Review by New York Times Review
A single cryptic text, "I need you," reunites four friends in the stippled light of an English seaside village just as surely as it signals readers that they're in the hands of a pro. Ware sets her psychological puzzle in a crumbling old mill on the Reach, where a marshy river meets the glimmering sea. It's the home of Kate, who summons her old friends Isa, Thea and Fatima when the discovery of a human bone in the shifting sand threatens to reveal misdeeds from their boarding-school days 17 years earlier. Ware further complicates the guessing game with the disclosure that the teenagers once played a game of their own invention, awarding points for telling convincing lies to taunt their classmates. Now the former clique must separate truth from deception as the stakes ratchet higher amid the growing possibility that someone close to them has committed murder. "A lie," says the narrator, Isa, no slouch at the game. "I'd almost forgotten how they feel on my tongue, slick and sickening." Capable as she is, Ware hasn't worked out all the kinks of believability. Would Isa, a hyperprotective new mother, keep returning to the creepy mill with her baby as threats mount, the electricity fails and the sea threatens to swallow any route of escape? But for the most part, "The Lying Game" makes good on its premise that tall tales have consequences, especially when they're exposed to the glare of truth.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 10, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The text I need you demolishes the careful distance Isa Wilde has placed between her life as a happily married new mother and the painful, life-changing term she spent at Salten House boarding school. Long-estranged friends Isa, Thea, and Fatima answer Kate Atagon's text by returning to Salten, where Kate still lives in her father's decomposing millhouse. Ambrose Atagon, a well-known artist, was Salten's art teacher and frequent host of the girls' away weekends. He disappeared that final year amid rumors of inappropriate relationships with the girls, leaving the four friends with a disastrous secret. Now a body has been found in the marsh surrounding the house, and the women need to get their stories straight before the inevitable knock at the door. Once they are together, though, the years of distance and memories of their deceptive pastime, the Lying Game, breed suspicion. Ware masterfully harnesses the millhouse's decrepit menace to create a slow-rising sense of foreboding, darkening Isa's recollections of the weeks leading to Ambrose's disappearance. Previous blockbusters (including The Woman in Cabin 10, 2016) guarantee popularity for Ware's latest thriller, and, with arguably her most complex, fully realized characters yet, this one may become her biggest hit yet.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When Isa Wilde, the narrator of this engrossing psychological thriller from bestseller Ware (The Woman in Cabin 10), gets a text-"I need you"-from old friend Kate Atagon, she knows she must drop everything in London and go to Salten, a town on England's south coast, where the two attended Salten House, a cut-rate boarding school. Doctor Fatima Qureshy and casino dealer Thea West, who also attended Salten House, receive the same message. At school, the four girls perfected what they called the Lying Game, with myriad rules and intricate scoring. An incident that caused the girls to leave before their senior year looms large as Isa, Fatima, and Thea gather at the house where Kate has always lived with her father, Salten's art master. Kate informs the group about a riverbank discovery-a human bone-that could unravel the foursome's 17-year pact of silence. Alternating between the past and present, Ware builds up a rock-solid cast of intriguing characters and spins a mystery that will keep readers turning pages to the end. Agent: Eve White, Eve White Literary Agency (U.K.). (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Four women, friends since their teen years spent at a boarding school on the English Channel, are thrown together again after nearly 20 years when a body surfaces in the marsh, threatening to destroy all of their carefully constructed lives-and lies. Narrator Isa, a new mom on maternity leave, joins Fatima, a no-nonsense physician who recently reconnected with her Muslim faith; Thea, a beauty who struggles with addiction; and Kate, a troubled artist who never left the small coastal town and lives in a rickety old mill house that's slowly sinking into the surrounding lands. As adolescents, the girls spent many long weekends at the mill house with Ambrose, Kate's artist father, and Luc, her stepbrother. At school, they smoked, drank, snuck out of the dorms at night, and played "the lying game," an ongoing competition to see who could convince their peers and teachers to believe the most outlandish tales. Unlike In a Dark, Dark Wood or The Woman in Cabin 10, Ware's third novel has a more leisurely pacing and values character development over nail-biting suspense. The mystery unfolds slowly and the "big reveal" is likely to be guessed at by observant readers. VERDICT Though not as chill-inducing as her previous titles, Ware's latest offers nuanced characters, an atmospheric small-town British setting, and a satisfying mystery. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]-Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Suspense queen Ware's (The Woman in Cabin 10, 2016, etc.) third novel in three years introduces four women who have been carrying a terrible secret since their boarding school days, a secret that is about to be literally unearthed.Isa Wilde, happy in her life as a new mother, receives a text one morning that simply reads, I need you, and hours later, she boards a train bound for the coastal village of Salten with her infant daughter in tow. She has come at her friend Kate's summons, and soon they are joined by two other women who received the same text, Thea and Fatima. Fifteen years earlier, all four were best friends at Salten House, sneaking off campus on the weekends to spend time with Kate's father, an art teacher, and her handsome, mysterious brother, Luc. Their school days ended in tragedy and scandal, however, and the four haven't been back to Salten since they were expelled. Now, a bone has been found in the marshes, and Kate has called the others back in a panic. They know more about the body than they should, but even they don't know the truth. Ware's third outing is just as full of psychological suspense as her earlier books, but there is a quietness about this one, a slower unraveling of tension and fear, that elevates it above her others. Though there's still a fair dash of drama, it doesn't veer into the realm of melodrama, developing consistently with the characters and with their personalities and pasts. Isa is a sympathetic narrative voice though her obsession with the concerns of new parenthood may put some readers off. Cancel your plans for the weekend when you sit down with this book, because you won't want to move until it's over. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
