I will leave a review on Amazon or B&N on Dec 30, 2019

My thanks to the author, Harlequin-Mira and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow this was really one twisted book. I love thrillers, but for me this one was really out there. I'm not sure its because of the ages of most of the characters, but I have read many books that are more a YA book. The author is a very good author the book was well written but really just too twisted for me. I am sure many will love this book, and I was recommend anyone that enjoys thrillers read and make your own opinions.

This one was...weird. I read The Swallows earlier this year. I've read Prep and Magic for Liars and Old School. I get it. Boarding school is ROUGH. This one started out as strongly as all of those - but somewhere near the beginning of the end, it got just plain odd and it started losing me...

There's a lot of good stuff here. The characters are well developed, as is the setting - and in an atmospheric novel like this one, the school is almost a character in and of itself. Ellison did a great job establishing the creepy environment early on and that, coupled with our protagonist's disdainful dismissal of all the ghostly mumbo-jumbo, sets the stage nicely for the bizarre twists and turns that unfold. For the most part, throughout the majority of the book, the stage and the twists/turns follow a pattern that makes sense - a pattern that I enjoyed following along its windy, twisty way. But then, as things finally reach a head and actual (as opposed to red herring) revelations start trickling in, things shifted and the pattern felt hinky and I started rolling my eyes and skimming a bit...

I saw the major twist coming. Early on. But that's not the issue I had. I read A LOT of thrillers, and it's getting increasingly difficult to *really* throw me for a loop in this type of story. It happens, and I love when it does, but even if it doesn't, I often still enjoy reading them. These are escapist stories for me, and when they're written by someone who clearly knows what they're doing (as Ellison does), the pattern feels comfortable, like snuggling in your favorite sweater or watching your favorite movie yet again. The twists can be a fun diversion, but even they have to follow some kind of logic - even if only the internal logic already established in the book. I think that's where this one lost me - something about the runaway train of revelations and lies uncovered felt like it took a sharp left turn at Albuquerque (yes, I went with a Bugs Bunny reference) and that's where it started losing me...

On the whole I still enjoyed the story. It's got a VERY dark underbelly, but the writing is solid and so is the vast majority of the plot/pacing. Ellison is good at writing this particular brand of darkness. It's a compelling tale and you'll want to read it through to see what on earth it all means/was about. Just don't be surprised if it hiccups a little as you near the end...

3.5 Stars The story kept me engaged and I read it on a weekend. There were aspects especially towards the end of the novel that felt rushed and definitely "told rather than shown." I appreciated the author's note that explained the real-life inspirations. Overall, I'm still a fan of Ellison and look forward to reading more.

<i><b>Goode girls don't lie</i></b>.......or do they?

A code of honor, secret societies, and murder!

The Goode School is a prestigious all-girls school where the girls gain early acceptance to the ivy schools of their choice. This boarding school in Marchburg, Virginia accepts only the brightest (and richest) girls - daughters of politicians, prominent businessmen/women, and elite members of society. Rules are expected to be followed, there is an honor and conduct code that must be abided by. Sure, the secret societies and their hazing i.e. tagging activities are overlooked. They are time-honored traditions after all.

Then one day a student is found dead. Was her death a suicide? Was she murdered? Soon suspicions are voiced and students, police and the dean begin to have doubts about one student. Are their doubts correct? Who is to blame?

The setting was wonderful. An all-girls school in the hills without much around, secret societies. This sounds like the making of a very book (even movie) but there was just something a little lacking in this for me. I wanted just a little bit more oomph to this. I wish there would have been more mystery as to who the culprit was. The reveal was not shocking to me. Plus, I was really hoping that a secret relationship would come out. This is a book that I feel would make a great plane book. It's entertaining, a great way to pass time, but will I remember it months from now. Probably just vaguely. I will say that I found the epilogue to be excellent. Very clever. I thought the epilogue was the best part of the book.

The writing was good, and the plot moved at a good pace. Many are enjoying this book more than I did so I encourage my fellow readers to check out those reviews as well.

Thank you to Harlequin- Mira and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

I absolutely adored Good Girls Lie. It had all of the elements I love in a thrilling book. The atmosphere, the plot twists, the murder, the private school drama: all so well done and built up to create such a wonderful novel. I know I will be putting all her other works high up on my reading list for next year!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for my copy of this thriller. I found this book difficult to put down. It starts off pretty quickly with a young woman’s body found hanging from the gate at an elite all-girls boarding school in Marchburg, Virginia. The Goode School is for the daughters of the rich and well-connected. Only the “best” girls can be Goode girls. Oh, but the appearances can be deceiving. The Goode School honor code and traditions give way to secret societies and darkness around every turn at this old school. And, of course, a ton of lies.
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Good Girls Lie spins a tangled web that is told from several different POV. After the initial shock of the first couple of pages, things slow down and we go backwards in time to find out what happened at the school. I can’t really say too much more, but I enjoyed this thriller, probably one of the more memorable ones I’ve read. I never really knew where the story was going, the web of lies and deceit was so intricately woven. I will definitely read more of J.T. Ellison’s books in the future! You can take a visit to The Goode School yourself on December 31st. If you dare!

I was pulled into this story immediately. There are few sure-fire ways to pull a reader into a book, and I will stand by the opinion that a murder is always a good place to start.

With an elite all-girls school as the setting, I expected cattiness and toxic friendships—and I was certainly not disappointed. The Goode School fits all those prep school stereotypes with ghost stories, secret societies, humiliating initiations, and privileged girls who think they can get away literally with murder.

The perspective shifts in this book are really quite unique. We mainly follow the first-person POV of Ash, which provides an excellent sense of unreliability and twisted instability that I really enjoy in first-person POVs. There's also third-person narratives following the school's dean and the local police enforcement. All of them helped push the mystery further, with the third-person ones offering more insight into Ash and the possible going-ons at the ironically named Goode School.

I did have a few issues with the motive behind the killer's actions, as well as some characterization. I felt some questions of why or how were not properly addressed.

But overall, it's a twisty and fast-paced novel that you won't want to put down!

This was a great edge of your seat book! This book kept me captivated the whole time! I could not put it down!

Let me start out by saying that I love, J. T. Ellison’s books which is why I was so excited to receive an advance copy from NetGalley. Let me tell you that I was not disappointed in the least. The name on the building is the Goode Academy. It is a boarding school for young ladies. Believe me, these girls may be young, but they are not ladies. Second, there is not much “good” going on inside the academy. From secret affairs to hazing to sex and murder, there is not a day, or night, that goes by that there is not something happening within these walls. Although this was a fairly long book, I was glued to the pages from the very beginning and did not want the story to end. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

Mysteries set in boarding schools are always fun and very Gothic. Good Girls Lie grabbed me and didn’t let go. As the story opens, we know that one of the Goode School girls has died in a horrific manner. The rest of the novel tells us how this happened. Ash Carr is a British transfer. Her parents just died (also in a horrible way, what a coincidence!) and she’s trying to fly under the radar. So far, not so good when she catches the attention of the queen of mean girls and accidentally sends a teacher to the hospital. The Dean of the school is also keeping an eye on her, but she has secrets of her own. Everybody, it seems, is hiding something. I had an inkling of what was going on but had no idea how it could be. The plot kept surprising me and I loved the ending. My favorite part is the Goode School itself, with its underground tunnels, secret rooms and legends. In the afterword, the author explains how some of this is based on schools she attended. Sounds fascinating! But it’s Ash that’s at the heart of the story. She may be a sociopath or just a fragile, lonely, scared girl. Either way, I enjoyed reading about her.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/HARLEQUIN – MIRA!

This book has all the makings of a twisted tale. A private, elite girls school with secret societies and rituals? Creepy. A murder? Creepy. Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting with this one. The characters are unlikable and the story drags on for too long. I appreciate the atmosphere that the writer was trying to create but it just went on for too long and had too much “filler” for my tastes. The twists were good but not great enough to make this more enjoyable for me. Thank you to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review

4.5 rounded to 5

Thanks to Netgalley for the eArc in exchange for an honest review. This one gripped me from the start, so many twists and turns. I raced through it, unable to put it down.

Good Girls Lie is about the secrets of the privileged young women at the Goode Academy in rural Virginia. This has so many elements that make a great private school story: There’s the headmistress, who just wants out of the school, but who’s been tapped into running her ancestors’ academy after her mother resigned in disgrace over mishandled murder of a student. The school’s handyman/driver/pot dealer is the son of the murderer, because no one can ever leave this town, and also, what’s a good private-school story without a ghost or two? There’s a horrible bully who’s also the Head Girl and a secret-society leader, with all the secrets, hazing, and general rich-kid meanness one would expect.

Ash arrives, after the tragic and mysterious deaths of her parents, at the start of term and is immediately subjected to new classes, new classmates and obscure prep school traditions. (Slightly spoilerish note: I thought Ash’s slang and speech patterns were a bit odd for an upper-class girl with a titled father, and at first I thought the author had lumped all British phrasing together, but the reveal makes it all make sense.)

One thing I really enjoy in prep school gothic stories is that any creepy clue could be ghosts, silly pranks or evil classmates. Here, though, it was definitely evil classmates. Boredom and academic pressure, combined with their priviledged protection from any real consequences, leads the students to endless social manipulations, ranging from seniors-only areas and hostile seating arrangements to twisted hazing rituals. I thought the yes-mistress and general cruelty of secret hazing went a bit too far, and I wasn’t totally sure why anyone put up with it. Like in The Furies, I wasn’t quite compelled by the toxic friendships and I just wanted our protag to ditch the mean girl(s).

Still, there are so many unrelated secrets at this school, and so many characters with developed, hidden agendas to make this a great pageturner. The minor characters pursued their own goals, and weren’t just foils for the main plot. I really liked it, until the last bit of the book. I found the ending unsatisfying, where the novel changes from a thrilling pageturner with an unreliable narrator who’s probably keeping something back, into a soap opera where EVERYTHING IS LIES. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted the prep school secrets, and I enjoyed most of it, I just wasn’t quite on board with level of drama in the finale.

A decade old murder. Secret societies. A possible psychopath. Private school. Secrets. What more could my thriller loving heart need?
One of my favorite things about Facebook is how I can connect with other bookworms and find more books I want to read and add to my never ending TBR list on Goodreads. One of the recent posts that caught my interest was about a book coming out soon, Good Girls Lie. I'm a member of Netgalley, so once it caught my eye, I immediately signed up to get an ARC. I was luckily given the chance to read and review it.
"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 behaviors 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."
The Goode School is bursting with secrets, and so is new student Ash Carlisle. Ash is desperately trying to keep her traumatic past under wraps and start a new life at The Goode School. And because it's an ancient private school in Massachusetts, it's naturally haunted by dead girls and secrets of the past. And because it's a prestigious stepping stone to the Ivy Leagues there has to be a secret society. (This is not a complaint. I love secret societies and hauntings.) Also, on top of all this, someone is trying to kill people.
Through the book there are a few narrators, and they all have secrets, and most of them are willing to do anything to protect those secrets. Who doesn't have secrets though? Ok, so mine are things like the fact that I am terrified of vampires... not something I'd go to great lengths to protect.
No one in the book was particularly likeable. It's like Mean Girls if you take away Janis and Damien (and why would you watch it without them?) Everyone is mean and because it's an elite boarding school, everyone seems to be under the impression that they're amazing and their parents' statuses are theirs as well. I never went to a boarding school, but the way the Goode School is described is exactly how I've always imagined them to be. I especially liked the details involving the history of the school.
As for the rest of the book? The plot itself is insane, twisted, and most of all, contrived. I normally don't mind knowing what's happening before the end. It's not a big deal to me since I read a lot of thrillers and I often reread them. But when I got near the half way point and realized what was going on, my initial thought was disbelief. All the ways this could have gone and this was the path? Someday, mysteries will be so over the top we'll find ourselves coming back to the simpler ones of the past.
So, you ask, if it was contrived and you knew what was happening so early on, why did you finish it? Well, I enjoyed the writing style. The flow was easy, and I'll probably check out a few more of Ellison's books because of her writing style.
Good Girls Lie is available December 2019.

Another wonderful mysterious and thrilling novel by JT Ellison. If you are looking for a book that will keep you guessing and keep you on your toes this one is it. I don't want to give anything away but I do want yo to be prepared to not want to put this one down.

3 1/2 ⭐️‘s
An old elite girls school in the woods ... secret societies and murders, need I say more? This book has a modern day gothic feel and Ellison does a good job of keeping the reader both on edge and guessing throughout. While this book has everything needed for the genre, and I enjoyed the overall plot, there were parts that were just too unbelievable!

This book kept me guessing. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. The characters are well developed and interesting. I wanted to know what was going to happen to them.

Initially, this appeared to be a novel capable of ticking all of my boxes.

YA/NA mystery/thriller? Check.
Boarding school location? Check.
Possible f/f relationship? Check.

It would be unfair to say that these things weren't delivered to me, because they certainly were, but I was slightly underwhelmed by how everything came together.

The characters were really hard to connect to, and as a reader who thrives off of living through my favorite MCs, that was definitely a disappointment for me. Some of the character dynamics where hard to understand or relate to (like, why in the world does Camille hate Ash so much? We will never know). There was also a lot of girl hate and bullying and, while I get that it had its place in the story, I am never a huge fan of overdoing the mean-girl trope.

Contrarily, I actually really enjoyed the mystery aspect in this because it kept me consistently guessing and doubting everyone. I started to unravel what was really going on much later in the book than I normally do for these types of stories, but it was an interesting enough plot twist in my opinion.

However, I had a hard time believing some of the ways that things were wrapped up. After enjoying the majority of the book, I think the way it all ended let me down a little. It was a bit of a sudden ending and some of the explanations felt rushed or incomplete for me. I mean, I did understand what was happening, but the unbelievable nature of many of the deaths and scenarios really did call for a bit more finesse.

Overall, a fun mystery to tackle and attempt to solve if you're a fan of big reveals/shocks and boarding school murders.

Big fan of Ellison and this new release is as good as I expected. Pacing is great. Dialogue is on point. Plot twists are perfect for keeping eager fans on the edge of their seats to the very end.

I received this digital arc from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

This is a wild, twisted psychological mystery novel. It is captivating from beginning to end. The story is narrated from a first person point of view but it is never quite clear who that might be. Once you start to follow the story and feel you understand the narrators, an odd unexpected one seems to interject.

The story begins with a murder at the prestigious Goode School in Marchburg, VA where honor and tradition are paramount. Ford Julianne Westhaven has led the school for the past 10 years after her mother faced a scandal regarding the manner in which she handled a murder years ago at the school. At 35 years old, Ford desperately wants a career as a writer but feels a responsibility to step in after her mother was dismissed. The women in her family have proudly served as head of the all girls school for generations.

It seems that the rumors and traditions of the past continue to endure at the elite boarding school. It seems that everyone has their own secrets and family history which they will do anything to protect. Ironically, the school has a strict Honor Code which prohibits lies and dishonorable behavior. Of course, there always seem to be exceptions to most rules.

Such is the case of Ash Carlisle who transfers to the school from Oxford, England after the traumatic deaths of both her parents. Her father, Sir Damien Carr is an investment banker with a quick temper usually expressing his rage at Ashlyn. Lady Sylvia Carr, her mother, does little to intervene so it is a relief when they decide to send her overseas her sophomore year to finish high school.

This is where the secrets seem to spill as Dean Westhaven agrees to allow admission for Ashlyn under the alias Ash Carlisle to protect her from the gossip regarding her parents unexpected deaths. As Ash tries to fit in with her dorm mate and other suite mates, she realizes it won’t be easy. Once she begins to settle into a routine, her private life is gradually revealed as well as she decides to shun her new friends. Becca Curtis, a senior and head girl at the school, initially bullies Ash and then welcomes her into the senior class inner circle.

Her disgruntled and jealous dorm mates go to extreme measures to make life difficult for her. When a student dies from an apparent suicide, the chaos at the school just begins. Everyone’s life is examined and scrutinized. It seems there are many exceptions to the Honor Code at Goode School.

This story pulls you into the mysteries and indiscretions of the characters who struggle to maintain the demure façade expected of children of elite parents.