Review: The Butcher and the Liar - SL Woeppel

Review: The Butcher and Liar - SL Woeppel - September 2025

Playing catch-up with my reviews as usual! This was my final read for October, which turned out to be a surprisingly quiet month with only 14 books crossing my path. But what a book to end on.

The Butcher and the Liar grabbed me from the first page because I'm absolutely fascinated by stories exploring how families cope when they discover a parent or loved one is a killer. That moment when everything you thought you knew shatters. Then fast-forward to the present day, where those children are grown and desperately trying to build new lives, only to have their carefully constructed identities exposed to the world. It's the kind of premise that keeps me turning pages late into the night.

When Daisy was just a young girl, her father a butcher by trade graduated from slaughtering animals to murdering women. He struck me as a bit of a Dexter-type killer, methodical and clean in his horrifying work. Now, decades later at thirty-five, Daisy has carved out her own success running a butchery shop. She's good at what she does, brilliant even. She's hidden behind her mother's maiden name, creating distance from her father's legacy and the nightmare of her childhood.

But the past never stays buried, does it? When a magazine spotlight features her shop, they've uncovered the dark truth about how Daisy learned her craft. Her carefully built life is about to come crashing down around her.

What I loved most about The Butcher and the Liar  is that while it delivers all the thriller elements you'd expect, it's fundamentally a story about overcoming your past. It's about proving to ourselves and everyone watching that we don't have to become our parents. We're capable of forging our own pathways, making our own choices, and defining ourselves on our own terms.

SL Woeppel handles this delicate balance beautifully, never losing sight of the human story at the thriller's heart. 

This is a book about identity, redemption, and the weight of inherited shame. It asks uncomfortable questions about culpability and forgiveness. Can we ever truly escape where we come from? Should we have to?

A compelling, thought-provoking read that stayed with me long after I turned the final page.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WLpxA0