The Goode School is an all-girls prestigious prep school tucked away atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia. This exclusive boarding school is home to the daughters of the elite and influential. It is the place where these brilliant girls prepare for their futures at Ivy League colleges. Within the walls of the Goode School are long-held traditions, secret societies, and an intense honor code.

This year is different for the girls at Goode. There is a stranger, a misfit, amongst them. Ashlyn Carr was recently orphaned when both of her parents died suddenly. Hailing from England, she is not only out of her element among a group of intense girls, but also experiencing a cultural shift. Ash struggles to find her place at her knew home while juggling to keep several secrets close to her chest. She should be focused on making friends, but as girls start to die, Ash is more concerned with focusing on staying alive.

J.T. Ellison’s latest, GOOD GIRLS LIE, hits the ground running by dropping the reader into the discovery of a dead body. It appears one of the girls has been murdered, but no one knows why or who could have committed this crime. In order to find out the answers, Ellison takes the reader back in time to where it all started. The arrival of Ashlyn Carr at the Goode School. I absolutely love when authors give their readers a peek into the events to come and then immediate shift the timeline backwards. For me, this always sets me on edge. I’m constantly looking for clues and hints that might lead to this event.

Not only does Ellison give the readers tension immediately upon starting this story, she also dishes up a decent amount of confusion. As the title implies, get ready for a lot of lies! It’s hard to tell who is telling the truth throughout this book, including our main character Ash. It’s not a traditional unreliable narrator situation, but more so one where you know there are secrets within the character that they must guard by altering the way they act and the persona they put forward. It was a lot of fun hearing all of the lies from each character and trying to parse out the truth.

If it’s not enough to draw you in with all of the tension and lies, Ellison also gives the reader short and fast-paced chapters. I instantly found myself binging sections of this book trying to find answers or wanting to know how an event was going to play out. Up until the very end I was losing my mind wondering how far things would go. Sure, you know a murder is coming, but hold on because there is so much more! GOOD GIRLS LIE is the perfect book for anyone looking for an entertaining, suspense-filled read!

A huge thank you to MIRA for sending me a free copy of this book!

I've adored every book I've read by J.T. Ellison and Good Girls Lie was no exception! I'm a sucker for an adult novel that follows the lives of wealthy, privileged school aged girls because it was so different than my own upbringing. I grew up in the public education system, so there's something so fascinating to me about the world of private boarding school, secret societies and all-female education. This book delivered the tight thrill of suspense and murder, with an intricate backstory of young wealth and fragile relationships. I started suspecting the twist about midway through, but even so, it didn't distract from the tension I felt reading every page thereafter. Ash's and Becca's characters were solidly developed and I liked the subplot and change of pace with Ford's chapters. As a Virginia resident (about two hours north of Charlottesville and the fictional Marchburg) I think Ms. Ellison did a fantastic job capturing the atmosphere of the Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley region. I got a thrill reading about the Blue Ridge Mountains, interstate 81, etc. and was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ms. Ellison graduated from Randolph Macon Women's College in Virginia. The only part of the story I didn't care too much for was the whole ordeal with the piano teacher. I don't want to spoil anything, but I felt it was a tad farfetched and could've done without it. But other than that, this book was one of my favorites of late! Kudos to the author and thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel.

Love, love, loved this book! I adore JT Ellison's books and this one was no exception. Great pacing, well written and kept me guessing - would recommend!

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The twists in this book were WILD! I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. I loved this book a lot and it was a fantastic read. I took me forever to pinpoint who the bad guy was but when I did I was SHOOK!
If you are a mystery/thriller binge reader like myself, then you will love this book.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and netgalley for this review copy!

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately, I could have sworn I downloaded this before the archive date and can't seem to find it now. I will be careful to make sure this does not happen again. Thank you.

I didn’t love this one. I was really intrigued by the premise (elite boarding school, secret society, etc.), but the book just felt like a bit of a slow read, and the character/storyline of Ash (the real one) seemed too outlandish. Maybe I have just burned out on thrillers since I’ve read so many lately. Having said that, I did really love the ending!

Oh I really really enjoyed this book! Secrets, lies, mystery, drama and death, all surrounded by the honour code at an all girls private school filled with some vicious and venomous teenage girls! You never know what to expect and who you actually friends are because in the end, everyone is hiding something! Loved this intriguing and thrilling story!

Well, that was fun! The Goode School is an elite, all girls school with creepy staircases, tunnels, secret societies and lots and lots of secrets and scandals.

It’s hard for me to write a detailed review without giving too much away on this one, but I found it brilliant and super fun to read! You always want to know what’s coming next!

Oh wow, What a book! I love a good boarding school mystery/thriller, but this is next level. The number of twists and turns this book takes is insane. I was shocked by most parts, and I never could have predicted the ending. It was phenomenal. I will be thinking about this one for a longgggg time. Highly highly recommend!

Having been to an all girl's school ( though not a posh one like this) I could realte to the goings on in this story. Characters were believable and I certainly sided with the main character even though she was not necessarily a good character.
All was not what it seemed once I got towards the end of the book. Would certainly recommend.

Good Girls Lie is the newest novel by author J.T. Ellison. This book is set in Virginia at an elite boarding school known as the Goode School. Ash is a new transfer student to the school from England. She's left a traumatic past behind and is ready to begin her new life. However, she's not quite ready for all of the happenings that are occurring at the school. There are taps into secret societies, girls dying for no known reason, and hazing. The deeper Ash becomes involved in these happenings, then the more she is making herself vulnerable. Read and enjoy!

I'm typing this with an unrepentant smirk on my face and holding back a diabolical laugh. Perhaps a part of me is evil...or maybe I enjoy a wicked twist!

Good Girls Lie is filled with intrigue, lies, secrets, and plenty of mystery. The Goode school gets exactly what it deserves. Forged into a respectable girls school, The Goode School houses 200 well respected young women who will go on to be leaders and captains of industry. Goode girls run this world. Goode girls never lie.

On my honor...I had a wild time figuring it out. I was wonderfully entertained by this novel. I think my paranoid mind was extremely helpful in discovering the secrets in these pages. Devious or not, any mystery lover would have fun dissecting these pages. Just dont forget...Goode girls never lie.

Sigh, this is another thriller that everyone lauded as being fast-paced and amazing and yet I struggled through it all. It just wasn't that compelling to me. And I wish I felt otherwise cause the premise was really intriguing. I just didn't like many of the characters and they weren't even cool unlikable characters, just merely dull.

This was the perfect book to break me out of my reading slump. I love stories that are set at elite private schools almost as much as I love ones involving secret societies. The pace was good - slow when it needed to be and heat pounding as events picked up.

Set at an all girl's boarding school amidst drama, cattiness and murder, the setting of this book was great but Unfortunately the rest of it didn't work for me. I couldn't get into the mystery or connect with the girls. This had a very YA feel to it and YA isn't my favorite. Could be a case of this just wasn't the right style or plot for me but I've liked her last 2 books much better

My Highly Caffeinated Thought: A complex layering of duplicity, emotional relationships, and fierce reactions.

GOOD GIRLS LIE is another brilliantly executed dark and twisty novel by J.T. Ellison. I cannot stress enough how positively delicious the plot and development of this thriller is. It is downright addictive.

Here is the thing. No matter how many times I read a book by Ellison, she continues to shock me with her tales of lies, bad behavior, and murder. I think I am going in one direction and have a grasp on where the story is taking me. Then, she reveals a crucial tidbit to the plot, and I am on shaky ground again. I love it so much! 



What I enjoyed about this particular book is how the author wove together the privilege of these girls with the grit and angst. There was not one character I met that didn’t have multiple facets…or faces…to them. For each lie, nasty act, or secret, there was a moment of heart, honesty, and emotion. This balance truly enriches the psychological aspect of the thriller. As a reader, I couldn’t get enough of the happenings at the Goode School for girls.

At this point, I just have to say one thing.

All hail J.T. Ellison, the queen of the mind f*ck thriller. I cannot wait to read want she gives me next.

Good Girls Lie appealed to me because of the boarding school setting. It sounded like the perfect setting for a thriller-author to wreak some havoc! I wasn't wrong. She turned the Goode School upside down. I kind of wished the school would have been based in Tennessee, though.

The characters in the story are the kind of girls the rest of us love to hate. They're beautiful, filthy rich, and oh-so-snotty. The dean of the school comes across as classy and eloquent, yet there's this feeling that she's super shady. So of course, you're just waiting the whole time to see it all come down.

B | This is a solid thriller/mystery book that had me on the edge of my seat half the time. It’s a dark and twisting tale. It has elements of Gossip Girl tossed into the mix, although this is certainly more grown-up. From the very first page, this book refuses to let you go. It makes you go back and forth, making you question what is truth vs. lies.

The first impression I had with the book was that it has a very Gossip Girl like vibe. Except, you know, this book opens with a death. Now, this is one of those books (well, eARC in my case since I received this book as part of the blog tour, but you know, schematics) that I can honestly say I enjoyed it. But while it captured my attention from the start, it wasn’t until I made it to about the middle of the book where I truly started to devour the book, even then I felt like the moon — waxing and waning in interest. Before that, I was only really interested in certain parts of the book because they were so — different.

Strange? Well, let’s just say that it had to do with the tone of some of the chapters written in 1st POV. I won’t say anything more than that.

But the tone is one of the biggest strengths in this book. While I didn’t care for Ford or any of the other characters presented to us in 3rd POV, every character had their own distinctive tone and voice. That’s part of the reason why certain chapters caught my attention more than others. My interest waxed and waned until I reached the middle part of the book, and then I was all in.

Still, while it took me a while to get into the groove of things and care — I did like Ash. Her POV chapters were mostly interesting and the more I read, the more I needed to know.

Another strength of this book is the writing. Ellison’s writing is to the point. It is straight forward and doesn’t weigh you down with nonsensical descriptions. While I tend to appreciate the worlds around the characters described in sci-fi/fantasy novels (or hell, even historical fiction) because they are different worlds/times, after all, I don’t like to see it very much in contemporary fiction. This was a “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am,” sort of book which I’m happy for — at least in this case.

However, where there are strengths, there are weaknesses. One of the biggest weaknesses was pacing. The book felt stretched out — like things were added in just to add more pages. There were times where I told myself to just keep going and reading. Yeah, the plot is interesting, but even an interesting plot can be maimed by bad pacing.

Another weakness is the other characters. Yes, Ash is an interesting character and her chapters in 1st POV made things even cooler because I ended up wondering if she was a reliable narrator. But, aside from Ash, Becca was the only other interesting one. Everyone else felt — boring? A bit dull, really. They were just there.

Overall, I still say that this is a solid thriller. I recommend that you give this book a try.

I received this book as I am taking part in a blog tour for this novel. Thank you to Harlequin Mira for a chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this read. I enjoyed the boarding school aspect of this one. It provided a little mystery, some creepiness with all the secret societies, and a solid twist in the end.

I don’t like to tell much about a book in a review because it ruins it for others, so I will just say this: Girls boarding school, rich and powerful girls, haunted tunnels, secret societies and murder. What else do you need in a book?