Heidi Perks opens her latest thriller with a fire that destroys the well-known, but sometimes controversial, advertising agency of Morris and Wood. A large portion of the people in the area never wanted it built there in the first place, and many petitioned against it. Now, it is up in flames. Through flashbacks as well as current-day police interviews, Perks takes the reader on a thrill-ride of a whodunnit as we learn that the controversy outside the building is nothing compared to what was going on inside the building.

Laura is just returning to work after six months of maternity leave. She and her husband Nate have decided he will stay home with the baby while Laura goes back to work. Nate’s work in IT does not offer the salary that Laura’s position at Morris and Wood does, so the plan seems to be the best solution. Laura’s return, however, does not go as she expects it to, in several different ways.

First, Laura’s temporary replacement Mia has been made a permanent staff member, much to Laura’s surprise. Laura had expected to slip back into her job as if she had never missed a step, but with Mia now in an equal position, she has taken over Laura’s primary account in Laura’s absence. Additionally, Laura and Nate begin to have friction in their relationship as Laura’s old workaholic-type attitudes almost immediately return. But now it isn’t just Nate that is affected, as their young son is missing out on time with her as well.

There is also more to Mia than meets the eye, some of which we learn as readers that other characters in the story take much longer to find out. Her decision to take on Laura’s position during her maternity leave was not a spur of the moment decision. There is much more going on in Mia’s world than her boss or her co-workers are aware of.

Speaking of the boss, Harry Wood himself (and his wife Janie) are also major players in this thriller. After the controversial building of the office itself, the family moved from London and Janie’s job as a barrister ended somewhat abruptly. Their children are getting older and Janie is starting to realise there is a distance between herself and Harry that is not getting smaller, as she thought it might, as their lives have settled into routine.

Perks sets a great stage and fills it with fascinating characters, and then she ever so slowly hand feeds the reader breadcrumbs, leading them to a dramatic conclusion that is both satisfying and shocking. Perks is an author that rewards you for paying attention, and for thinking of these characters as genuine three-dimensional people. She wants you to think about their motives and motivations. She wants you to think about men and women and how we all work with, and relate to, each other. Your prize for that effort is a genuinely engrossing story full of twists, that stays with you well after you finish the book.

Laura returns to her position with an advertising agency after giving birth to Bobby. As if she isn’t conflicted enough leaving Bobby, she finds that Mia, her temporary replacement, has no intention of leaving and has, in fact, taken over her major account. Is she paranoid about Mia or does the woman have some hidden secrets? And what secret is Janie, wife of the owner of the agency keeping to herself? A fatal fire that destroys the agency brings these three together……

The book’s timeline shifts back and forth between the action in the weeks prior to the fire and the police interviews following it as what really happened is finally revealed. As has become a popular literary device, the story is told from different points of view.

Despite it getting bogged down a bit, it was an engrossing read with good character development, although I didn’t find any of the characters particularly likable.

The book starts off with a fire at a local business and quickly jumps into the lead detective interviewing people that may or may not have been involved. Then we jump back 8 weeks ago and get to see how 3 very different women - Laura, Mia and Janie - have their lives turned upside down. They each have a past that is slowly revealed, but what do they have to do with each other besides knowing the boss, Harry? And who burned down the building?

This was definitely a good psychological thriller, but it also went in the direction of women's fiction and the struggle they face as women, mothers, caretakers, and working in a man's world.

The pacing of the book was great and I enjoyed the various police interviews throughout the book. It hooked my interest and made me want to understand the women more and the secrets they kept.

Three Perfect Liars was a wonderful, suspenseful, current day novel. Women struggling with tough expectations for balancing career and family life, as well as negotiating office gossip, friendship, trauma and guilt. A good honest display of talented people under pressure and contending with disappointment, all while resolving a crime. This book was filled with great twist and turns in the plot! Thank you NetGalley, author and publisher for the e-reader for review. All opinions are my own.

Attention getters are important to a good thriller. Three Perfect Liars does not disappoint! Our story opens with three women standing across the Lymington quay watching the offices of Munson and Wood burn to the ground and firefighters carrying out someone in a body bag.

The story moves starting eight weeks before the fire alternating between the viewpoints of the three women. Janey was a former defense attorney and now she is a stay-at-home mother whose husband is Harry Wood. Laura is a chief account representative for Munson and Wood who returned to work after having a baby, and Mia who was hired by Laura to temporarily fill in for her.

I loved how the author interspersed many problems that women face in the work environment from guilt of the stay-at-home mother, guilt for returning to work, jealousy in the workplace, sexual harassment….. Heidi Perks created a fast-paced story dropping hints along the way. I enjoyed the police interviews interspersed between chapters as the author moves us forward in time to the actual fire. I kept thinking I had figured out what happened along the way; however, I was surprised in the end. I would like to have had an epilogue (maybe five years later) to check in on these characters. My thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is written in an interesting style, using interviews with police interspersed with the story. The three characters referred to in the title are three very different women, each with a secret. The story begins with the fire, so we know the office building was burned down - but we don't know who started the fire, who died, or why it was done. Little tidbits of information are given to the reader as the book moves along, building the tension.

The characters were each interesting and it wasn't evident what possible connection they could have to each other. Current topics are covered - women balancing career and family life, marriage, past regrets, and what one is willing to do for love.

The writing is well-paced and the ending is somewhat of a surprise - always the best scenario for a thriller!!

Three Perfect Liars is a well-crafted thriller about the conflicts and vulnerabilities women feel when returning from maternity leave.

Laura is sad to leave her 6-month-old son at home with her husband, Nate. But she is excited to return to her high-powered advertising job after her six month maternity leave. She’s excited but only until she arrives at work. You see, the temp Laura hired, named Mia, is sitting at Laura’s desk. Laura’s boss pulls Laura into his office and informs her he hired Mia as a permanent employee. Worse, he has given Laura’s best account to Mia. Laura is furious and vows to get Mia fired. Instead, did Laura literally set the building on fire two months later? Or was that Mia?

Three Perfect Liars is an intriguing thriller about how women and men relate to each other in the workplace. It is also about family dynamics. It is a good beach read and recommended for women’s fiction fans. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars!

Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Morris and Wood is on fire. The building was created to be noticed, so when it goes up in flames, it’s pretty obvious. Three women stand and watch.

Janey is married to Harry Wood, the CEO of Morris and Wood. They moved to Lymington over 5 years ago. Before, when they were in London, Janey had been a defense attorney. She loved her job, but that last case almost destroyed her. Now, being a full-time mother to their 2 daughters is enough for her. Or it was, before she thought Harry was having an affair with one of the women at the advertising agency.

Mia Anderson was hired as a temporary employee, to cover for Laura while she was on maternity leave. But she didn’t tell Laura why she really wanted the job, and that she’d had no intention of giving the job up in 6 months. Instead, she’d told Laura just what she’d wanted to hear to get the job, and Mia could take it from there, her agenda clearly set in her mind.

Laura is one of Harry’s best ad executives, but he was worried when she announced that she was pregnant. She found Mia to take over while she was out, and she loved those 6 months with her husband Nate and her new son. Now she’s back in the office, ready to take her accounts back and get her creative juices flowing again, but Mia seems to have dug her heels in. Laura struggles with the guilt of being away from her baby along with the anger of having her job stolen out from under her.

Each woman standing there on the quay has a reason to be angry with Harry. Each woman has a reason to burn everything to ground. But which woman struck the match?

Three Perfect Liars is a taut thriller that brings the lives of these women together in ways they never imagined. Author Heidi Perks has created a page-turner fraught with secrets and lies that you have to keep reading to untangle. Told from alternating perspectives and sprinkled throughout with police interviews, Three Perfect Liars will keep you guessing until the end.

I really enjoyed Three Perfect Liars. It was a quick read, well written and very enjoyable. I had a great time with these characters, and truth be told, I was a little sad to have to let them go. I definitely recommend this one to thriller lovers!

Egalleys for Three Perfect Liars were provided by Gallery Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Three Perfect Liars touched upon a lot of relevant 'topics; balancing work and motherhood, husband-wife relationships, family dynamics and what someone is willing to do to protect the ones they love. Perks has the book starting with the present day and then going back eight weeks and working back up to present day. The chapters alternate narrators between Laura, Mia and Janie and are broken up with interviews. It was a fun way to read the story, knowing what happened, but not the who or why. Each woman has a secret she wants to stay hidden, but what is she willing to do to keep it that way? My first Heidi Perks book did not disappoint and I would recommend picking it up if you're looking for a fast paced, who-done-it drama!

Laura, Mia and Janie all have been mistreated, misunderstood or mismanaged by men, but yet they blame the other women for their problems. Laura hires Mia to cover her maternity leave, but when she returns Mia has taken over her job. Mia only wanted to be a temp when she was hired, but has accepted the permanent position for her own reasons. Laura thinks she has a bad motive for those reasons. Janie thinks Laura is having an affair with her husband, Harry, who owns the company where Mia and Laura work. One night, the office building Harry is so proud of, burns to the ground. Each of the women has a reason to have started it, but unless someone talks, it’s a mystery.

I found this book to be incredibly suspenseful, gripping and current. Women talk about straightening each other’s crowns, rather than putting each other down, but how often does that really happen? The characters were real, relatable and believable. I could see bits of myself in each of the three women. Definitely would highly recommend this book!

Well this book was interesting to read. I did not want to put it down once I got into it. There are points in the book were I was frustrated because I wanted more explanation about something but it was skirted around. By the end of the book it made complete since why the author did that. All three of these women have secrets, fears and emotional problems. I liked how the author went back and forth between the interview with detectives and what happened two months before up to the fire. I would read another book by this author. This book kept me fully engaged and wanting to know more.

Heidi Perks' Three Perfect Liars, her newest book, delivers a little bit of mystery, a little bit of melodrama, even a little bit of social commentary. And it's all quite good!

The Morris and Wood building was considered a marvel by some, an eyesore by others. Some even protested the construction of this glass building five years ago. But now, someone set the building on fire, and a person has died in the blaze.

Across the quay from the building, a woman stands watching the fire. Is she the one who started it?⁣

The book follows three women in the weeks before the fire: Laura, one of the few successful women at Morris and Wood, who has just returned from maternity leave to find that her job isn’t quite the same as it was before; Mia, the woman Laura hired to fill in for her temporarily, who has ingratiated herself with the company and is now a permanent employee; and Janie, wife of the CEO, who both longs for more fulfillment and is still afraid of something in her past.

Each of these women has secrets; each has resentments which might cause them to want to burn the building down. But who did it, and why? And who died?

In addition to being a fascinating mystery/thriller of sorts, this book also touched on issues such as sexism in the workplace, the struggles of working mothers, abuse, rape, and fear. The book shifts narration among the women, and the story, both past and present, is interspersed with police interviews and other pieces of the investigation into the fire.

Perks definitely hooked me from start to finish!

NetGalley and Gallery Books provided me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Three Perfect Liars was a smoldering read. At times, maybe too slow. The three liars were all great characters, I just could have used more details sooner. While I was intrigued to find out who the arsonist turned out to be, I also just wanted it to come to a head.

This was a unique thriller from a "new to me" author. I enjoyed the reading experience and I'm going to look out from more by this author.

I enjoyed how Three Perfect Liars is told from two different perspectives. It is a suspenseful story that kept me guessing how this story would end.

The offices of Morris and Wood have been engulfed in a fire. It is unclear how it started or if anyone was killed or injured.

Harry Wood is the CEO of the office. He started the business in London but decided to build a new building by the coast. Many residents were not happy about it as they felt it detracted from the town’s appearance
and people’s view. Harry is married to Janie, a former defense attorney, and has two daughters. Janie stays busy with the girls’ activities and meeting up with friends. She seems to be afraid of someone but we don’t know why.

Laura Denning has worked at Morris and Wood for years and is very accomplished. When Laura became pregnant, she hired Mia to temporarily replace her while she was out for 6 months maternity leave. Laura’s husband, Nate, is staying home to care for their son, Bobby, while Laura brings in the money. When Laura returns, she finds that Mia, who had agreed to just be temporary, has become indispensible and has not only been hired on permanently, but has taken over the big account that Laura was always responsible for. Laura is livid and begs Harry to let Mia go, but he refuses. Now, Laura must make do with other minor accounts as she continues to seethe. Mia is very outgoing with the other employees who seem to love her. Laura tries to take on more work and hours only to find that she does not get home until very late. Nate is very unhappy about it and she is not spending time with Bobby.

When Harry and Janie host an office party at their home, fireworks break out between Mia and Laura causing quite a scene. This is is one thing that makes people wonder who is truly guilty when the Morris and Wood offices burn. When the culprit is revealed, by that time I had guessed it. However, I did not like how it ended. Too much sacrifice.

I enjoyed the story as it went along. Laura comes across as a total nut case, almost narcissistically impressed with her own abilities. Mia appears to be sane which makes Laura look worse. I wondered why Janie had chosen to leave her career and become a stay at home Mom. Nate is a wonderful man that any woman would love to be married to.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book revolves around 3 main characters and how they are mysteriously connected. It’s full of twists and turns throughout. It’s very well written with interesting characters. I can usually figure out “who done it” by the ending of a book, but this one surprised me. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving this review

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: (8/10 stars) Three Perfect Liars is a mystery/thriller novel that was originally set to be released in America in its hardcover/ebook edition on August 18, 2020 (but was released early in June). It was written by Heidi Perks, best known for her previous novels like Her One Mistake (2018), Beneath the Surface (2016), and Come Back for Me (2019). The publisher writes that Three Perfect Liars is “a riveting new suspense novel about three ambitious women whose lives are turned upside down in the aftermath of a horrifying fire, which destroys a successful advertising agency and threatens to expose a tangled web of lies.”

PLOT RUNDOWN/BASICS: Laura is a very driven businesswoman, who recently had her first son. Only six months into her maternity leave, she’s decided to return to work as a marketing executive at the successful agency Morris & Wood. She’s the only female executive there, and she’s eager to get back to work and prove herself to be just as invaluable to the team as she was before...but she’s shocked to return and see that her temporary replacement, Mia, has been made permanent. Not only is Mia staying on as a director, but she was also given Laura’s best client, for keeps - despite the years of hard work and commitment Laura spent building that specific brand. This sends Laura on an obsessive downward spiral, determined to prove Mia’s betrayal and ulterior motives - even if it costs her everything.

Mia is thrilled to have been added to Morris & Wood’s executive team as only the second female director, right behind Laura, whom she has been filling in for the past six months. She’s not shocked to learn that Laura is furious Mia is staying on; after all, Mia had insisted in her interview that she only wanted the job temporarily and might be leaving the town behind when Laura returned. Only Mia knows why she so desperately needs to keep this job and stay on at the company...but Laura has developed an unhealthy and obsessive desire to find out why, and Mia is worried that she’ll succeed and ruin her plans.

Janie is the wife of Harry Wood, who’d chosen to build the huge glass offices of Morris & Wood five years earlier overlooking the Lymington River. Janie and their two young daughters had agreed to move down there from London once it was done - both for the more relaxed coastal lifestyle, and also to get away from Janie’s previous role as a defense barrister. In her years of work, Janie had put in incredibly long hours to defend men against charges of sexual assault and rape, among other things...and after a particularly terrible case, with a personal and lasting consequence, she’d been more than ready to walk away. But her relationship with Harry has slowly grown more distant over the past five years, and Jane is becoming dissatisfied with the direction her life has taken...and concerned with a mysterious figure who appears to be stalking her when she alone can see them.

All three women’s lives intersect in ways that will have lasting consequences - not just for themselves, but for everyone they know. Lies will be told, secrets will be spilled, and revenge will be had...but who is responsible for what? And will justice be done to right the wrongs they seek to avenge?

MY THOUGHTS: This was my first novel by Perks, but I do have Her One Mistake on my TBR bookshelf, and now I’m pleased to know I’ll likely enjoy that one. I sped through this book fairly quickly; it’s told from the viewpoints of three of the main characters (and thus the three main suspects in the fire), Laura, Mia, and Janie. In addition to alternating narrator viewpoints per chapter, Perks also uses brief snippets of police interviews to break up the narrative and increase the intrigue about what led up to the crime.

I found this book very reminiscent of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, where we know at least 50% of the ending from the start - a.k.a., there was a fire that destroyed Harry’s business, and one or more people were badly injured - but we don’t know who did it or why, and we hear each character’s perspective firsthand. The book covers the 8 weeks leading up to the fire, and it’s slowly revealed in the police interviews how each woman was chosen as a suspect and who was hurt/injured in the crimes. These discussions between the police and the other employees at Morris and Wood also give us a unique outside perspective on the women’s relationships and interactions.

As we see in the preceding months, Laura, Mia, and Janie ALL had their own unique motives to start the fire and hurt Harry’s business - but did one of them, and if so, which one? (We also know from the prologue, told from the unnamed narrator’s perspective on the night of the fire, that she did not intend to harm anyone and was horrified to learn that someone had been in the building when the fire was set.)

Perks writes each woman in such a way that her own story and concerns are very relatable. They all have people depending on them, and they feel incredible pressure from all sides of their lives to do what is right. Laura is a new mom going back to a very high-powered career only 6 months after her child is born (standard maternity leave in the UK is one year); she is concerned with disappointing her husband and son, and we see the disastrous way her ambition and her new motherhood clash. Mia feels responsible for both her sister and her mother, and her own murky motives for taking over Laura’s job reveal her true ambitions. And Janie gave up her demanding career for reasons both big and small, but home life is a hard adjustment for her, and her complicated relationship with Harry makes it feel even more restless and unfulfilling.

One of the overarching themes of the novel is the never-ending quest for perfection, and the idea that “having it all” as a mother with a career is not exactly what we might dream it to be. As Perks writes at one point, “Quite frankly Janie had already realized that no one should have ever promised women they could have it all, because they couldn’t, and the realization of it only made them feel like they were failing. The idea was laughable really.” The same was true for Laura; as she starts drowning in her own career expectations, we learn, “She had never expected to feel so desperate and vulnerable, and as she peered at her beautiful son, she hated that Chrissie and the other parent group mums were right. She couldn’t have everything, and she no longer knew what to sacrifice. All she did know was that she definitely wasn’t happy.”

This book touches on the themes of ambition versus family, and how the delicate balance between career and our closest relationships can be upset when we face the very real challenges life throws at us. Everything is not always perfect, nor is it meant to be, and the consequences of this juggling act become even more precarious when we feel like we have to lie and pretend that everything is okay - to our partners, our friends, or the world itself. This also affects our ability to develop close and “real” friendships with other women, both acquaintances and colleagues - who may seem to be competing with us for our own personal slice of the pie, when really they’re just trying to carve out their own in a space that needs to expand to include more driven female energy.

There is also plenty of references to the #MeToo era of workplace harassment and bullying, particularly to women. We see the very real and lasting consequences of rape and sexual harassment, sometimes brutally so; we also see how men who have been allowed to repeatedly commit these offenses can be brazenly rewarded for their success in the business world, even as they use their power to take advantage of their subordinates. Perks lets us know that you don’t have to be the man acting this way to participate in this type of culture; not speaking up or investigating claims, and refusing to acknowledge that something as simple as referring to all of the women in the office as “girls,” is enough to keep this type of culture pervasive and cause irreparable harm.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Gallery Books and Heidi Perks for the opportunity to read and review her latest thriller - 4.5 stars for a book that will keep you guessing!

Three women watch a company, Morris and Woods, burn to the ground - all have secrets they are keeping from each other and themselves and all have motives. There is Janie, wife of the company president Harry, who is struggling with her marriage and the real reason she left her job as a defense lawyer in London. Laura has returned to work at Morris and Woods and has found that the woman she hired to be her replacement, Mia, while she was on maternity leave has taken over her office and her job. Laura becomes obsessed with Mia at the detriment of her baby and husband. Mia has her own reasons but is keeping them close - who is she really and why is she at Morris and Woods?

Three women, three perfect liars, watching the building burn. The story is told from all three women's POVs, starting 2 months before the fire and interspersed with police interview transcripts from all the characters in the book. I found myself going back and forth as to who actually set the fire and was still surprised in the end! I liked all the different viewpoints and tidbits of the story that come out slowly as the story reaches its conclusion. This book also reinforces the difficult decision women make to try and have it all and the compromises that are made along the way. I loved this cover too!

Three Perfect Liars is an office drama that centers around a fire at Morris & Wood. Throughout the book we get to know the main suspects, Laura, Mia, & Janie. Three ambitious, driven women, each with a secret and perhaps a motive to kill.

This story is told from alternating points of view and includes police interviews that will keep you guessing. There is a lot of information to sift through. Each time I thought I had it worked out I’d realize I was overlooking something. I truly enjoyed Laura’s character. The angst she felt balancing a career and motherhood. The paranoia and loss of self were written with deep emotion.

Three Perfect Liars was a slow burn that proved to be difficult to put down.