This was a fun mystery book that is a lighter read. My high school students enjoy titles like this and the characters are fun to get to know. There is southern drama mixed with romance and a little con-artistry. Good mix of elements. I will recommend to my students.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes never disappoints. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and this world. I hope this is a series focusing on all the characters one by one.

I love Jennifer Lynn Barnes writing! This book is different from some of her other stories, but still provides an enjoyable read.

First, I’d like to say thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept my interest from beginning until the end. Debutante balls, scandals, high society, cover ups...what more could a reader want?? The plot twists kept me turning the pages. I was a little confused about the addition of the rookie cop. The scenes in the cell felt way out of place until it was wrapped up in the end.

I hope that the one loose end found in the end is wrapped up in a future book. I would love to see more of these characters and how they deal with the aftermath of the scandal(s).

It has always been Sawyer and her ditzy mom. Since Sawyer’s mom got pregnant with her when she was a teenager, her family disowned her and Sawyer’s bio dad never claimed her. Sawyer has had to take on an adult role since she was young, paying bills and keeping track of groceries when her mom didn’t. Everything Sawyer believed to be true is challenged when her grandmother, her mom’s mother, offers to pay Sawyer a half million dollars to participate in debutante season. Thinking ahead for college, Sawyer accepts the contract and moves into her grandmother’s house and world. Sawyer goes through the debutante season with her cousins and potential half siblings. Sawyer is determined to find her father. However, things become trickier when these rich teens drag her into their backstabbing, blackmailing, secrets and crimes. Sawyer may have traded one challenging life for another.

I love Jennifer Lynn Barnes! I love the snarky main characters. I was completely interested in the story and the characters. The ending did leave something to be desired and was a bit confusing, but I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

I liked Sawyer as a character, an eighteen year old mechanic who has learned to do everything on her own because her mother was a teenaged mom not interested in truly caring for and loving her daughter. They've lived together and handled their business while she flits to jobs and men. Then enter grandma, who Sawyer has never known, there to make a deal. Sign a contract that guarantees plenty of money for life and college on the condition that she spend a year with the grandmother.

This southern style includes plenty of "bless your hearts" and debutantes until a darker mystery unravels-- who is Sawyer's father, who was really culpable for breaking up the family, and what will Sawyer do in the end? A bit of an uppity mystery / mean girls story that was fairly engaging even though this kind of book is not my type. Sawyer had a great voice.

**I received this ARC from NetGalley and Disney Book Group. All opinions expressed are my own.**

Let me start by saying that I LOVE Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ writing style. It’s witty, captivating and realistic. I really enjoyed her Naturals series, and so I was very much looking forward to reading this first installment in the Debutantes series; and while I did enjoy this story, parts of it just didn’t hit the mark for me.

There were sections of the book that felt repetitive and lacking needed depth or further explanation. This book has alternating time lines and I had a very hard time connecting with the present timeline...it just didn’t seem realistic or very captivating. I loved Sawyer’s character and her witty dialogue, but some of her “rules” were just not very realistic to me. I think her character development could have been a bit more thorough, but I look forward to seeing where she goes in future books.

Little White Lies felt very much like an introductory book to this world, to this series, and I do appreciate that. There was an interesting plot line throughout the story, and boy, did it end on a bang! I just think I was hoping for something more. I wasn’t as transported to the Debutante world like I had thought I would be based on Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ previous books. So, while I enjoyed reading it, I hope to find a bit more plot depth and character development in future books in this series.

Eighteen year old Sawyer is fiercely independent, but when the grandmother she never know makes her an offer she can’t refuse, she finds herself at the mercy of rules of a society debutante. All Sawyer wants is to finally learn the identity of her father and get her college money. Instead, she is drawn into to dark, secret world of the wealthy. Blackmail, backstabbing, and spa days are par for the course in the debutante world.
Little White Lies is a twisty tale of southern tradition, teenage drama, and buried secrets. Smart and sassy, it’s one fun and wild ride.

Little White Lies was a pleasant surprise for me.  I found it hard to put down and times.



Sawyer lives with her mom who is hardly ever around.  But she makes do on her own.  Her mom got pregnant with her when she was a teenager and kicked out of her house.  Sawyer doesn't know much about her mom's past.  She knows that her family had money.  Her dad is someone that her mom won't tell her about.



One day,  her grandmother, Lillian, shows up with an offer for Sawyer.  If she agrees to live with her for nine months and become a debutante, Sawyer will get half a million dollars to pay all her college and living expenses.  She also tells Sawyer that she can find out who her father is.  Sawyer's mom is away with a guy she just met, so she gives in.



Things are so different there for her, but Sawyer does bond with her cousin, Lilly, and Lilly's best friend, Sadie Grace.  She also spends a lot of time with the Ames family.  Walker, Campbell, and their cousin, Boone.  Sawyer has her father narrowed down to four men and she could be siblings to any of these people.



The book goes back and forth in time.  There are chapters that are current with the four girls being arrested, but the officer dealing with them has no idea why.  He also doesn't know who they are, the richest girls in the area with families of power.  The other chapters go through the months leading up to the ball.  Campbell is trouble and is blackmailing Lilly.  She also has secrets that she's keeping from everyone else.  They become her alibi and end up being involved in the plan towards the end.



The girls are not the nicest people, but I ended up liking them anyway.  Especially Sadie Grace.  There were a lot of scandals and mysteries throughout the book.  The ending made me wonder if this will end up being a series.  If so, I would definitely pick up book two.



Thank you to netgalley for sending me a copy for review.  I gave this one 4 stars and recommend it to anyone who liked Pretty Little Liars, Little Monster, or We Were Liars.

Eighteen-year-old Sawyer Taft was raised by her mother who had her at seventeen. Her mother, in her telling of the story, was thrown out of her high class home when she came up pregnant in the middle of her debutante season. Her mom is pretty flighty and it has made Sawyer independent, smart, and more than a little cynical.

When Sawyer's grandmother, whom she had never met, comes to Sawyer with an offer to pay for her college education if she'll come live with her and take part in the current debutante season, Sawyer takes the opportunity because she might be able to figure out who her father is. She long ago found a picture hidden by her mother of the Squires from some year with four faces blacked out. She's certain that one of the men is the one who got her mom pregnant and abandoned her. The timing is right because her mom had just taken off with a new boyfriend leaving Sawyer on her own.

Sawyer gets thrown into the debutante season almost immediately as she comes to her grandmother's. Also living with her grandmother is her aunt Olivia, her uncle J. D., her cousin Lily who is also making her debut, and her young cousin John David who happens to be obsessed with zombies.

Also debuting are Lily's best friend Sadie-Grace Waters and frenemy Campbell Ames. Campbell's brother Walker is Lily's ex who seems to have changed greatly since dumping her. Sawyer meets Campbell when she finds out that Lily and Sadie-Grace have kidnapped her and are keeping her in the family's poolhouse. It seems that Campbell is blackmailing Lily.

The story begins with the four girls in formal wear locked up in the local jail under the supervision of a rookie cop who doesn't know why they are there or who they are. Then the story proceeds to unwind in a series of flashbacks of the nine months that Sawyer has been taking part in the debutante season. It combines laugh-out-loud humor, intense emotions, the mystery of Sawyer's parentage, and another mystery regarding a hit-and-run accident.

It was a compelling story filled with fascinating characters. Sawyer is my favorite. I liked her cynical point of view and her innate kindness. She was bright and curious.

** Thank you to NetGalley and to Freeform for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

Drama, debutantes, estranged families, scandals, oh my!

Plot:
Little White Lies is about an 18-year-old girl named Sawyer. Sawyer has lived her whole life in a small-town with a flighty mother. In all honesty, Sawyer is the parent in her relationship with her mom. Her mom had her when she was only 17 years old--and it seems her mother is stuck acting that age. One day, when Sawyer is home alone her grandmother, whom she has never met, shows up with a proposition in hand. If Sawyer lives with her grandmother for nine months and participates in this year’s debutante season, then Sawyer will get 500,000 dollars for college. Naturally, she signs on the dotted line.
However, Sawyer’s estranged family is nothing like she imagined. Soon, she starts to care for them but everyone isn’t as they appear. Everyone she meets has a secret and a scandal in tow. The only scandal Sawyer is interested in is the one concerning her conception 18 years ago. Will Sawyer be able to discern which mystery man from her mom’s past is her father?

Thoughts:
It took a while for me to start enjoying this book. It wasn’t until around the 50% mark that I became a tad bit invested. It was hard for me to connect with the characters as there is little to no character development throughout the novel. Barnes relies solely on the mystery element of the book to entice and maintain the reader’s attention. If you are like me, then that means you skim pages until you find a part of the book that seems interesting.
There was a good twist at the end of the book, but it was executed poorly. The author addresses and explains the twist in under 10 pages, then she promptly ends the book. I’ve heard there may be a sequel. I won’t be reading it.
All in all, this book was pretty average. It didn’t bring anything new to the table nor did it captivate me. There were a few quotes that I particularly liked such as, “People were fundamentally predictable. If you stopped expecting them to surprise you, they couldn’t disappoint.”. I also liked this quote, “Maybe, not caring is just what ordinary people see when they can’t process what it looks like when someone cares too damn much.”

Not the smoothest read, but it held my interest! I'm a sucker for books set in the south, especially when they involve debutantes. I think it jumped around a bit and needed better transitions, but the YA set will definitely enjoy and have fun with this one. For fans of Pretty Little Liars, The Amateurs, and Gossip Girl.

This book was a whole lot of fun.  For fans of Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl, this is going to be the next big read.

The characters in this story were a bit stereotypical (nothing terribly original), but I still enjoyed watching them navigate through a life of riches and scandal.  Although the story itself was bit formulaic (poor girl gets thrown into the deep end of high society as she is mentored by the wealthy family she never knew she had), I found it refreshing that there was no romantic subplot for the main character.  The story focused almost entirely on her personal quest to find out who her father is.

Although I very much enjoyed this book, there are a couple reasons I could not bring myself to rate it higher. 

The structure of the book was not my favorite.  It starts out in the present then goes back in time to set the stage for what is happening now.  Although I generally like this type of structure, I only like it when it is done well.  The switches between the past and the present seem very unnecessary to me, and did nothing to further the suspense.  The story could have moved along equally well if the author had only done one time jump in the beginning and then caught the reader back up towards the end of the book.

The big reveal at the end of the book was entirely anticlimactic.  There are some authors that really know how to blow your mind with a big reveal, but this author has not quite mastered the art of it.  The mystery is resolved enough to make this book a standalone, but the author left enough loose ends that I suspect that she is going to try to make it into a series.  I, as the reader, feel perfectly content to leave the story where it is.

I love Ms. Barnes YA mysteries and this one is even better with awesome main character Sawyer Taft! Her deadpan humor and take no BS attitude while having to navigate her newly found Southern high society family is fun and addicting. While the mystery of her father’s identity is the driving force, the challenge of finding out what a fellow evil debutant is doing is just as interesting. Ahhhh- but what a cliffhanger! This doesn’t come out until late fall, but I couldn’t wait to read it, having read an excerpt in her last Naturals series ebook. Can’t wait for the next one! Fans of Ms. Barnes, Rachel Hawkins and Veronica Mars will love it too.

3.5/5

I think my main problem with this story is that the characters are not super developed and the focus is on the plot. I tend to prefer character driven novels and wish we got to see more devolvement from these characters; they all seemed to have promise. But, since I did not have an emotional attachment to the characters, the stakes and the risks they undertake did not have me on the edge of my seat.

There is a dual timeline thing going on. The mystery is revealed to us in various flashbacks. Although flashback makes them seem short. The present day sections are more like snippets. I did think this was interesting and did add to the intrigue of the mystery. The mystery itself was layered and the story went places I did not expect it to. The ending is abrupt and a little underwhelming, but I am hearing rumors of a sequel?

I did enjoy this, some parts more than others, and might read book two if the premise seems interesting. If you like the “drama” of Southern Society with a touch of Pretty Little Liars, The Rebel Belle Trilogy, and Gilmore Girls, then I would recommend this to you. Plus, the cover is gorgeous.

I was super fortunate to get an ebook ARC copy of Little White Lies recently and I really enjoyed the story. This was a book that I saw before the cover came out and I was purely drawn in by the story idea. Then they announced the cover and I fell even more in love and I knew I needed to read it ASAP. The cover is drop dead gorgeous. If you have not seen it take a look at it on this page!

SPOILERS AHEAD

Now before I jump in I do not want to give too much away because this book isn’t out for a bit (Nov 6) and its a good read, so I want you all to get to enjoy it first hand. This story reminded me a little of the Princess Diaries which I am totally here. I read those books as a teen and then reread them when the recent one came out and anything remotely like them I love. In this book, we meet Swayer an 18-year-old who works as a mechanic until one day her grandmother who is estranged shows up and offers her a lot a lot of money to participate in the debutante season. Now Swayer is considering participating not just for the money but because it could get her information on the biggest mystery of her life, who is her father. Swayer ends up signing the contract and getting much more than the information she is looking for during her debutante season.

This book was a really enjoyable and relaxing read for me. I am really stressed recently with some things going on and reading this book just kind of took me out of things and gave me the much-needed break that I knew I was looking for. Swayer’s story captivated me and for that, I thank the author and for helping to clear my mind. I gave this book 4 stars out of 5 on Goodreads! Look for it when it comes out in November!

Sawyer agrees to move in with her grandmother and get to know her extended family that she has been kept from ever since her mother was kicked out of the house at seventeen and pregnant. This book is full of family secrets, truths left unsaid, blackmail plots and scandals. I loved JLB's The Naturals series which was a lot darker and full of more plot twists. Little White Lies was just okay. Sawyer tends to act aloof and like she just doesn't care but I think you can tell how much she missed being kept away from her extended family all of her childhood.

This is the first book I've read by Jennifer Lynn Barnes but I will definitely be reading more from her in the future. The writing was really engaging and had me turning pages. I really liked the main character, Sawyer, and the storyline. Big thumbs up from me!

I am a huge fan of Jennifer Lynn Barnes so I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book! Little White Lies was such a great read, I loved the format. I felt like it kept the reader engaged with what was happening now and what had happened in the past. Everything came together flawlessly.
The characters were also wonderful, I felt a connection with our MC from the beginning.

I loved THE FIXER duo so much (and it should be a trilogy — still something that makes me incredibly sad and bitter) and have been saving THE NATURALS series for when I’m desperate for more words by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I decided not to resist this one though… and I’m glad I didn’t wait! I read it during ARC August and was definitely what I needed to break the semi-slump I was in. I was just forcing myself to read (not because I wanted to read) and this book changed me for the month.

It centers around Sawyer, a young mechanic who learns that her mom’s estranged family are filthy rich and only live 45 minutes away. When her grandmother shows up and offers her half a million dollars for college/life if she moves there and participates in the debutante season, she can’t resist the opportunity to find her biological father at the same time. She quickly falls in with her cousin, Lily, and her friend, Sadie-Grace… and unfortunately also with the evil Campbell.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this story, to be honest – I was kind of expecting something similar to the REBEL BELLE series with all of the ball gowns and southern traditions (minus the paranormal stuff). I did kind of get that, but there was a great mix of contemporary-mystery that Jennifer Lynn Barnes does so well. If you like her writing, I would have to recommend this book. It’s easy and addicting and hard to put down. I think my one complaint would maybe be that it was slightly long? Some parts felt dragged out and some went by too quickly. The story has small chapters in between the main action of “present day” and everything is else is from a certain amount of months before. It’s a really interesting way of setting up the story because you wonder how the girls got into that situation. Everything comes together later and the chapters get closer together, bringing the two timelines into cohesion. It was a dramatic and fun way to look forward to upcoming action.

The family drama was definitely prominent and there were little mysteries and twists throughout the story based off of that. Everything centered around whatever Campbell was doing (you spend a good portion of the book trying to figure out what her MO is) and figuring out who Sawyer’s father is. I really liked the relationships that she developed between the other debs and her grandmother. The ending had some great, unexpected twists that definitely made my jaw drop. I think there was a decent enough cliffhanger to keep things interesting (meaning some mystery left for the next book) but the ending was buttoned up enough where you don’t feel like your jaw is still on the floor. There’s plenty left to uncover and unpack in the sequel!