My first Ruth Ware novel. The Lying Game is a slow burn mystery yet very engaging. It took a really long time to pick but it kept me absorbed. The premise is great and there's a dark mood to it, even with the atmospheric setting. The characters are interesting and well fleshed out. The mystery wasn't that exciting than I expected. It is very well-written, though. I will sure to read more from the author.

"I need you..." The text comes in the middle of the night and opens up a door to a past they've tried to forget.

Thrown together as 15-year olds at an all girls boarding school, Isa, Thea, Fatima and Kate were closer than close. Cliquey and confident, the girls invented The Lying Game to keep themselves amused. Designed purely to dupe other students and teachers at school, the girls awarded themselves points for each lie and quickly earnt themselves a reputation.

For a full school year, the girls spent every single day together, the tightest of groups and the very best of friends. Until they weren't. Cast out of the school and sent back to their own homes, the girls took away painful memories of the end of their time together and have long since maintained a lie of just what happened to them and why.

When Kate's text reunites the gang, the girls must face the truth of their past and the implications of what they did.

The Lying Game itself doesn't really bring much to the story apart from its ability to segregate the girls from the other girls at the school. Their resulting reputation gives the grown women a paranoia about being called liars... Are they called liars because of the game... or do people know something more about the genuine lies they told?

The story tells both perspectives of the women now, meeting up and waiting to find out what initiated the text they all received, and the girls as teenagers at the school and the events of the school year that made them liars. The story twists and turns as rumours and lies from the past haunt the girls and they are forced to face the truth of what happened to them.

Throw in a mystery stranger who leaves cryptic accusatory messages, a bitter and resentful stepbrother, a town gossip and a village full of people who know everyone else's business, the Lying Game keeps you guessing for the truth until the end and sees the women learn that they aren't the only ones who are living a lie.

A twisting, turning, exciting thriller from Ruth Ware. Thank you to NetGalley, Ruth Ware and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

One for the beach/pool to keep you entertained as you relax in the sunshine. Just don't get sunburnt if you can't put it down!

Decent read but didn't love this book.

The story starts of very slow but you have to stick with it.
The ending was very unpredictable.
Creating a game called, "The Lying Game" definitely wasn't the smartest move in the lives of these four girls.

Thank you Netgalley and to the Author

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Four friends meet up under the shroud of secrecy to face up to events from their past. I really wanted to like this book ad I had read great reviews on the author's previous books which are sitting in my tbr pile but this felt something was lacking for me.

Another engrossing read from Ruth Ware, who never seems to disappoint, This is probably my favourite book of hers to date in fact.

This story involves four teenager girls who went to the same boarding school together, from which they were all expelled following a scandal in their final year. A fantastic mystery with a great ending and altogether a compelling, eerie read.

This book has sat on my Kindle for over 6 months and I am yet to read it. Whilst I was originally really engaged by the blurb, it's yet to make it to the top of my TBR pile and it no longer really appeals to me. I'm really sorry and incredibly grateful for the opportunity to read and review this book though.

Loved this book. The characters were all interesting, and although you felt that some of the motivations were a bit thin you could see why they acted in the way they did living in a remote village. I always enjoy Ruth Ware's books and this was no exception.

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware, £7.99,  Amazon

The Lying Game begins with a text message, I need you. From this moment onwards the reader is propelled into Isa's life and lies that entwine within. As the lies in The Lying Game  unfold, the truth about Isa's friendships and relationships surface. With everyone playing the lying game, who should she trust?

Best selling author Ruth Ware, also known for her novels In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10, has yet again met the high expectations of her readers. Although I prefer In a Dark. Dark Wood (and that's not just because I'm a northerner), The Lying Game demonstrates an element of childlike games that we can all relate to, to some extent. It is when Ruth Ware stretches and twists these concepts, that makes her novels so appealing to the 20s + market.

If you have read any of Ruth Ware's other novels then you will enjoy The Lying Game as her style is clearly cemented in every page. If you enjoy novels such as Gone Girl, then this could be the book for you. The Lying Game is not as intense but that shouldn't be seen as a negative. 

I would suggest this novel to anyone who wants to read a thriller with elements of light heartedness. Not every thriller needs to be intense on every page and it's for this reason that I would recommend The Lying Game as a good holiday read.

This was an absorbing mystery affecting 15 years of the lives of 4 teenagers. The story continually keeps you guessing and the characters are well described and believable. The truth of the story is hidden right to the end which makes for a very good conclusion.

I really enjoyed this book, it was well paced and extremely atmospheric. All of the characters are well developed and believable. A good plot. Would be great as a BBC Sunday night drama!

Great thriller. Easy to read with a twist in the story which made for a good read.

I would of normally waited for this book to come out on paperback, but when Netgalley provided me with an opportunity to read it earlier, I couldn't wait so I decided to read it now. Thank you Netgalley for a chance to read this in exchange for an early review......... In my opinion not as good as the author's other books but definitely an enjoyable read. This one was a bit long-winded in the beginning but once it got into the thickness of the storyline - it held my interest a lot more. I do feel the story would of been better if it was written from all the girls point of views rather then just Isa's as I found her point of view rather repetitive. And she didn't seem to make the best decisions when it came to her baby daughter.
A book that is definitely worth a read but doesn't compare to her last books.

I love a psychological thriller that is based on female friendship because on the whole this is one of the most underused relationships within this type of fiction. In The Lying Game we meet four women who built their friendship at boarding school – yes, I also can’t resist boarding school fiction either probably a hangover of my love of Mallory Towers as a child. The four girls were well passed the midnight feast escapades by the time they met, well into their teens and their illicit acts had more to do with alcohol, cigarettes and escaping across the marshes to one of the number’s nearby cottage.
Now an adult, Isa has a young baby and in the early hours she receives the text she hoped she never would, just three stark words that chill her ‘I need you.’ The text comes from Kate, her friend in Saltern, the one who never left the area where the four friends boarded. As Isa makes her excuses and takes the train to Saltern, she’s wondering whether Fatima and Thea are also making their way to the cottage. Needless to say they also received the text. And the reader, having read the opening chapter knows why – a dog has made an unwelcome discovery on the marshes.
The four girls, now women, were quite different and rarely the gentle exploration of religious beliefs was welcomed by this reader as we see how Fatima’s relaxed approach as a teenager has altered as she has grown, married and had a family. Now a doctor she wears her headscarf and follows the teachings as a Muslim. Thea is not so secure in life, struggling to find her calling she marshals her life with too much booze and too little food. And Isa, with her position in the legal profession on hold while she’s on maternity leave, appears to have put the past behind her. As for Kate, she has clung on, living in her artistic father’s house in Saltern, the scene of their childhood escape route, and ignoring the rumours that still swirl around the village as she clings to the past.
This is the sort of novel you can race through with ease and although it starts slowly, I was invested from the first page wondering what secrets the four were hiding. The title comes from the time the four became friends, excluding the other boarders in the type of friendship that is peculiar to some teenage girls. There was no room for anyone, or anything else in their lives and any potential hangers-on were kept at bay by the game devised by Thea – ‘The Lying Game’ invented to play pranks, not on any new girls, but those popular girls, and teachers, the ones who made sure their superiority was not in doubt.
Although the book didn’t have the huge twist that readers have come to expect from the genre, the exploration of friendship, both as teenagers, and adults was perfectly executed and the setting was brilliant. I felt I was there with the women, looking out over the landscape, in the unique cottage or even in the somewhat shabby boarding school with its endless staircases.
The Lying Game would make the perfect holiday read, escapism bound up with truths that many readers will identify with.
I am very grateful to the publishers Random House UK who provided me with a copy of The Lying Game which was a thoroughly engaging read; this unbiased review is my thanks to them. For those of you who prefer to read paperbacks, this one will be published in that form in March 2018.

Apologies to the author but I could not finish this book. I really like the woman in cabin 10 and I was hoping to like this one too.

So close to 5 stars, but I guess that I did 'like it' not 'love it'. Probably because I had previously read the book 'The woman in cabin 10' by the same author, which I thought was fantastic, so I asked for a review copy from netgalley expecting the same. This book was still very good, just not so fantastic - I am not so keen on boarding school, having experienced it, so this may have coloured my experience. Still, it was very well written, very interesting, and the end had a nice twist.

Without any high expectations, I loved loved loved this book! I was really surprised with a low rating this title has. I enjoyed it a lot, but whenever I see less than 3.5 stars, I start questioning myself and wondering, did I miss something, is this truly a terrible book? It is not, I definitely enjoyed it more than Ruth's previous book, Woman in cabin 10. It had a good plot, execution, interesting characters and believable twist. Something that is usually missing from mysteries and thrillers is character development and realistic dialogue. I think that here, that is the strongest point.

Our protagonist, Isa, mother of a newborn baby is enjoying married life and baby bliss. After almost 17 years, she gets a message from a high-school friend, saying "I need you" and she immediately leaves her home, her husband and takes her baby to visit Kate because there is only one problem on her mind when it comes to history with Kate and two other girlfriends, Fatima and Thea. On top of that mystery that leaves us hanging for about one third of the book, we get a glimpse of the Lying game that girls used to play in boarding school.

This book had a lot of great elements. The girls' friendship was nicely written, the good and the bad that comes with growing up together and I felt almost sentimental about my own high school period. Although there were hints throughout the book, I was genuinely surprised in the end when I got to see who did what and why. Suspense - checked. Also, one thing that I usually notice in thrillers is the pace. It changes almost always in the end were we finally learn the truth and it always feels a bit rushed. Here, I feel like I understood the motives and came to the realization at the same time as the characters.

The one negative thing that stands out is the portrayal of the marriage between Isa and her poor Owen. They are going through a rough patch with their new baby and Isa's found-again suspicious friendships, I get it. She has a lot to lose and she is nervous. But, the dialogue during their fights was horrible, I was cringing the whole time. Whenever he confronted her about something, she would either walk away, tell him to fuck off, take her baby and storm out of the room or simply avoid him. Lame excuse 'I got so angry' can work only so many times, after that is just Isa being a bitch, without author's realization, I believe. It's one thing to portray a crumbling relationship, but I think there were too many explanations about Isa's reasons for not being able to communicating like a sane adult.

The Lying Game

This book will hook you right from the start!
Full of suspense, atmosphere and eeriness, The Lying Game follows four girls who met at boarding school and covered up a major secret.

Fast forward to adulthood and the women have gone their separate ways and are living their lives, when a text message threatens to risk everything they've tried so hard to bury.

This is a dark and atmospheric read that takes you on a roller coaster ride full of twists and turns. I think that The Lying Game is very different to The Woman In Cabin 10, but nevertheless it's entertaining, enjoyable and definitely worth a read! Four stars from purplebookstand

I was lucky to be provided with an advanced copy of this book and voluntarily reviewed it.

Three and a half star rating.
Four well to do girls meet at a coastal boarding school immediately forming a clique but they weren't very nice to anyone else - why tell the truth when you can lie? This friendship continues over the next 15 or so years when any can call on the others for help despite the fact they don't actually see each other very much. Out of the blue Kate contacts Thea, Fatima and Isa to cover up the biggest lie of all. Isa is the one telling the story so everything is from her point of view. I liked the descriptions of school life and the locations plus the slow build up with the tension gradually being racketed up but the girls/women's characters hadn't improved much. Easy to read, flowed along nicely and quite gripping in parts.

The Lying Game is a story of four friends who are bound over by their teenage schooldays, a game and one moment in time that changed everything.

Isa, Thea, Fatima and Kate all went to school at Salten together and although they were boarders, they spent any time they could at Kate’s house – her Dad Ambrose owned the Tide Mill down at the Reach, and worked as an art teacher at Salten House (school). The girls are tied together by their past, and so one day 17 years after leaving Salten House school, when the others all receive the same message from Kate … “I need you”, they go to her at the Mill. Now adults, careers and children their past times, they re-discover their friendship and the changes that have occurred over time. But why has Kate reached out to them? What is the secret from their youth? And why are there hostilities from some locals and warm welcomes from others?

This is another human observation story from Ruth Ware, detailed with the human endeavours to form connections and bonds, to have life experiences, and to bear witness to each other – with even the lifting of an eyebrow, and the ripple of the water.

As a reader, the first half of the story is swathed with conflicting emotions; warmth, anxiety, nostalgia, no character or circumstances induced fear, more of concern. You feel that there is something you’re missing, you’re searching to find between the lines, to be able to appreciate the true gravity of their history.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story – I couldn’t put it down, at various points speculating, guessing, wondering what on earth had happened to them all. Ruth has cleverly written the characters so that the reader gets to know them as adults with the growth of opinions and life experiences, whilst still enjoying them as the 15 year olds friends are introduced to. She gives them flaws and scars, and every day doubts that bring Isa, Thea, Fatima and Kate to life, in particular when they are ‘standing’ within the quagmire of Mary Wren, Luc, and Owen. Lies and lying is central to this tale, and Ruth shows us the rules of the game, whilst subtly revealing the consequences of weaving a web of deceit.

Themes: friendship, family, ghosts, love, memory, time, trust, abuse, parenting, secrets, nostalgia, addiction, art, gossip, boarding school, lies

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publishers Random House UK, Vintage for my free copy.

Published 15 June 2017 by Vintage Digital