The Five Year Lie

In the psychological thriller/romance The Five Year Lie by novelist Sarina Bowen, single mother and heir to a tech fortune Ariel Cafferty receives a text message from her deceased boyfriend, Drew, asking her to meet. The novel sends Ariel searching through layers of family lies that ultimately threaten her life as well as that of their toddler son.

Bowen is primarily known as a romance novelist; she won the RITA Award for Best Contemporary Romance in 2016 for her novel Him.

This guide refers to the HarperCollins 2024 e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, graphic violence, child sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, death by suicide, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Ariel Cafferty, the single mother of toddler Buzz, works as an office assistant at Chime Co., a security camera company started by her uncle Ray Cafferty and her now-deceased father, Edward. One day, during a meeting, she receives a text from Drew Miller, Buzz’s father and the only man she’s ever loved. Ariel is shocked by the message since Drew has been dead for years.

Ariel searches for Drew in the company database in vain. Another programmer, Zain, offers to help. Uncle Ray, meanwhile, tells Ariel that a cell tower suddenly sent hundreds of old text messages to people all around Maine. Ariel decides that Drew’s text must have been one of them. However, the next day, Zain realizes that Drew’s Social Security number belongs to a 70-year-old man.

In a flashback to five years ago, Drew watches Ariel get unfairly berated by her father at Chime Co. Drew can’t help asking her to dinner. A programmer with the username “Brainz” notices Drew snooping in company files; Brainz resolves to keep an eye on Drew.

In the present, Zain discovers that Drew logged on to the network as many different people, looking at police cameras and private citizens’ footage.

In the past, Drew researches how the police and judges get permission to access civilian footage provided to them by Chime Co. He and Ariel have a romantic evening at her glass-blowing studio. She accepts his missing leg and prosthesis without issue, and they have sex.

In the present, Zain figures out that Drew was looking at a program called LiveMatch, an artificial intelligence (AI) face-recognition program, for video footage that vanished around the time Edward died. Ariel’s mother, who is about to marry Ray, takes her to brunch at a potential wedding venue. She does not fully accept death by suicide as Edward’s cause of death.

Zain and Ariel learn that the man she knew as Drew was not the real Drew Miller; the real Drew, whose full name was Andrew “Ernie” Miller, died in 2016 from a heart attack while trying to tell a reporter about police harassment. Jay Marker, who was Ernie’s foster child and is a former soldier, tried to use security camera footage to prove the police harassment of his foster sister, Amina. He took on the name “Drew” to continue the investigation. Ariel is conflicted about finding this out, but Zain is happy that Jay had a noble reason for spying at Chime Co. Zain takes Ariel and Buzz to a Renaissance fair, where Zain talks to former Chime Co. employee Bryan Zarkey, who claims to not know anything about LiveMatch.

In the past, Jay feels guilty about deceiving Ariel. He is in love with her, but she knows him as Drew. At a company picnic, Jay sees Ray and Ariel’s mother kissing. On Edward’s personal computer, Jay finds the warrants he is looking for.

In the present, Zain claims to be helping Ariel because he had a crush on Jay/Drew. Ariel’s mother reveals that she received one of the old texts, this one showing security footage of the day her husband died. Ariel recognizes Jay in the photo. Zain thinks that he confronted Edward, who died by suicide as a result. Ariel and Zain speculate that Jay is still alive.

In the past, Brainz meets a police officer named Ward. Ward uses Chime Co. footage to blackmail teenagers and provides drugs for Brainz to deal. Jay finds the footage that Chime Co. sent to Ward, which shows Amina having sex with a boy; he is furious that his family’s safety cameras were used against them.

In the present, Zain finds the warrant and video footage that Jay was after. Ariel tries to find the judge who issued the warrant granting access to this footage, but he isn’t real. She and Zain try to find footage of who put the judge’s information in the system.

In the past, Jay finds the person who faked the judge—it’s not Edward. Human Resources (HR) is questioning his Social Security number, so Jay knows that his time at the company is almost over, but he resolves to come back for Ariel. At HR, Ray threatens Jay, who escapes and sets up a meeting with Edward to tell him what is going on. However, when he gets to the Cafferty estate, he finds Edward dead.

In the present, Ariel’s home is brutally trashed. She goes to stay with her friends Larri and Tara. She recognizes Bryan’s sister as Tara’s former drug dealer and realizes that the Zarkey siblings are dealing drugs. At the office, she sees that Bryan sent Ray a message about completing a dirty job. Zain texts her to take Buzz and run. Ariel buys bus tickets to a small town in Michigan that she’d heard Drew mention. When they get there, no one knows Drew or Jay, but she overhears a delivery going to someone named Buzz and follows. At the house, she finds Drew/Jay alive, and he is overwhelmed to see Ariel and meet Buzz. His military friend, Woody, has set up a defensive perimeter around the house. The Zarkey siblings attack, badly hurting Jay, but Ariel saves him by distracting Bryan and stabbing him. They learn that Zain is dead and that Ray is in custody.

Months pass. Jay is recovering and helping renovate a house that he and Ariel have bought near her mother. Bryan and Ray are on trial. Ariel was the one who unknowingly inputted the false judge for the warrants—information that Zain and Jay didn’t disclose to protect her. She feels sick, revealing that she is pregnant with her and Jay’s second child.