list." -Library Journal on LIE TO ME

"Wonderful... A one-more-chapter, don't-eat-dinner, stay-up-late sensation." –Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on LIE TO ME

"Fans of GONE GIRL will gobble up this thriller about a marriage from hell, which moves at a blazing-fast pace and smoothly negotiates more twists and turns than the backroads of Tennessee. J.T. Ellison will keep you guessing every step of the way to the surprise ending!"
-Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author of ONE PERFECT LIE, on LIE TO ME

"A wickedly good thriller about a picture-perfect marriage that is anything but, LIE TO ME has it all: murder, lies and betrayal. J.T. Ellison will have readers hanging onto the edge of their seats with her latest cunning tale." –Mary Kubica, New York Times Bestselling Author of THE GOOD GIRL

From the Publisher

04/15/2018
Surgery after a heinous downhill crash reveals that competitive skier Mindy Wright needs a stem cell transplant for previously undetected leukemia, but inexplicably her parents aren't a match—which must be connected to something desperate Lauren Wright did in the past. Intriguingly, events are narrated by a murder victim. From a New York Times best-selling author who also partners with Catherine Coulter; a 250,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2018-07-31

While bed-bound in the hospital, an athletic young woman discovers the gruesome truth about her mother.

This novel, a thriller set in 2018, is well-paced and creative. When Olympics-bound 17-year-old skier Mindy takes a fall on the slopes and brutally breaks her leg, it sets in motion a series of events that will forever change her family as she knows it. Running tests before conducting surgery on the broken leg, the doctors find that Mindy has cancer and will need a stem-cell transplant. When neither of her parents are a match for the procedure, not even genetically, the truth comes out—although in parts, slowly, and ever more incriminatingly. Mindy's mother, Lauren, is not who she has convinced her family she is, and even Lauren's sister, a blood-lab technician working for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, is shocked by what comes to light. When the lab finds Mindy's biological father, who has been living with the assumption that his daughter was kidnapped when his wife was brutally murdered 17 years ago, Lauren will go to great lengths to shield her secret and protect Mindy. The forward motion of the novel is intermittently interrupted by letters exchanged in the early 1990s between Vivian and Liesel, two unknown characters, which serves to heighten the thrill. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, the dialogue often trite, and the emotional exchanges simplistic, the action keeps the reader at attention. Ellison seems to want to shed light on problems of mental health and the terrible consequences that result when the emotional balance is neglected.

An inventive thriller with a horrifying reveal and a happy ending.

Kirkus Reviews

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