Actual rating: 4.5 stars

If you are a lover of YA thrillers from authors like Karen M. McManus - this is your next book!

Full of so many flipping twists and characters that will keep you guessing until the last page, this book was a freaking RIDE. Honestly, this is one of those books that the more I write, the more I will give away. But take my word for it - this book is killer!

I can tell you that the characters are fantastic, though! All of the Goode girls, including Ash, are fabulously complex and flawed. And wildly unreliable. And a special shout-out to Ford, the dean of Goode. An amazingly scripted character who steps away from the traditional roles of being a woman and an authority figure - she is full of ambition, responsibility, and a maternal instinct without the desire for a family.

After this book, I have already added Ellison's backlist to my TBR - I am ready for more!

Two in a half stars

I find this actually kind of hard to review because I didn't actually understand it...look, yes, I got the basic plot and the ending - I understood all of that, but something about the writing really boggled my brain. There was so many perspectives (they don't start with telling you who is talking), random side characters seem to even have their own chapters/perspectives. I had to flip back and forth so many times trying to figure out what I was reading. Maybe this was just me but it seemed so disorienting.

Also, I think because of this is was hard for me to really care about any of the characters. They all seemed a little flat to me - and while there were a ton of them it seemed like they were more or less all the same. I think the reason it was hard to tell whose perspective we were viewing was because all the characters voices sounded so much the same.

The mystery was okay but due to lack of feeling for the characters, it was hard to keep me interested. It was also very slow and just felt a little all over the place.

I probably wouldn't recommend but you might have better luck than I did, I just felt kind of lost .lol

Fabulous Mystery And Subdued Thriller!

There Is a boarding school which happens to be called The Goode Academy known for it's prestigious reputation of accepting only the most privledged and the brightest, talented and the most elite of teenage girls who will become the finest of young women and will be accepted into any university or Ivy League school of their desire before they graduate from Goode's doors. There will be one among their midst however, who may not belong and when the new sessions begin strange events start happening and there is tension and deception and a sense of darkness lingering in the halls and behind the walls of the academy that can be subtly felt by many students but unfortunately none of the girls or the faculty knows that there a real evil dwelling in the stately boarding school that will affect the lives of all before the first term is even finished.

Bravo, bravo to J.T. Ellison on her writing of this fabulous book! I was intrigued from the first page and was consumed by the flawless writing style and storytelling. I felt as if I was an invisible character listening and following the girls and wishing I could tell them to be careful and not so mean and spiteful. I was entrenched in the drama and the mystique of the school's underlying mysteries. This book had me from start to finish and I just wanted the story to continue and find out what would happen to many of the characters and their thoughts and feellings in the next chapters of their lives if they lived to tell their stories.

I want to thank the author J.T. Ellison and the publisher "Harlequin and Mira" (US and Canada) and of course Netgalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this wonderful novel for an honest and unbiased review!

I highly recommend this book and I am giving a rating of 5 Privledged 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stars!!

This gave me Gossip Girls vibes. So if you enjoyed the TV series, I think you'll enjoy this one.

It had a great opener, but I found it slow through a good chunk of the book. At times I was even confused at timelines and who was speaking.

I think it may have just been me and the mood I was in at the time of reading this one. Overall, it was a decent read and would recommend it for those who enjoy the boarding school setting.

A special thank you to Harper Collins Publishers and Harlequin Books for the opportunity to participate in the Winter 2020 Mystery/Thriller Blog Tour!

“I thought lies had power until I saw what silence could do.”
Theres something about the allure of a boarding school that always intrigues me. I guess because I never went away for school or college so its interesting to live and go to class in the same place. And of course there is inevitably all the drama that comes along with it as well. Let’s just say that The Goode School wasn’t short on drama. From a new student with a secret, to hidden societies, to haunted parts of the campus that were said to have been the places of horrific murders and deaths.
I absolutely LOVED the spooky atmosphere to this book. The mystery behind what’s really going on kept me intrigued throughout. Its not technically a case of an unreliable narrator but it still has you questioning everything that’s going on and if its really accurate or just another version of the truth, which is ironic coming from a group of people who reside in a school where honesty and truth are the basis of the code of conduct. Still, I can’t think of anyone who has never lied and who doesn’t on a daily basis. Its a part of what makes us human and gives us the freedom we have as a species to be able to tell white lies here and there.
As a whole this book was really entertaining and pretty fast paced. I kept getting hung up on the prologue and wondering who was speaking at that part but as you go through the book things are revealed in due time, so just be patient on that aspect. There are so many different mysteries throughout as well that unfold as you dive deeper into the lives of all the poor souls residing in The Goode School. I think that this was another fun part of this book, that you really don’t know who is giving you the facts straight and who is elaborating for their own benefit. Because lord knows there were a lot of people in this book who had only their best interests at heart. Probably the result of so many bright minds in one place. Too many leaders and not enough followers.
This was a fun read and I highly recommend giving it a read! I think that it can speak to any number of people from any background, age or gender. It was mysterious, spooky, and just the right about of intriguing to keep me wondering exactly what was going on the whole time.

EXCERPT: The girl's body dangles from the tall, iron gates guarding the school's entrance. A closer examination shows the ends of a red silk tie peeking out like a cardinal on a winter branch, forcing her neck into a brutal angle. She wears her graduation robe and multicolored stole as if knowing she'll never see the achievement. The last tendrils of dawn's fog laze about her legs, which are five feet from the ground. It rained overnight and the thin robe clings to her body, dew sparkling on the edges.

There is no breeze, no birds singing or squirrels industriously gathering for the long winter ahead, no cars passing along the street, only the cool, misty morning air and the gentle metallic creaking of the gates under the weight of the dead girl. She is suspended in midair, her back to the street, her face hidden behind a curtain of dirty wet hair, dark from the rains.

Because of the damage to her face, it will take them some time to officially identify her. In the beginning, it isn't even clear that she attends the school, despite wearing the Goode School robes. But she does. The fingerprints will prove it.

Of course there are a few people who know exactly who is dangling from the school gates. Know who,and know why. But they will never tell.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Goode girls don’t lie…

Perched atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia, The Goode School is a prestigious prep school known as a Silent Ivy. The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, it accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond. But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous.

In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder. But when a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored. Rumors suggest she was struggling with a secret that drove her to suicide.

But look closely…because there are truths and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened.

MY THOUGHTS: 'Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping.' - Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

And lies certainly do flow from everyone's lips in J.T. Ellison's latest thriller, Good Girls Lie. The opening chapters had my pulse pounding and I voraciously flicked over the pages until my Kindle went flat. The pace does settle for a time before the climactic ending.

Ellison has written an atmospheric and creepy novel with cutting edge characters. These teenage girls are rich and privileged, cliquey and bitchy. They can be cruel and manipulative. They are adept at hiding their true feelings, preferring to be seen as 'cool', to be admired and emulated.
The culture of their school almost encourages their behaviour... until it all backfires and popular students start dying. Is it a coincidence, or perhaps just plain bad luck, that there is a new girl at the school. One whose entire family is dead...

Highly recommended.

😯😯😯😯.5

#GoodGirlsLie #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: J.T. Ellison began her career as a presidential appointee in the White House, where a nuclear physicist taught her how to obsess over travel itineraries and make a seriously good pot of Earl Grey, spawning both her love of loose leaf and a desire for control of her own destiny. Jaded by the political climate in D.C., she made her way back to her first love, creative writing. More than 20 novels later, she is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with thrillers published in 27 countries and 15 languages. She is also the EMMY-award winning cohost of A WORD ON WORDS, a literary interview TV show. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two small gray minions, known as cats in some cultures. She thinks they’re furry aliens.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harlequin MIRA for providing a digital ARC of Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage

Favorite Quotes:

Everyone lies. To themselves, to each other. It’s a way to belong, to be included. To look important.

I employ the only tool in my arsenal— silence. It only adds to the mystique. Who knew? I thought lies had power until I saw what silence could do.


My Review:

J.T. Ellison has mad word skills and is a master storyteller, her descriptive and emotive prose fully created each scene from the ground up with multiple textures, scents, sights, and sounds. I was sucked right in and fully present, sometimes, uncomfortably so. While it wasn’t an edge of your seat thriller, I was deeply invested in this twisted and tense hybrid tale that was part YA, part Women’s Fiction, part suspense, part family drama.

The main character of Ash was always taut with tension and anxiously on edge for fear of discovery and I found myself often nibbling on my cuticles with the extremely poor posture of my shoulders in my ears while clutching my Kindle with a vise-like grip. This was a long, complex, and cunningly paced tale with multiple layers and interesting textures. The storylines were rather ingenious, shrewdly plotted, and expertly populated with a cast of diabolical and oddly intriguing characters of all ages. The most heinous was, of course, the teenaged girls, who were especially vile and vicious as only teenaged girls can be. Although, and I know from personal experience, rich and privileged teenaged girls are the absolute worst of the breed.

A thriller set within an exclusive all girls boarding school? I'm so in! There's just something about sneaky, catty girls and sinister happenings that I find irresistible. Mix in some bad behavior, sexual surprises, secret societies, hazing and yes - murder and you have quite the page turner.

The book starts off with an unforgettable death scene that pulls you right in and and will have you needing to know what happened. Told in a flashback format, this death brings lies to the surface amidst The Goode School's elite students and faculty. Beneath its beautiful, rich and influential facade lurks a dark labyrinth of cruelty, secrets and murder. ⁣
⁣
I really enjoying the creepy, disturbing vibe this one had. The setting was wonderful and the plot moved at a quick pace. There were a few twists and even though some were predictable, I was pretty happy with most of the reveals. Overall this was a fast-paced, engrossing thriller.

I have been a fan of this author since the beginning. I was really looking forward to this book. It was a bit of a departure from the normal thrillers that Mrs. Ellison writes. When it comes to secret societies, the idea is intriguing. You can tell as there have been other books and movies made regarding secret societies.

The opening scene is what grabs readers. After that I was very intrigued by the school and the secrets that were hidden within the halls of the school. No one is innocent. Yet, the shine did falter some with a lot of build up of the dynamics between the girls. There was not a lot of other sinister things happening from the first scene for quite some time. I know that the build up was important but it kind of got to be too much after a while.

The latter half to last third of the story is where it all came together and my interest peaked up again. Just when you thought the ending was here, Mrs. Ellison threw in one or two more twists at the end.

I was so excited to receive an early copy of Good Girls Lie. This had several twists and turns and I was very surprised by the ending. The story takes place at an all-girls boarding school. There is plenty of drama within the school, but when one girl ends up not being who she said she was, the real mystery begins.

Another great read by J.T. Ellison

An engaging read that keeps you guessing. A solid addition to this author's novels. An enjoyable read for fans and a story that will create fans from first time readers.

Disclaimer: ARC provided via NetGalley in return for an honest review

Ah what a fun book. You know those books you read about ivy league private school boys and the stuff they get up to? This is kinda like that except with murder, and no pretence that teen girls are any more gentle or any less ambitious because of their gender. This book has it all: a mysterious protagonist, a dean of the school desperate to escape the entire damn town, petty hierarchy and elitism, secret affairs, lesbians, identity theft.

The start was a little slow, and the primary PoV character was just a little too adult-ish at times. But in retrospect I suppose that makes sense given that it is from her PoV and most teens think they are far more mature than they are. It really picks up its pace in the second half and after that it's just a freefall. The last two chapters weren't exactly necessary, but I enjoyed them none the less.

A perfect book for that picnic in the middle of a burnt down, abandoned brick building.

Good Girls Lie, a creative tongue-in-cheek title, follows Ash Carlisle, the newest member of the Good School, a prestigious boarding school set in the south for privileged, elite girls. It’s a creepy, mysterious boarding school with secret societies, mean girls who rule the roost, a dean with her own issues and secrets, ghost lore and a hidden dark past. Upon arrival, Ash immediately catches the attention of the head girl, finds her own notoriety, even while she struggles to maintain a low profile, and drama and chaos ensues. It’s soon clear there is something unusual about this girl.

As in all of J.T. Ellison’s books, Good Girls Lie has a writing style that is straightforward and fast-paced. The short chapters are captivating and compulsively readable, and each ends in a hook that makes you want to read just a little bit more. I also appreciate the chapter titles which are enticing, in and of themselves, and rather unique these days.

I found this entire story engaging and entertaining and a pleasure to read, though the conclusion fell a bit flat for me. The final twist wasn’t all that shocking, but it was satisfying on the whole. I love that Ellison did something a bit different with this story, and all-in-all, I think it was a success.

Let me preface this by saying this is my first book by this author but it won’t be my last!

I am a sucker for a boarding school thriller and this one delivers! The opening scene of the school girl hanging from her death had me shook! I love that the story went backwards to show the author how we got to this point!

A good thriller in my opinion has you questioning all the characters motives. I didn’t know who to trust or who to fault and I loved it!! And when that twist hit ooooh I was ready for it!

Good Girls Lie by by J.T. Ellison
Available December 30, 2019 from MIRA

What do you get when you combine an elite boarding school, loads of wealthy families and their secrets, and some mysterious deaths? You get a riveting story full of twists and turns. Good Girls Lie is an intense psychological thriller that will keep you guessing up until the very end. I was riveted to the story of Ash and her troubled past. Rich and beautiful, she seems to live a storied life but instead hides a past full of abuse and sadness. But does she? When everyone has something to hide, who can you trust to tell the truth?
Thank you to Netgalley and MIRA for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Harlequin-Mira in exchange for an honest review.

YA thrillers get a bad rep and to be fair, most of them don't live up to their synopses. Thankfully Good Girls Lie manages to be the exception to this rule and delivers an intriguing, well-paced and engaging story.

British Ash has just arrived at The Goode School, an american boarding school for teenage girls of the highest caliber. She has a troubled past but she's determined to keep her head down...that is, until she accidentally gets involved in one of the school's secret societies and catches the attention of the Head Girl. When her roommate is found dead, Ash must fight harder than ever to keep her secrets to herself. Even from the reader...

I will admit, it took me a little while to get into this book. It is primarily told from Ash's POV but there are a few chapters told from an unknown POV and occasionally it will focus on the Dean of the school, with these being told in third person. None of these changes in POV are indicated so it was quite jarring to suddenly find you had switched perspective without realising. However, once I got to grips with that, I became very invested in the story. One thing I really liked was you were unsure what direction the plot would take for most of the book. Once certain things are revealed it does become very easy to guess, but before that you don't get much to work with which means you can't predict what will happen (in a good way).

Ash herself was a breath of fresh air. I found her a very compelling character, even with the narrative deliberately keeping a lot of information about her back from the reader. Similarly all the other main/side characters were pretty interesting and none of them were stereotypes which is where YA thrillers usually suffer. I liked that the Dean got such a lot of focus as that rarely happens in these kinds of books.

Overall, this is a solid YA thriller to pick up. It gives you so little to work with plotwise in the synopsis but that only strengthens the style of storytelling and the way the narrative slowly unfolds. It's not the fastest paced thriller but if you crave YA thrillers with well-crafted characters and a neat little story, this is definitely worth a try.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Good Girls Lie was a great psychological thriller. The characters were likable. There were lots of secrets and surprises throughout the book.

If you liked Pretty Little Liars or Mean Girls, you will like this book.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

What does a prestigious all girl boarding school with a dead student hanging from the front gates make you think of??? My first thought would be that the cast from Gossip Girl invaded Rory Gilmore’s Chilton High School (not a boarding school, but same idea) and something BIG “goes down”. Well, if you think that makes an interesting combo, you must check out J.T. Ellison’s new book, Good Girls Lie. Pull down the shades for a darker backdrop and add a dollop of creepy. A very juicy treat is on the menu. Suspense and thrill seekers will gobble this story up. Let’s go to High School where scandal is the norm, lying is a past time and secrets can actually kill.

Ash Carr is about to start her sophomore year of high school at The Goode School, an all girl boarding school for the elite in Marchburg Virginia. Ash, originally from England, was recently orphaned. With her extraordinary smarts and extenuating circumstances, the Dean accepts Ash into the exclusive school for the Ivy bound student. Ash is immediately propelled into a world filled with backstabbing mean girls and secret societies with hazing at its finest. Shortly after her arrival, a well known student is found dead. The mysterious death ruffles the feathers of just about everyone at the school. Piecing together evidence of this death is not as easy as it appears. Secrets are abundant and lying comes easily to those with money to blow, attention to seek and the Ivy League at stake. With the school’s tarnished past resurfacing and skeletons from Ash’s closet making a surprise appearance, solving this case gets tricky. Will the Dean be able to get to the bottom of this tragedy while protecting the reputation of the school?

Even with a death lingering in the background, the students press on with their rigorous academics. Secret societies do their part bullying and brainwashing the next in line for their illustrious underground club, but at what expense? Anyone who attends Goode learns quickly that alliances and friendships have no roots and waver with the blink of an eye. Because the story is told from the point of view of both Ash and the Dean of the school, readers get a taste (not always very reliable) of what is going on from all angles. Ellison’s characters all play a role in this pulse pounding and provocative read. Suicide or murder??? Everyone was a suspect in my opinion. There was no shortage of peculiar behaviors and flawed personalities. “The Truth” was always questionable and at the end of the day, it was every man for himself.

Ellison’s description of The Goode School was spot on. Dark wooden staircases lined with dusty carpet, creaky doors, and a gothic flare added to the allure of this tale. Twists and turns with every flip of the page made this read suspenseful to the very end. Throw in a surprise ending that will leave your mouth wide open, and you’ve got yourself a solid read.

This Post was a part of Harlequin's Blog Tour for Mysteries & Suspense

Good Girls Lie
J.T. Ellison


Buy This Book
Tear Me Apart by J. T. Ellison was one of my favorite suspense novels of last year, so naturally I was eager to review her 2019 offering, Good Girls Lie. While it did not quite match the brilliance of the first book, it is still a riveting read.

Ash Carlisle is a Goode girl. The recipient of a scholarship to the elusive, all female preparatory The Goode School in the small, picturesque town of Marchburg, Virginia, she has now joined an elite group of young ladies who call this elegant Silent Ivy their home. Catering to the daughters of the wealthy and powerful, The Goode School offers an intense, competitive education, that along with their stellar pedigrees, assures their graduates attend Ivy League colleges and become the movers and shakers of the industrial and political world. A diploma from this institution comes with a guarantee of success.

But Ash is not their typical student. Shy, with a tragic history, she has changed her name and left her home in Oxford, England to begin again. Her first encounters at the school do not go well. Becca Curtis, the reigning Queen Bee of the school, who is president of all the clubs and groups that matter and has a strong clique of girls who back her reign of terror, takes an instant dislike to Ash, calling her a “mad Brit” before classes have even begun. She implies Ash won’t be able to handle the tough curriculum and will commit suicide before the year is out. Ash’s recital for Muriel Grassley, the music teacher, ends in disaster. She’s not off to a stellar start.

But these hiccups will not be the only tragedies she faces. Everyone has secrets at The Goode School. Everyone lies to protect their privacy. Some are even willing to kill in order to do so.

This is a subtle, layered mystery which hinges around a secret that is alluded to but not spelled out until almost the end of the tale. My review will not contain particulars because I don’t want to spoil the winding, macabre, delicious ride Ms. Ellison takes us on to get there.

The author does an excellent job of depicting what most of us would expect from an elite all-girls school. There is a large degree of cattiness, an even larger degree of stress, and friendships and love bloom amidst this tense hormonal atmosphere. Anyone who has ever been to a secondary school will recognize that beneath the glamorous, gentrified facade of this one are the same cliques, challenges and concerns that all teens face. Sadly, recent years have taught us that this atmosphere can also lead to death and murder, which, of course, happens here. Within the first few months of the term, one of the girls jumps (or is she pushed?) from the bell tower. Of course she had secrets. Of course the discovery of those secrets has a domino effect; everything learned about the dead girl reveals something about a living person, something others would much rather keep hidden.

Most of the story is told from the points of view of Ash and Ford (the dean of the school), but we also see certain events from other perspectives. Using the currently popular trope of the unreliable narrator, the author makes it clear from the start that everyone is hiding something. Or lying. The voices are all vivid and compelling and finding out whatever elusive secret(s) is/are being hidden is addictive, and kept me turning the pages. My primary questions surrounded our primary narrator, Ash. Is she an innocent victim of everything that is happening? A pawn of a more powerful player? Or a manipulative witch who has perfected the art of appearing innocent and vulnerable?

That ambiguity kept me from liking Ash or any of the characters, really, because all of their actions seemed to have dual explanations. A good example of this is what happens at the piano recital. There is a claim that everything that occurs is a tragic accident, but oddly, that tragic ‘accident’ worked to the benefit of the person who caused it. I didn’t trust that it really was a mistake, which kept me from liking and trusting the person behind it. Moreover, most of the characters had some genuinely nasty characteristics which obliterated any sympathy I might have felt for their circumstances. A teen in trouble turns out to be a snoop, a liar and a mean girl who had created a great deal of hassle for another student. One girl is clearly a psychopath whose narcissism leads her to kill to solve her problems. Yet another, who has family issues that would typically lead me to feel some empathy for her, was so cruel and controlling with her classmates that I couldn’t feel much pity for her. The love affair between two of the girls came after one of them had been so cold and condescending to the other that I couldn’t really wish for an HEA for them. Or even an HFN.

Most psychological thrillers are a little bit over the top and this story is no exception. The big reveal towards the end, where our biggest villain is introduced, isn’t completely impossible, but I would put it at the high end of improbable. It worked, if just barely, because of the nature of the tale. The author does a nice job of laying the groundwork for this particular twist so that it’s as believable as it can be when it arrives.

Like many of today’s psychological thrillers, Good Girls Lie explores the darkest parts of the human spirit. There are no innocent victims here. Just one long litany of damaged souls, which made it one of the darkest mysteries I’ve read in some time, and makes it a near perfect novel for someone looking for a grim, seductive, twisty story that will keep you reading into the wee hours of the morning.

I really struggled with this one.
I found the first 60% to really drag, despite alot happening I didn't feel pulled in or gripped.

I didn't find any of the characters very likeable either.

I struggled to follow who was talking and who each paragraph was about.

The end seemed to speed up and get more interesting, and had alot of plot twists that were interesting but it was too little to late for me.

I wouldn't be rushing to read another of this authors books if the writing style is the same.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book, all thoughts and opinions are my own.