When I started writing Every Lie I Told, I knew one thing for sure: the narrator, Jackie Swift, had to be a world‑class manipulator. She’s a publicist who has lied for shady clients, and as the book unfolds, Jackie will do anything to keep her sister out of prison. That includes lying to the police, charming reporters into telling the stories she wants in print, and stealthily revising the narrative of a man’s life and death.
To create Jackie, I fell down a research rabbit hole about the history of public relations, especially the work of Edward L. Bernays, who helped transform wartime propaganda into a peacetime industry. He was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and understood that people don’t like to feel they’re being sold to; they want to believe they’ve arrived at an opinion on their own.
Those ideas are woven all through Every Lie I Told. Jackie rarely lies outright when she can get someone else to repeat her version of the truth for her. She weaponizes fear, outrage, and even sympathy, understanding that emotions move people faster than facts ever will.
This book is, in many ways, about how easily any of us can be steered—by a clever press release, a viral stunt, or a carefully framed “leak.” Writing it made me a more suspicious consumer of news and social media, and I hope it does the same for you. As you follow Jackie through her bad decisions and brilliant schemes, I invite you to ask yourself: If you met her in the wild, would you recognize that you were being manipulated, or would you walk away believing every lie she told?
Thanks for reading,
Hilary Davidson
Hilary Davidson is the bestselling author of eight novels, including The Damage Done and Her Last Breath. Her fiction has won two Anthony Awards, a Derringer Award, and a host of other accolades. She is also the author of more than fifty short stories, two crime-fiction collections, and a novella. In her prior life as a travel journalist, Hilary authored eighteen nonfiction books. Originally from Toronto, she has called New York City home since 2001. Visit her online at www.HilaryDavidson.com.
