The premise of this book caught my attention right away. I felt it was a little slow to get to the point of “wow” for me, but carried thru with lots of twists and turns to keep a reader from thinking they have it all “figured out”. The mysterious murders in the school keep the story moving. I liked the description of both the location of the story as well as the atmosphere of the school and students. Worth the read. I received an ARC of this book from NetGAlley, JT Ellison and publisher in return for an honest review, which this has been. #GoodGirlsLie

I've read several JT Ellison books and enjoyed every one of them, including this one. The author keeps several story lines running at once while still maintaining the main focus on the murder and the following investigation. The story is well written with logical (?) progressions, no back and forth in time. The characters sadly seem pretty realistic. Overall a good read.

The private school operates more like a rich girl's club with very little emphasis on education. When the cliques start their hazing and someone ends up dead, it should not be a surprise. When no one will come forward to help find the killer, it leaves the police with far too many suspects and too little evidence. The end will surprise some.

I love JT Ellison and when I saw the opportunity to read this ARC I took it. I thought it dragged a lot throughout the book. It has murder and craziness and it was interesting. Although it was a good storyline it just wasn't doing it for me. The writing was great but just wasn't for me.

This is the first novel I have read of J.T. Ellison and it’s one hell of a twisted boarding school mystery. What I loved about this book is how the author has captured a private boarding school setting. High school is a fraught time in everyone’s lives in one way or another, and adding money and power and an all-girls school is even harder when you have nothing. Such is the situation for Ash Carlisle. She moves to America to attend the Goode school after her parents’ tragic death and finds it hard to keep her head down like she had planned. Then bodies around her start to drop like flies and everyone is scared, including Ash Carlisle.

The story itself is interesting. Most of the novels in high school setting I have read are centered on romance and/or bad boys with girls playing semi-peripheral roles, but Ellison weaves such a fantastic tale without involving any type of romance related jealousies with an all-female cast. It’s a different concept, one which she carries out greatly in this book. I did not see some of the twists coming towards the end, and I loved it!

I gave it 3.5 rating because in some parts, the story dragged for me. Some of the secret society hazing seemed ridiculous. As one teacher in the novel points out, the girls run the show. The headmistress has absolutely no control over what the students are able to do at this school and she’s been in charge for 10 years!! The teachers seem completely oblivious. The students don’t seem to spend any time studying apart from the main character and yet they’re all at this school because they’re excellent at studies? I found some parts of the story a little far-fetched. Yes, it’s more like college than a high school, but it’s still a high school!

Overall, I recommend this book but will say my interest was in the bigger picture than the smaller details…if that makes sense.

PSA: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley, but the Kindle version of this book is terribly formatted. I don’t know if it was because my Kindle is a few years old or because it’s something on their end. The quotes are not separated like they should be when one character’s line ends and another’s begins. Some of the words are separated by space. The paragraphs aren’t clear. It got very annoying for me as I went on. I would recommend reading a physical copy or a clean formatted digital one.

Thank you to NetGalley and MIRA for this ARC.

This book is different from the others because well, I’ve heard everything written by J.T. is absolutely amazing. Mental illness in younger people is such a huge topic and overlooked topic that I think the nail was hit on the head with this one.
Private school. Horrible, abusive father with 2 daughters from different women, one being his wife, the other a drug addict.
There’s a huge twist to this book that left me dumbfounded and I totally was not expecting it whatsoever.
4.5/5 stars, only because I got a little confused once the sister was involved. How did they meet and become friends? Was she a secret to the other girl or was the father open about the relationship with the other woman? I have so many questions.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It's another unreliable narrator with a twist.

Ash Carr is a English gal who her parents are sending to The Goode School in the US. Death surrounds this gal including her parents who died right before she left. We're given a couple different narratives where we need to figure out who is doing the narrating.

The insight into this school is fascinating. So glad that I didn't go there. The characters are well drawn and the book sucks you in. The end is great!

This book is about a private girls school. When I picked it up I thought of "mean girls" straight away. Lots of twists and turns to keep your interest. It was a roller coaster ride . I connected with the characters which is important for me.

thanks to J.T. Ellison and HARLEQUIN and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this ARC, i thoroughly enjoyed this novel, it had me from page one and i could not put this book down... The main character Ash is attending an all girls school to get her ready to college, the girls who attend this school are all from affluent families and are trusted to manage themselves, not get into trouble, they take an oath when school begins, We learn that Ash has been allowed to be part of the student body as an exception by the dean, who followed in her mother and grandmother's footsteps. Not long after school starts, things start to happen, secret clubs and sororities and initiations, and then someone dies. As we continue to follow Ash it becomes clear she is not exactly who we think and it all starts to make sense.
this was a well thought out mystery, characters well introduced, it sure kept me guessing, loved it and would read more novels by JT Ellison

This is one of the best books I have read thus far in 2019. I generally love the school/college fiction genre to begin with but this one is exceptional. The book starts out with a bang immediately. We learn there has been a 'suicide' at the Goode School, an all female private school in VA. Just as the students begin to try to determine who the mysterious figure is hanging from the gates, we are thrust into the story of how it got to that point. The story primarily surrounds 16 year old Ash Carlisle. Ash has come to the Goode School after both her parents were murdered in her hometown of Oxford, England. From the first day, she seemingly has a target on her back, be it for ridicule, jealousy...She immediately butts heads with Becca, one of the 'leaders' within the school. Soon Ash finds herself invited to be a part of Becca's secret society, Ivy Bound. As she gets deeper into the society, Ash's secrets begin to come out and people start to become hurt or killed, including her roommate Camille. At first the school suspects she was a suicide but digging deeper they start to unravel the truth. Once we have all the feels for Ash, the bombshell drops and we find out who is behind the menacing. It turns the whole story upside down and now you have to really revisit everything in your head for it all to make sense.
The book is wonderfully written from Ash's standpoint. At times towards the end though it does make it difficult to understand without giving away any spoilers, especially the epilogue. Definitely a page turner and roller coaster of a read. I could not finish it in one night but had not been more eager to delve back into it the next night just to see who was behind the madness!

This novel had everything I love in stories that are at in boarding schools: secret societies, rich people, plot twists, drama, and a good mystery. I highly enjoyed this novel, even though I figured out the main plot twist early in the novel. J.T. Ellison's writing more than made up for it and I highly recommend reading this book.

Wow! Buckle up and get ready for a wild ride! This is an excellent thriller centered around an all female boarding school filled with the elite’s daughters. Several deaths, hazing, and mean girl antics culminate into a great twist.

Very interesting mystery/thriller in the high society of an all girl school.
When everyone had a secret to hide, how can you tell who your real friends are?
Ash Carlisle came to the Goode school to get away from her life in London. She’s looking for a new start. But when the girls in the school start singling her out and finding her secrets, how can she continue to hold up her poise and distance.
Intrigue and death seem to follow the girls at Goode. After all, the Goode girls lie.

Ash Carlisle has been added as a student to a prestigious school. The Goode School is known to cater to girls of the elite. It is an all girls school. All the girls are hand-picked by the Dean/headmistress Ford Julianne Westhaven. The school has always been run by Westhaven women.
Ash was put in front of a long line of girls waiting to be accepted into the school. She is from England. Her parents have died. She is an orphan.
Ash is tall, blonde and smart . She is especially apt at computers. What nobody knows is that she's also a sociopath and very capable of murder.
She harbors deep dark secrets that can easily destroy the school and it's reputation.
Wildly entertaining. Titillating, and full of dark corners. Great characters!

This book was thrilling and had twists that I did not expect. Ellison crafted a mystery that had all the right pieces of a boarding school thriller. However, it took a little too long for Ellison to put those pieces together. The novel was unnecessarily wordy and descriptive and could have done with some editing to make it tighter and make the thrills more impactful. As someone who attended an all-girls private high school, I also struggled with some of the inaccuracies and some of the teenage characters had voices and behaviors that seemed more appropriate to college students or even adults. While Good Girls Lies could have been better, the ending was perfect. Ellison wrapped the story up in an unexpected but fitting way.

Good girls, and bad ones too, go to Goode School in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia. They are rich daughters of the Washington, D.C., elite. The high school has been in the same family for generations. Needless to say, this private academy has rules and regulations: a Honor Code, blue books for exams, no hair dyes because "the ladies of Goode will not be fake." In addition, there are cliques, vicious bullies, and secret societies.

Ash comes from Britain on a secret scholarship. While adjusting to the different culture., she practices her smile in front of a mirror. "Isn't this what a sociopath does? Work on their camouflage?" She adds, "I've never understood my compulsive desire to lie. I've read so many articles I've become my own sociology experiment."

As to be expected in a thriller novel, there are deaths and more deaths. I enjoyed this book, however I became confused after reading three-fourths of it --- a twist, wait a minute?! Took several chapters to clear up the confusion.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin for this read!

I don’t know if I’m the target audience for this book, but I have to say, I really enjoyed it.

Why would I not be the target audience, because it’s set in an all girls college, nearly all of the characters are female, because one of the two main characters is 16. So why did a middle aged man enjoy it so much.

Because it is one of the darkest psychological thrillers I’ve ever read.

Ash is 16, the daughter of a very successful finance manager in the UK, or she was, until she found both parents dead in their home.

Having already been accepted to the prestigious, all girls Goode College, in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ash is looking for a new start. With the agreement of the Dean she changes her name and keeps her family history a secret. But is there more to this secrecy than just hiding her tragic past?

Outwardly a grieving, thoughtful, English teenager, Ash has the mind of someone much older, and way more experienced. Her introvert style soon catches the attention of the school cliques and she becomes a target. Her secrecy making her even more intriguing, and an obvious target for some high class bitchiness.

Her chief Nemesis is Becca, Head Girl and Queen Bee, a girl so ensconced in the schools traditions that she even has the ear of the Dean. A Dean who has inherited the post since her mothers removal, a post she doesn’t really want. A Dean whose eye is off the ball.

Ash’s life is miserable but it gets much worse.

Two sudden deaths in the school have the gossips pointing in one direction, then things get worse, much worse, but to say how would only spoil the book.

This book is a dark and twisted Psychological Thriller.

There is murder a plenty but the real shocking stuff is the way that the girls in the school prey on each other, how they think their entitled life makes them immune, not just to the rules and regulations, but also to the moralistic rights and wrongs of society.

There were times when I thought I’d worked the plot out, and how it was going to end. I hadn’t.

At 380 pages this would usually take me three or four days to read, but once I’d picked it up I wasn’t putting it down and had it finished in half the time

J.T Ellison is an American author. I’d never heard of her before, but a quick look on Amazon showed me that she has quite a catalogue. So, without hesitation, I’ve just spent some of my well earned money on 2 more of her books

What greater recommendation can I give.

This story takes place at an all girls boarding school in West Virginia. It’s a school for the rich and privileged. The main character Ash just wants to do well and focus on school.. it takes off from there. It kinda gave me a gossip girl feel which I loved loved loved! I felt as though I was in the theater watching this story take place. I loved that I could never figure it out and everything that I thought was going on proved to be wrong so that kept me flipping those pages with the speed of lightning. I was not prepared for the twist and turns. This book is worthy of all the attention . I love this author’s work and have read most of her books. I was so excited to get to review this book in exchange for my honest opinion thanks to Netgalley. You need to get this book. You won’t be disappointed. J.T.Ellison has done it again! I most definitely recommend this book. My rating is 5 stars📚

*4 Stars*

Copy kindly received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting read and characters. Shows what kids will do for money and the extremes that some people will go to.

I love the Taylor Jackson and Sam Owens series by this author but the last few books have not been my cup of tea. This book takes me back to why I love JT Ellison books. All girl school for the very rich. You can see where this is going. Backstabbing,hazing, bullying,girl clicks and murder. There is a creepy gothic feel to the whole book. Something seems of about Ash from the beginning. Her parents are both dead.She does not want to fit in. The first part of the book seems kind of slow but the second part takes off like wildfire. It’s a race to the finish and oh boy what a finish. I did not see that coming at all.

This book was a really interesting read.

Set in an exclusive boarding school, recently orphaned Ash is the new student with possibly something or many things to hide.

Ash immediately catches the sympathy of the head of the school and her piano teacher while invoking some ire from her roommate and the most popular senior on campus. While sympathetic to Ash, the reader is often asked to ponder how much they can really trust her. I enjoyed the differing perspectives of the book, and I felt the book was entertaining and had some inventive surprises.

My only complaint was the book was little long and drug in some places, but the action was enough to keep my interest.

All in all this was an inventive, interesting summer read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley.com for my advanced copy.