A great thriller that will have you thinking you know what’s happening but the end will shock you!

Joe thinks his life is pretty perfect: great job, an amazing wife, and a wonderful son. One evening as Joe is driving his son home, they spot his wife’s car and decide to follow her as a surprise. Little to Joe’s knowledge is he’s the one that is surprised; his wife is meeting another man. And so begins the lies…

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Lies
by T.M. Logan

I think Gone Girl has ruined my for psychological thrillers. From the beginning of this book, I doubted the wife's story. (After all, the title is Lies, right?) I had no patience with the naivete of the husband. I knew where the book would be heading so I skimmed and finally skipped ahead to the end for the reveal. Disappointing.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #MacmillanPublishers for an eARC for my unbiased review.
#Lies #NetGalley

Lies lives up to the title, they are plentiful! However, I found that most of them were quite predictable. It did not make for a challenging read, nor were the characters interesting. The positives are that it's a quick read, so probably a good traveling companion; title is perfect; the writing itself is good.

Talk about a completely 180! The entire book revolves around Joe Lynch trying to prove his innocence. The cards are stacked against him, which seems almost too perfect to be true. But Joe fights tooth and nail to prove that he did not murder his family friend Ben.

On their way home from school, a child spots his mom's car entering a garage. What should be a delightful, spontaneous event soon becomes a mire of lies and deception.

Joe realizes his wife has been lying and is soon doing the unthinkable.

Why would she lie? Who is now targeting Joe?

This was a fast moving mystery full of twists, turns and interesting characters. I was guessing until the end.

I thought some of the action was a bit of a reach, but I enjoyed the story so much that did not matter.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

St. Martin's Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Lies. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

When William spots his Mummy's car pulling into the car park of a Premier Inn, he asks his Daddy if they can surprise her. Thinking that William is confused, Joe is puzzled when he realizes that his son is correct. In the lobby of the hotel, Joe spots his wife in a heated discussion with her best friend's husband, Ben Delaney. Deciding not to confront them with William in tow, Joe waits to ask his wife and Ben about the meeting. When a heat of the moment decision turns into a heap of trouble for Joe, will he be able to find out the truth in time to safeguard his future?

I had decided, early on, that Lies was not going to be as straightforward as it seemed. This helped me figure out some of the outcome of the story, but gave me my share of surprises as well. The pacing of the story kept me on the edge of my seat as I tried to anticipate where the action was heading. Joe was my favorite character, as his life unravels when the game changing decisions by his wife affect his future. Lies is a fast paced thriller worthy of a read by those who are fans of the genre. I recommend this book to other readers and I look forward to future novels by author T.M. Logan.

Thoroughly enjoyed this suspenseful read, Very well written. Lots of plot twists, then big surprise at the end. Highly RECOMMENDED!

I love a book that hooks you from page one!!! If you're looking for a fast paced read that leaves you perched on the edge of your seat and shocks you with the turn of each chapter, this is the one!!
Joe, father of William, loving and dedicated husband to Mel, makes a decision to drive by his wife's job one day after picking up 3 year old Wills mfrom school. That decision will be the biggest mistake of his life. A quickly unraveling plot will reveal a web of deceit, lies, and several unbelievable turn of events!
T.M. Logan creates a cast of characters that become so real that they jump off the pages! I felt so compelled to side with Joe, felt he was betrayed and hurt when all he wanted to do was be a good father and husband. Mel, made me want to hurl the book at her face and scream "don't you know how good you have it"! But then... my theories all fell apart. Forming new theories made reading this book a roller coaster ride of awesomeness!
Just when you think it can't get any more tangled... the end will blow your mind!!! As an avid reader of this genre, reading a book that can still shock you at the end is fantastic! The "omg I didn't expect that" shock factor is the reason I can't wait to read more from T.M. Logan! I loved it! Definitely leaves you with a book hangover!

Good story. Interesting with lots of plot twists. The book kept me interested in a page turner!

I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Thank you netgalley once again for introducing me to a new author. This book kept my interest until the very end. Just when you think you have it all figured out, something changes.

Wow!!! This. Was. Good... I mean, bad. I loved the ride but the subject matter was no joke. One of the worst feelings in life is finding out you were lied to. The embarrassment, the shame, the anger from being deceived. Joe Lynch has to endure that over and over in this story. Is his wife cheating on him or is someone targeting them in a social media smear campaign? As crazy as it sounds, the fact is the internet and computers play such a major part in our day-to-day lives, situations like this are more likely to happen than ever. It reminded me of Caroline Kepnes's You. It's no longer something out of a fictional story - it happens all the time!

Being that this book is Logan's debut as a novel author, I wasn't expecting anything great (just being honest) but he really proved himself as a solid thriller writer. Some of my favorite reads have been just like this one - fast-paced, plot-driven psychological suspense. This story is written well, too. Many of the current thriller authors churn out as many books as they can but don't necessarily care about substance or quality. This one has both. I have read some negative reactions about the ending but I felt it was one of the better plot twists I've experienced. (Think Gone Girl!) I look forward to seeing what else T.M. Logan has in store for us in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I liked the main character, I thought he was just about the only normal person in this book. It had a lot of twists and turns and surprises. The things that happened to Joe to "frame" him were well thought out and kind of twisted.

It took a little while to get going, but then I was pretty much sucked in. Good writing, great suspense. Looking forward to the next book by this author.

Lies was a book that drew me in and kept me turning pages - the type of read where at the end of each chapter I would think...just one more chapter, until I was staying up too late or running late to leave home.

Joe is driving one night when his 4 year old son recognizes his wife's car - and so he decides that they could surprise her. They follow her into a hotel parking garage - not knowing why she would be there instead of at work, Joe stays to figure out what's going on.

From there - things continue along - just one small decision at a time but those small decisions can have big consequences. Joe finds himself caught up in a situation he doesn't understand - and we are along with him for the ride. I really enjoyed this book - it would make a great beach read!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for my honest review.

I'm afraid this wasn't the book for me. The premise was a good one and I was totally invested in seeing how this would play out. Unfortunately the plot main character's stupidity and naivety is what drives the plot forward. From the beginning I wanted to reach through the pages, smack him, and tell him to wake up.

2 stars because I did finish it but the ending didn't save the book. In fact, it was so preposterous it made it worse.

Many thanks to the publisher for the opportunity, but I will not be promoting the book on social media because I am the wrong reader for this book.

This was the first book by this author that I had read, and I will look out for others by him.

I did find the plot a little far-fetched, but overall it was enjoyable, and kept me turning the pages. I did guess the twist! However this didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book.

“None so blind as those who refuse to see.” – Ben Delaney, Lies

I’ll start by saying that if there is a more aptly titled book, I’ve yet to read it!

At the start of the book, Joe follows his wife, Melissa (or Mel, as he calls her), to a hotel restaurant where she’s having a discussion with a very angry Ben Delaney, who is Mel’s best friend’s husband. Not knowing what was going on, and not wanting to interrupt, he decided to wait for her in the parking garage (it sounds stalker-y, but I promise it’s not). He wasn’t able to catch up to her before she got in her car and sped off, but he did cross paths with Ben. There was a conversation between the two men, and Ben began to get violent. Joe, taking on the role of the friendly giant (“…some long-lost playground code said I couldn’t hit someone smaller, shorter, lighter than I was….”) tried to push Ben back a bit to put some distance between them, when Ben tripped over his briefcase and fell backwards, hitting his head hard on the pavement.

In case you haven't read it, the blurb says that Joe left him for dead, but that’s not exactly the entire story. See, Joe’s four-year-old son William was supposed to be waiting in the car, but he got out and saw Ben on the ground, unconscious and hurt, and that set off an asthma attack. Naturally, none of his inhalers or backup inhalers were where they were supposed to be, so Joe had a choice: stay with Ben to find out if he was okay, or get his son home to get an inhaler before his asthma made it impossible for him to breathe. I’m sure you can guess which he chose. Later, Joe did try to get someone from the hotel to go check on Ben in the garage, and when that didn’t work, he drove back out there himself to check. By the time he got there, both Ben and his SUV were gone. Joe knew that Ben was 100% a Type A, alpha male personality with a history of retaliating against people who wronged him, and that there would be backlash after this incident…but he had no idea just how far Ben would go.

That evening, at home, Mel attempted to gaslight Joe, saying that she wasn’t at the hotel, she was playing tennis with a friend. That was the first time he knew, without a doubt (well, almost…instilling doubt is pretty much the entire purpose of gaslighting), that she was lying to him, and that was the catalyst for just about everything that follows in the book.

From this point, the lies from Mel keep coming and coming; it’s like she can’t stop. She had hidden her lies from Joe for a long time, but then he starts to see her in action, so to speak, when she blatantly lies to a friend, right in front of him. During the investigation into Ben’s disappearance, she even makes Joe complicit in several lies told to the police. In the never-ending web of Mel’s ridiculousness, she goes so far as to deny that she was in a set of photos, even though it is clearly her in the images.

Joe, Joe, Joe. I don’t even really know where to start with this guy. I don’t particularly care for the way he was written, and here’s why: I’m pretty sure if he wasn’t gullible, he’d have little to no personality at all, and through a lot of the book, he seems like a whiny child pointing their finger, tattling on someone. He demands the truth from Mel, and she gives him a song and dance and sad puppy-dog eyes, and he believes her and wants nothing more than to move past the problem and get on with their lives. Then he catches her in another lie, and the whole routine repeats. You would think he’d learn, but he never seems to.

Joe keeps insisting that certain things are “clearly” happening, like someone being followed, with no evidence to support it other than him recognizing a car or some other minor, possibly unrelated event. He also doesn’t seem to understand the simple command of “stop doing your own investigation.” He keeps blindly following clues that Ben leaves behind, hoping that he can catch up to him, get proof that he is not only alive and well, but taunting Joe from afar. I suppose it’s natural for someone to want to solve the mystery, but the way he’s going about it is not that bright; he puts himself in a very hot spot with the police a number of times, and he keeps pursuing leads even though he is told in no uncertain terms that it may cost him his lawyer. Yet he comes to the conclusion that he is the only one that can solve the case and get the police to stop considering him a person of interest.

In the end though, everything turns out for the better, and it’s a nice, wholesome happily-ever-after, once all the emotional destruction has been cleared up. There are a few minor twists and turns, but nothing earth-shattering enough to cause whiplash.

Or maybe…this has all been a lie.

Seriously though, I think this was a good book overall. I wish Joe was a bit less wishy-washy, and maybe do a better job of listening to the legal advice given to him, but put in the same situation, I probably wouldn’t have a whole lot of confidence in my decisions either. Still, I think it’s worth reading. The storytelling by itself is excellent, worth 5 stars, but my annoyance with Joe will land it at a 4.5.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book for review.

This novel intrigued me and my attention was captured from the very beginning. I read this in one day!

The writing in this book was easy to follow and I found the honesty of the main character refreshing. He was a bit naive but I understood his need to see the good; I was rooting for him even when I was shaking my head at some of his actions. I would definitely recommend this book for a fast and captivating read. It was a tense read and it's crazy to me how a person can be trapped so quickly and the justice system is not of any help when this happens.

I would like to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

One can’t live the good life with lies. Mystery, suspense, fear, deceit... When trust is gone, what is left?

I was granted access by netgalley.com to an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was hooked my in the first few pages, and I had a tough time putting it down! An eerie, murder mystery that I'll recommend to all lovers of psychological thrillers!