Three generations bound by secrets. Two mysteries uncovered by DNA. One past that won’t stay hidden.

Adam and Heather weren't related—or so they were told—but they didn't believe what their adoptive parents said. Growing up in a small town, they knew instinctively they were brother and sister. Thirty years later, a DNA test confirmed they were right.

With time on their hands in 2020, the siblings hire genealogist Karen Copperfield to unravel the mystery that has shaped their lives: the identity of their birth parents. Nothing they have found out themselves adds up.

Because so much they'd been told about the past was a lie. A lie that began in 1970, with a pregnant teenager whose parents wouldn't let her keep the baby. Or maybe earlier, when a respected and respectable teacher survived the worst floods to hit Britain in the twentieth century, only to make the first of many bad decisions.

When the truth starts to emerge, so do the reasons it was hidden. And one of those reasons could hurt them. Badly.

Lie by Lie is the second in a series of novels featuring Karen Copperfield, investigative genealogist, as she helps families come to terms with the sometimes dark truths revealed by DNA tests.

Spanning 70 years and three generations, this is a gripping, emotionally charged mystery about love and identity, shame and greed. The secrets they didn’t know they kept, and the crimes other people committed.