3 stars
Some people might consider this a low rating, well for me it isn't.
This type of book, contemporary non-literary fiction is hard in my opinion to be a five star.
I enjoyed my time with it, it tackled quite a lot of topics regarding family, marriage and most importantly microagressions labeled as racist for the people affected whilst seen merely as a joke or a harmless generalisation to the ones unaware how harmful and impactful these types of behaviours may be.

I think it was a good enough debut novel! I liked that the chapters served as a countdown to the big deadline and the shorter and shorter chapters towards that dreaded day made for a pacing that worked really well to feel the anxiety of Faiza, the protagonist.

Overall, I would recommend it for a book written by a WOC all the while underlining that the story is about middle and upper class highly educated people as it may not be everyone'c cup of tea.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Head of Zeus for offering me the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this one.

Very enjoyable read about people and their relationships to each other which I love.

I read this book quickly because I really wanted to know what was happening and I felt for the characters.

A great insight in to what it’s like to try and integrate in to a society.

I stayed up late to finish it and it was so worth it. The writing is fast paced, so you'll never want to stop. Even when I had to stop reading, my mind was always going back to the book. I love the characters. The plot twists were well placed and properly resolved, the dialogue is so vivid, you can almost hear them.
This novel has the right amount of tension to entertain. I can't wait to recommend this novel to everyone!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Honestly, I didn't enjoy the first third of this book. I found the characters one dimensional and annoying. But I persevered, and I'm glad I did, as I found myself becoming more and more invested in Faiza's story.

Faiza is married to Tom, and they have three children. When Tom loses his job, their lives spiral. Faiza has spent their emergency fund - all £75 000. And she can't bring herself to confess this to Tom. She is desperate to try to replace it before he finds out. She gets a job while Tom descends further and further into depression. They're distant from one another. When she becomes close to a collleague and he helps her out financially, she discovers he has ulterior motives.

As Faiza becomes more and more desperate, she is faced with no choice but to tell Tom all. Will their marriage survive all the lies?

In the closing scenes the tension ramps up when a man jumps from a building. It could be one of three people from the story, or it could be a stranger.

Overall I thought this was an enjoyable read, with increasing tension and drama that kept me reading into the night to discover how things would turn out.

This book just got better and better as the lies unravelled and Faiza found out that she had to tell more lies to stop her husband Tom from finding out what she’d gone and ruining the lives of their three children.
Emotions ran high throughout this book as I went from feeling disgust at her betrayal to pity for the way she was treated at work.
A story all about keeping up appearances and trying to juggle life and all the aspects that make it up.

This is a brilliant story, one that had me engrossed from start o finish. It has such good pacing to it and it reflects the spiral and panic as Faiza tries to keep juggling various problems. Cultural differences become a problem and Faiza is not the only one to notice this, rather than confront it head-on, the author uses Faiza to approach this in a different way. There are several eye-opening moments in the book and not just the more obvious ones either.

This vibrant contemporary novel focuses on what happens when a small lie gets out of control, and could ultimately affect the foundations of the marriage between Tom and Faiza, an interracial couple. The troubles in their relationship don't stem from their differences though, rather they stem from money. Tom has just been made redundant and Faiza has spent all their savings on things that will help her fit in with the in-crowd of fellow Wimbledon mums. Faiza keeps this a secret though from everyone, and tells lies and cuts corners in order to keep her family in tact, but at what stake?

Weaving together family drama, a complex web of lies and a return to working in finance, we see Faiza struggle through a mess of her own making. There are nerve-wracking moments, gripping segments and twists aplenty. It's a clever look at the way financial ruin and pressures of trying to keep up with your peers can lead to a downfall. The fast pacing and Faiza's constant lies and schemes made me feel tense and uneasy. As the lies stack up, the tension mounts and I found myself tearing through the pages as I needed to know what happened next (and was particularly tearing my hair out and going JUST TELL HIM WOMAN, STOP LYING!!)

One aspect I really enjoyed reading about was the privileged circle of wealthy Wimbledon mums and wives that Faiza frequents with, and also the insight into racial injustice that Faiza faces from some of these women and in the workplace. Her culture isn't used as a plot device, instead Faiza is a well developed character with her own thoughts, ideas and a narrative and she just so happens to be a Pakistani-British Muslim woman. Whilst focusing mainly on her struggle with money, it does also look at the themes of identity and how her race and culture affects her everyday life, and even touches on the social pressures and questioning she faces from being married to a white male, and raising 3 biracial children. It's a thought-provoking delve into spiralling desperation and the lengths a woman would go to in order to protect her family and save her marriage.

I'd describe this as a fantastic piece of suspenseful contemporary fiction and whilst there are moments that breach a tad too far on the melodramatic for my liking, it is nonetheless a compelling read and a great debut novel!

I wanted to like this more than I did, sorry. Faiza is a busy mother looking after three children, her elderly parents, and her banker husband- what if she dips into the emergency fund every now and again, they can afford it. Until the day that her husband is made redundant and she realises that she's managed to blow £75K on trinkets and school fees. Trying various means to fill the financial void before her husband and friends find out, her lack of honesty was really frustrating to me, as was her unwillingness to give anything up - even in her leanest days, they would still be buying take outs and getting taxis. And the entitled attitude that her friends have - argh, so annoying.
Thanks for the chance to read it, Im sure others have enjoyed it more than me jugding by the comments!

*Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review*
I really don't know what to think about this one as it's not the type of books I tend to read. There were things I liked about it such as fast pacing, the setting and how the story was directed. However, I didn't fall for these characters (especially Faiza) and some of its aspects were unbelievable. Nevertheless, it's quite a good debut novel and I think many people will enjoy it.

Really enjoyed this fast-paced domestic drama with an unusual finances-based premise. Really refreshing too to see a British-Pakistani as a protagonist in very commercial women’s fiction. Interesting themes of class, race and social expectation - I particularly engaged with Faiza’s worries for her children growing up across two cultures and how her upbringing differed so much from theirs. Would recommend.

Have you ever wanted to jump into a book and shake some common sense into a character? Well, that’s exactly how I felt reading this. Faiza is in huge trouble, and instead of telling the truth, she keeps lying. After spending all of her family’s savings and now must try to replace it without her husband finding out. To make matters worse, her husband has been fired from his job.

Many scenarios that Faiza ends up in don’t seem entirely plausible, especially when getting loans from the bank without certain documentation. However, many situations that do happen are what women would go through daily. I thought that Ali-Afzal wrote about the sexual harassment that Faiza suffers honestly. Faiza’s fear and terror during this is one that many women can relate to. The author highlights some other themes in the book, such as male mental health, suicide, debt, and racism. The blatant and horrific racism that Faiza encounters is shocking, and the fact that many of the other characters in the book brush past it are disgusting.

I’ve seen many who don’t like Faiza as a character, but I think that she’s quite loveable. For me, she was a character who would do anything for her family. At many times during the book, she is utterly lost, but she never stops trying to right her wrong. (Apart from doing the one thing that could help, telling the truth). Faiza’s journey through this book makes her realise that she doesn’t need money or doing anything to fit in with everyone else. Her character growth through this book is emotional and will have the reader hooked from the start.

Fazia tells endless lies, including to herself, especially about money. She has virtually emptied her joint savings emergency account when her husband announces he has been made redundant and that they will need that money to tide them over for the next few months. The book is mainly about how she lies to him about why she can’t access their money and how she tries to replace it by first getting a job in a boutique and then in a high flying city job. I found the most interesting part to be about the casual racism from her “friends” and I would have like to have seen this addressed more. Overall, an interesting book which gives an insight into how some people do not understand budgeting.

An interesting book the synopsis grabbed my attention.

I enjoyed the fact it was multi cultural I found this very interesting the way it was written.

I wasn’t sure about Fazia the main character at first but I grew to like her.

An easy read

Faiza and Tom and their three children live what seems like a charmed life in Wimbledon. Their house is beautiful, Tom's job in the City is well paid, and Faiza has finally been assimilated into the group of yummy mummies with their expensive handbags, glossy haircuts, and innate sense of privilege.

But when Tom is made redundant without even the fallback of a decent redundancy package, Faiza's life begins to unravel. Because Tom doesn't know that the £75k in their savings account has gone, blown by Faiza in an attempt to keep up with the lifestyle of her fancy friends. Now Faiza has just six weeks to replace the money before Tom finds out. She's risking everything - her family, her marriage and her life. And the stakes may just be too high for Faiza to come out the winner...

I loved this twisty little domestic thriller, and felt an increasing sense of desperation and helplessness along with Faiza as her world and her family life unravelled further with every lie. While I love a dark and murderous thriller, I think domestic thrillers like this one are sometimes even more terrifying - books in which a likeable character makes one wrong move and then spirals into a series of ever-worsening consequences, a this-could-happen-to-anyone kind of story,

I liked that the characters were fully fleshed out with histories and backstories I believed in, and was rooting for pretty much every character (not you Julia) to find a way out by the end. It's a skilfully written and beautifully plotted book - I think my blood pressure went up several notches while reading! Already looking forward to reading the next book from this author.

Thank you to Netgalley, and to the publisher, who granted me a free ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Faiza is a multi layered personality, with multi layered problems. A Brit Pak married to an English guy who adores her and she him, raising 3 children in a world that is so different to her childhood. Essentially a yummy mummy, affluent, popular she tries to navigate herself through problem after problem, initially created by herself trying to keep up with the peer pressures of her little society and then making bad choice after bad choice. Initially I disliked Faiza alot, she lacked trust and her bad decisions just made her look worse. As the story went on I was able to understand her abit more, felt a bit sorry for her and then horrified with the situations she found herself in, I found myself rooting for her amd wanting everything to be OK.
I'm not sure this story is for everyone. I'm giving it 4 stars because I was so intrigued to know where the story would go next and essentially was hooked. A great first novel.

Thought-provoking and brilliantly plotted drama!

Would I Lie to You? is not a typical kind of read for me, but I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to read it, because I just fell in love with it! From the moment I met Faiza I was instantly drawn to her character. She’s completely relatable, immediately likeable and quintessentially a good human being that you want to root for. Whilst she makes some truly questionable decisions, it is clear that her love for her family is pure and all-consuming. What is also clear is that she is trapped by the social circle she lives in and the circumstances of her life. This makes Would I Lie To You? richly thematic and I can fully understand the claims that this read is perfect for book clubs - there’s so much to discuss!

I really enjoyed Ali-Afzal’s writing style and I found that I was immediately drawn into the narrative. Faiza is a beautifully constructed character, with multiple layers, a complex history and both deep-rooted flaws and admirable strengths. Similarly, the cast of supporting characters are equally well developed and add a depth of realism to the plot. Faiza’s husband Tom is both a loving and idyllic husband, whilst also dealing with the mental and reputation-scarring impact of losing his high profile job. Faiza’s circle of fellow school mums are a breadth of admirable and rotten personality traits, authentically exploring the complexities of “friendships” that are somewhat forced due to circumstance. This novel is very much about Faiza’s journey: of self-discovery, her relationship (with both Tom and her true friends), her acceptance of her past and moving past her hang-ups. As a reader, we accompany her on her journey and it is truly compulsive stuff. Facing a multitude of challenges, set backs, anxiety-inducing situations and gut-wrenching consequences, I couldn’t stop turning the pages until I knew how Faiza’s story ended.

I was also kept turning the pages because this novel is full to the brim of thought-provoking themes. Ali-Afzal explores privilege, wealth, race, social standing, peer pressure, image, heritage and marriage. It’s hard to discuss all of these in a review, without giving away too much. All I will say is that all of these themes are expertly navigated throughout the plot in various ways. This novel is a rich tapestry and one that I am confident I could read again and experience it in new ways. It’s hard to believe that this is Ali-Afzal’s debut, as it is constructed in such an accomplished way. The narrative builds tension throughout, coming to an explosive crescendo in the final chapters. I didn’t know where this novel would land in its concluding chapters and there were some genuinely gasp-inducing moments. However, all of the narrative strands are woven neatly together in the end and there is a real sense of enduring hope.

I highly recommend this novel if you love depth of character and a tense but plausible plot. I can’t wait to see what Ali-Afzal brings us next!

Overall I enjoyed this book although I found it hard to warrm to the main character Faiza. At times I actually disliked her as she seemed shallow and a spendthrift keeping up with friends and neighbours in order to fit in. In the end though I did sympathise with her although I didn't understand her.

The basic premise was too far fetched as in the amount of money Faiza got through without ever stopping to heck how much. Plus how did her husband not realise this was going on? So not for me. I cannot comment on the racist issue as I have no experience and therefore not in any position to offer an opinion.

When her husband Tom loses his job in finance, he stays calm. Something will come along, and in the meantime, they can live off their savings. But Faiza starts to unravel. Raising the perfect family comes at a cost - and the money Tom put aside has gone. When Tom's redundancy package ends, Faiza will have to tell him she's spent it all.

Unless she doesn't...

It only takes a second to lie to Tom. Now Faiza has six weeks to find £75,000 before her lie spirals out of control. If anyone can do it, Faiza can: she's had to fight for what she has, and she'll fight to keep it. But as the clock ticks down, and Faiza desperately tries to put things right, she has to ask herself: how much more should she sacrifice to protect her family?

This is a brilliant story of a woman who is trying to keep her family together but cannot face telling her husband the truth so keeps the lies going. you feel a real empathy for Faiza as it starts to fall apart I was gripped and finished the book in 2 days.

Would I Lie to You? takes what seems a highly implausible scenario, racks up the levels of improbability and keeps us at full throttle until we eventually stop. It was a read that I found myself getting through fairly quickly, but I’m afraid the whole premise was just so bizarre that I felt like reading this was akin to nothing I can put my finger on.
The story begins with what could be a fairly common experience…married couple are not entirely honest with one another about the state of their finances. However, once we get details it seems so preposterous that I couldn’t get my head around where this was going.
Our main character, Faiza, has a banker husband and their children go to private school. They mix in circles where certain behaviours are expected, and when we first see her she’s at a Botox party. Her husband calls with the shock news that he’s been laid off, so money is going to be problematic. Even more so when she lets us know she has managed to spend over £75,000 (their emergency savings) without telling her husband and they are thirty days away from being broke.
What follows was certainly a lesson in getting people to think about their finances, but with such crazy sums being focused on it was so beyond the experience of many that I wonder if it becomes less effective.
In order to try and maintain her life, Faiza begins looking for ways to remedy the situation. However, nothing offers the quick fix required. She gets a job, but this is fraught with issues when we learn one of her new senior team is closer to home than she realised.
Within a short space of time we’d had a lot thrown at us. This woman’s environment was pretty toxic. She ended up learning the value of honesty and good friends, but the whole thing was so far-fetched I couldn’t really take it seriously. Somewhat caricature villains, depressingly superficial toxic white women and a rather tacked-on exploration of racial identity. It felt like too many things were thrown into the mix.
Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication.