BLOG TOUR
GOOD GIRLS LIE
J.T. ELLISON
****
Harlequin Mira have given me access to the ARC of Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison and asked me to participate in their official BLOG TOUR! It's out on December 30th so in this sneak preview I'll start by telling you all about the book and the author and then I'll share my review:
THE BOOK
Perched atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia, The Goode School is a prestigious prep school known as a Silent Ivy. The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, it accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond. But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous. In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder. But when a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored. Rumors suggest she was struggling with a secret that drove her to suicide. But look closely…because there are truths and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened. J.T. Ellison’s pulse-pounding new novel examines the tenuous bonds of friendship, the power of lies and the desperate lengths people will go to to protect their secrets.
THE AUTHOR
J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 novels, and the EMMY-award winning co-host of A WORD ON WORDS, Nashville's premier literary show. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 26 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.
MY REVIEW
****
‘I thought lies had power until I saw what silence could do’
Ash Carr is a woman with a secret, moved to the US to escape her past in an elite all-girls boarding school. Navigating the new school is hard enough, with its hierarchies, pecking orders and secret societies but when a girl is found dead, the stakes may be higher than first anticipated…
Good Girls Lie is an interesting thriller where you are left guessing at every turn. It seems like everyone has something to hide – whether that’s the seemingly straight-laced dean, the handyman, Ash’s classmates or even Ash herself. Without giving any spoilers I thought the slight unreliable narrator aspect of the book worked nicely and the small hints given towards the end of chapters kept you on the back foot and questioning everything you had been told. I liked the setting of the school; the old-style building and the sense of tradition really help build a well-rounded and interesting backdrop to the story. It was unsurprising to see in the authors notes that it had been based from a real place as it did feel very grounded in reality.
There were however a couple of things that didn’t quite make sense but seemed to have been added for the convenience of the plot. There’s no way, for example, to record a Skype conversation without both parties being heavily informed that that is what is happening – you can’t just accidently leave a setting on and have it record everything. Some bits also felt a little unrealistic in terms of character motivations or actions which led to you needing to suspend your disbelief a bit to enjoy it. The epilogue was great but I felt the twist was a bit of a let down and way too predictable.
Overall Good Girls Lie is a twisty thriller with a great setting – it just felt a little unrealistic in places. Thank you to NetGalley & Harlequin Mira for a chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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