What I Saw and How I Lied takes place just after World War II. Evie's step-father has returned from the war and started his own applicance business. When he begins receiving strange phone calls, the family leaves for a vacation in Florida. There Evie meets Peter, an older man who knew Joe in the war. He interests Evie because he is handsome, mysterious, and a bit dangerous for a 15 year old. Blundell has done a wonderful job of integrating the historical aspects of the story with Evie's desires to grow up. Most of the minor characters in the story are adults who are doing their best to forget the war ever happened. As the narrator, Evie remembers some of the hardships when she compares her present life in sunny Florida to the long years of the war when she and her mother lived with Joe's mother, waiting for him to return unharmed. While he is unharmed physically, the book touches on the harms that war does to men mentally and emotionally. While this is not a focus of the book, it is an important undercurrent in their lives. Because Joe's conduct in the war has not been entirely honorable, and Peter knows it, there comes a time in the story when Evie much choose between Peter, the man she believes she loves, and her family. Even an astute reader will wonder what she will do. Because the story is told from Evie's point of view, it would be more appealing to teen girls, but the mystery aspects of the story may interest boys.
