Everyone is lying to you A novel

Review by Booklist Review

Following The Sicilian Inheritance (2024), Piazza is back with another page-turner, this one taking on the world of motherhood influencers. Lizzie is a magazine editor whose job in journalism is hanging on by a thread, with longform reporting being replaced by the sparkle of the influencer. Lizzie knows one of these magic nymphs: her long-lost college best friend, Rebecca, whose social grid displays a life of homemade bread, glowing hair and skin, barefoot children, and a spotless home. Lizzie quickly learns that the grid is far from realism when a cry for help from her former bestie launches Lizzie into curious action. Lizzie must use her razor-sharp reporting skills to parse the truth about Rebecca's husband and conservative community. Set against the backdrop of a luxe mommy-influencer conference and Rebecca's pristine desert mansion, the drama is as juicy as the setting and characters. Like Piazza's other fiction, this novel is totally engrossing from start to finish. Readers will be slow to forget Rebecca, Lizzie, and the worlds they represent.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Piazza's darkly entertaining latest (after The Sicilian Inheritance) revolves around the mysterious disappearance of a social media star. College BFFs Bex and Lizzie haven't spoken in almost 14 years. Then Lizzie, who's now a journalist, receives an Instagram DM from Bex, who has rebranded as "Rebecca" and become a successful lifestyle influencer with six kids and a wealthy husband. Rebecca invites Lizzie to join her at MomBomb, a conference for female influencers, and Lizzie accepts. After a night of drinking and catching up, Rebecca hints that she's holding onto a major secret. The next morning, Lizzie wakes up to the news that Rebecca and her children are missing, and Rebecca's husband, Grayson, has been murdered. Lizzie takes on the challenge of figuring out what happened, with hopes of both revitalizing her stagnant reporting career and finding her friend alive. Along the way, her investigation is helped and hindered by other influencers who try to exploit the tragedy for their own gain. Piazza's ideas about the hollowness of social media aren't particularly trenchant, but she wrings surprising poignancy out of Rebecca's secret plight. If the final act contains perhaps one too many twists, readers are unlikely to mind. This delivers the goods. (July)

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Review by Library Journal Review

In her follow-up to The Sicilian Inheritance, Piazza uses her knowledge of social media and influencer culture to bring readers into the mix. Bex and Lizzie were college roommates and best friends until the day Bex ghosted Lizzie. Fifteen years later, Bex (who now goes by Rebecca) has gained massive success as a trad-wife influencer. She lives on a ranch with her husband and five kids and has millions of devoted followers who watch every move and post she makes. Lizzie also has a husband and kids, but she lives in New York and has a career as a journalist that is hanging by a thread. So when Bex contacts Lizzie out of the blue and offers her the interview chance of a lifetime, Lizzie agrees to join her at the MomBomb conference. Before Lizzie can finally learn just why she was dropped all those years ago, a murder occurs, and Bex goes missing. Lizzie puts her investigatory skills to work, in trying to find Bex first and a murderer second. VERDICT Readers will be drawn into the story by what feels like a backstage peek into the world of influencers and kept there by the fast pace and twisty plot.--Jane Jorgenson

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