After more than a decade at the top of the sales charts thanks to the universe of Red Queen, Juan Gomez-Jurado has decided to make a calculated change in his career path. His new novel, Mentira (Ediciones B), arrives as a independent thriller which departs from the world that made it a bestseller, but keeps its hallmarks intact: a devilish pace, sharp dialogues and an almost pathological obsession with suspense.
The result is a story of professional lies, isolation, and crime in a remote Asturian village. A story told in the first person by a protagonist who warns from the first sentence that she is not to be trusted and who forces the reader to walk through the novel as if on quicksand: with the constant feeling that The truth can crumble on any page.
Goodbye (temporary) to Red Queen, hello to Eva Ramos
Gómez-Jurado has repeatedly stated in interviews that the universe of Red Queen is “on pause”After eight interconnected books, millions of copies sold in Spain alone, and a successful television adaptation With Victoria Luengo and Hovik Keuchkerian as the protagonists, the writer felt that this “narrative suit” was starting to feel too comfortable. He needed, in his words, that he “pull at the seams” again.
In that context it appears Mentira, a novel that breaks with his previous sagas and presents itself as self-contained and independentSo much so that the Spanish edition opens with an explicit note from the publisher clarifying that the story does not belong to the world of Red QueenIt's a way to clear up doubts and also to invite new readers who haven't followed his previous books to enter this plot without needing any prior knowledge.
The move is undoubtedly risky for someone with a well-oiled machine of success. However, the author himself admits that he is incapable of writing “twice the same book” and that their goal is not to replicate a formula, but to seek new formal and emotional challenges in each project, even if that means leaving the comfort zone that guaranteed them assured sales.
A professional liar trapped in an Asturian village
The protagonist of Mentira It is presented with a statement that functions almost as a literary manifesto: «My name isn't Eva Ramos, but you're going to call me that.From there, the reader understands that they are facing a professional liarSomeone who makes a living by fixing other people's problems through deception, adopting identities, and manipulating versions of reality as needed.
By a twist of fate, that woman who lives by lying ends up in a remote village in Asturias along with his brother Pablo. They arrive there to carry out a mission entrusted to them by a man they know almost nothing about, but what should be just another job becomes complicated in a matter of hours: a snowstorm cuts off all communication with the outside world and leaves the town completely isolated, with Eva and Pablo trapped among neighbors who also don't seem to be telling the whole truth.
The story becomes tense when creatures begin to appear in the snow. dead bodiesWith the surrounding area cut off, the circle of suspects narrows to that small group of residents and outsiders trapped by the storm. The classic scenario of whodunit The locked-room or isolated island mystery, à la Agatha Christie, unfolds in a rural and contemporary setting, but with one peculiarity: the person telling us what happens openly admits that He may also be lying..
The dynamic between the two brothers, their differences and loyalties, and the growing tension with the townspeople drive much of the intrigue. Every gesture, every explanation, and every silence is double-edged, because in an environment where everyone is hiding something, to discern who is lying and who is simply silent It becomes a matter of survival.
(Deliberately) breaking the unreliable narrator rule
In the mystery genre there is an unwritten rule: when there is an unreliable narrator, He must not confess itThe point is precisely that the reader discovers, in the end, that the person telling the story has been deceiving them. Gómez-Jurado decides to blow up that principle from the very first line of Mentira, openly warning that Eva is going to manipulate the story.
The author has explained in several radio and television interviews that he enjoyed seeing what would happen if That rule was turned upside downIf the reader already knows the narrator is lying, the reading experience is transformed: every sentence becomes a potential clue, every omission sounds suspicious, and seemingly minor details take on significance. The book demands an unusual level of attention, especially in an era where, as the author himself admits, the battle for attention is fierce.
The voice in first person It dominates the entire book. Eva decides what to tell, how to tell it, and when to reveal relevant information. There is a single two-letter word—mentioned by the writer himself—that, placed in the exact spot, completely reinterprets the novelThis obsession with precision and with "hidden layers" is noticeable in the way the chapters, generally brief, almost always close at a point that forces you to keep reading, with that feeling of "come on, one more and I'll stop" that so many readers already associate with the author's style.
In this playful take on the rules of the classic thriller, Gómez-Jurado acknowledges that he wanted the audience to feel as lost as the characters themselves in the midst of the blizzard. The snowstorm and the isolation function not only as a physical device, but also as a metaphor for a truth that is always visible. blurred by layers of liesincomplete memories and biased versions of events.
Lies as a plague of the 21st century
Beyond the specific mystery unfolding in the Asturian village, Mentira He uses his protagonist and the very structure of the story to raise a reflection on the role of deception in today's society. The writer has admitted in several interviews that he sees the lies like “the greatest contemporary plague”especially in the political sphere and in the digital ecosystem.
For him, we are living through a kind of “early childhood” of a networked society, still unable to defend itself effectively against fake news, hoaxes and manipulations which spread with unprecedented speed. Like in the parable of the fish swimming in water without knowing what water is, Gómez-Jurado believes that we move within an environment saturated with false information without being fully aware of the extent to which it surrounds us.
The novel is not intended as a pamphlet or an explicit settling of scores with politics, something the author has consciously chosen to avoid. But the fact that it constructs an entire story around a professional liar, surrounded by people who also lie for survival, convenience, or fear, allows that the reader draws their own parallels with the current social climate.
The presence of Artificial Intelligence The use of technology as a tool for generating fake images and texts also comes up in the conversation surrounding the book. Gómez-Jurado argues that this technology can produce convincing simulations at first glance, but it can never replace underlying human experience: an AI, he says, “has never had a baby fall out of a shopping cart in a supermarket,” and it is these kinds of experiences that end up filtering into literature and giving it emotional depth, beyond the superficial trick.
Female characters, conflict, and psychology
In recent years, Gómez-Jurado's books have featured strong and complex women, from Antonia Scott in Red Queen even Eva Ramos herself in MentiraHe himself has explained that this choice does not follow a rigid rule, but rather a narrative issue: in many cases, he finds the conflict that arises when a woman makes morally questionable or openly risky decisions more interesting.
She cites Antonia Scott as an example, a mother who is willing to endangering the life of their child by pursuing their goal, which creates a brutal tension between the personal and the professional. In MentiraThe protagonist must also face the consequences of her past and present actions, but from a different angle: that of someone who has made falsehood a way of life and who is suddenly forced to clinging to the truth to stay alive.
The book thus delves into Eva's identity. As the investigation into the crime in the village progresses, the flashbacks They revisit episodes with her mentor and key situations from her past, revealing what ideas she learned and what drove her to become who she is. The question ceases to be solely who committed the crime, and becomes also Who is Eva Ramos really? and how much distance there is between the story she tells and the facts as they actually happened.
This focus on individual psychology represents a shift from the author's other thrillers, where evil was usually depicted as an external force to face. In MentiraThe focus shifts to the narrator's inner world, to her motivations and her mechanisms for justifying or disguising her decisions to herself and to the reader.
A massive launch and an enthusiastic reception
The publication of Mentira It has been one of the biggest publishing events of the year in Spain. Ever since Ediciones B announced that it was the first independent thriller by Gómez-Jurado after the universe Red QueenThe anticipation skyrocketed. Bookstores organized presentations with packed theaters, and the first book signings in cities like Madrid, Barcelona, and Zaragoza drew hundreds of people in queues that stretched for hours.
The publisher made a strong bet on the novel with a initial print run of 150.000 copiesA figure reserved for very few authors in the Spanish market. In a matter of days, the book climbed to the top of the bestseller lists and began to go through multiple reprints, confirming that the readership built up over years continued to respond even to a change in style.
The cultural and general-interest media have also been lavish in their use of adjectives. ABC has spoken of “Gómez-Jurado’s best novel”Zenda has called it "the best thriller of the last twenty years" and a "masterpiece." Other publications have highlighted the "architecture of suspense" and the author's skill in maintaining tension for hundreds of pages without the pace slowing.
The promotional campaign has included everything from television and radio interviews to meetings with readers organized by bookstores and book clubs. There was even a unique event: a group of contest winners read the novel aloud. locked in a hotel over a weekend, receiving the chapters little by little until culminating in a meeting with the writer himself, whom they greeted with resounding applause.
From a blank page to 600-odd pages
Alongside the media frenzy, Gómez-Jurado hasn't hidden the difficulties of the creative process. He has said that Mentira This led him to write about 650-680 pages which weren't always easy to bring to fruition. Each new book, he says, confronts him with the same uncomfortable reality: “all the millions of copies sold They don't write a single line for you” when you sit down in front of the blank page.
Despite his easygoing public image and the success of his podcasts and media appearances, the author claims that does not enjoy the act of writing as much as it might seem. He loves being a writer, but not so much the process, which he describes as long, tedious, and full of technical decisions: choosing the right point of view, deciding which sentence to open a novel with, ordering the information so that each plot twist arrives at the right moment.
To minimize last-minute changes, he usually works with meticulous planning. Before he starts writing, he maps out the entire story on a huge wall, marking where he wants the reader to be surprised, where he wants them to be moved, and at what points they should feel fear or unease. Only when he has this map clearly defined does he sit down to transform the mental images into pages, with the conviction that “Everything in the book is important”from a seemingly innocuous movie quote to a casual remark.
He also explained that he relies on a small circle of trusted friends to polish his manuscripts. Friends like filmmaker Rodrigo Cortés and journalist Arturo González have read early versions of the novel and sent him extensive feedback. In the case of MentiraOne of them even arrived with over eighty pages of suggestionswhich the writer incorporated almost completely, convinced that ego is compatible with accepting help when it improves the final result.
A book full of illustrations in the age of AI
One of the peculiarities of Mentira is the presence of 25 illustrations These images are scattered throughout the book, which is unusual for a thriller aimed at adults. This decision stems from both a personal motivation and a clear stance against the onslaught of AI-generated imagery.
The illustrator responsible for these drawings is Fran Ferriz, a collaborator of the author for over a decade. According to Gómez-Jurado, Ferriz has recently had to contend with competition from AI-generated works that, in the eyes of some, are “good enough” to replace human labor. In response to this trend, the writer wanted a novel centered on lies to include a physical, manual and authentic element: images made in pencil, on paper, over the course of a year of work.
The massive inclusion of illustrations also has something of a settling of scores to it. When Red Queen When it was published in the English-speaking market, the British edition removed Ferriz's drawings, arguing that those readers weren't enthusiastic about the mix of novel and images. The author decided that in his next book he would do the opposite: instead of three illustrations, he would include twenty-five. He would tell the story the way he wanted., while also reclaiming the tradition of classics such as Sherlock Holmes o Peter Pan, which were originally published accompanied by engravings.
Far from “stealing” space from the imagination, he argues, the illustrations integrate into the tone of the work and engage with the atmosphere of classic mystery, recalling that the illustrated serialized story has been part of the genre's DNA since the late 19th century. In a world where almost everything can be faked, the presence of a tangible human touch functions as statement of intents.
An author who straddles comics, classics, and bestsellers
Gómez-Jurado's enthusiasm for fiction is not limited to his own books. In recent conversations, he has reminisced about the summer, when he was 13, that he read The Lord of the Rings, animal graveyard y The Flanders tableThat blend of epic fantasy, horror, and historical thriller made him realize that dedicating himself to literature could be, more than a dream, a concrete life choice, and it defined a good part of his training as a storyteller.
Among the works he admires most, he places the graphic novel in a very special place. Watchmenby Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, which he considers "probably the best comic ever written and drawn." He is fascinated by its way of deconstructing the superhero myth, of playing with fictional documents, newspaper articles, and fragments of memoirs to construct a complex narrative artifact and “larger than life”, an English expression –larger than life– which he likes to use for those immense stories that contain universes within them.
That mix of influences - from classics like El Quijote even contemporary popular culture helps to understand his commitment to a prose that seeks precision over simplicityAs he himself says, he prefers to make the effort to tell stories beautifully and quickly, even if it requires more preparation, rather than sacrificing nuance for absolute ease. The key, in his view, is to write for intelligent readers without underestimating their attention span.
All of this is combined with a remarkable closeness to his audience. Book signings at bookstores and book fairs, large-scale presentations, and his presence on podcasts such as Almighty have contributed to building the image of an author who enjoys that direct contact with readersto the point of describing it as his favorite part of the job. Seeing the faces of those who arrive with their copies, he says, makes up for the solitary hours in front of the keyboard.
With MentiraJuan Gómez-Jurado maintains his undiminished desire to entertain while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of the genre. He changes the setting, the universe, and the narrative voice, but retains his penchant for playing with the expectations of those who open his books. The result is a psychological thriller de High intensity which explores lies as a tool, as a refuge and as a threat, and which confirms that, at least for now, the Madrid-born writer is still willing to take risks rather than repeat himself.
