Deadly Little Lies ,by Stephanie DeCarolis is a book about the sins of the past resurfacing years later for a group of rather unpleasant individuals.
Juliana Daniels is a high-flying attorney on the verge of being offered a partnership in the legal firm that she works for. Her excitement is tempered by her promotion seemingly being dependent on her committing a crime , and not least receiving an e-mail supposedly from a girl who died when they were at school together. With the mystery e-mailer seeming to know all of Juliana's carefully hidden secrets,even to her work problem that she'd told no-one about, she reaches out to her former closest schoolmates ,who it turns are also experiencing the same thing. Whoever is pretending to be the dead girl has the power to destroy all of them with their in-depth knowledge of the tragic event they were involved in at school as well as personal contemporary ones.

The book ramps up the tension nicely in the 2 timelines,the present where the former friends face ruin at the hands of their tormentor and their schooldays when they were Queen Bees of their college and ,to be blunt,quite horrible individuals. The reader knows they were involved in something very bad but all is only revealed after a slow build up.

This is a good story but I didn't find the ending very satisfactory, just a bit too neat and the characters went from being rather nasty and obnoxious students to rather nasty and obnoxious adults who I had trouble sympathising with .
That aside it's an entertaining read with a clever plot-line and a good way to spend a few hours.

A fairly typical story building from something bad that happened to a group of friends at uni many years ago and the secret coming back to haunt them.
The group of friends are a, slightly cringy, mean girl scenario with questionable behaviours and moral codes and their complex relationships during their college years. They are lead and influenced by a queen bee type character who rules the roost and is very controlling. The boat is rocked, in the present day as we get to know the various characters and their reaction when they start to receive messages from someone they thought was ‘gone’ and seemingly at the centre of the dark memories from the past. This evolves into thoroughly spooking then blackmail as the tension builds.
I quite liked the way the book flicked from past to present and both parts of the story progressed stealthily and fairly slowly because this added to the tension. I found it fairly hard to form empathy with any of the characters, however, or find any of them very likeable. This was compounded by the way some of them kept secrets from their, seemingly, close husbands and felt unable to share their worries, concerns and pasts with them. I also guessed the ending and am always a bit disappointed when this happens. Still definitely worth a read and I’d recommend.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for an advance copy.
This book is a variation on the common theme of things hidden in the past affecting people's lives.
The story follows the life of Jules a small-town girl who gains a scholarship to an Ivy League university. At university, she falls under the spell of Emily a girl from a more upper-class background, and slowly changes to fit in with her circle.
As time goes by she and the other members of the circle realise that their lives are being manipulated by Emily and they eventually split from her. but her actions still affect their lives with deadly consequences.
This is a story about the need young people have to fit in with their group and the lengths they will go to in order to stay in that group. The book held my interest to the end and the final reveal is a surprise.
The one criticism that I have is that the final chapter has the lives of the girls affected by the tragedy returning very quickly to a comfortable American suburban way of living whereas Emily's wealthy life collapses, but each reader must decide for themselves how much guilt attaches to each of the girls in the group.
At the age of 76, my very British male teenage years are long behind me but this book still resonated with me and brought back memories long buried of both acceptance and rejection and the feelings they engendered.

I NEVER start reviews like this but I feel like I need to….. if you liked In My Dreams I Hold A Knife and/or The Girls Are All So Nice Here, then stop reading this review and go buy this book!!!
Are we clear? Okay. So I’m obsessed with first person perspective. I hated the secrets she kept from her husband. It made me squirm. (Funny story- my autocorrect wanted to make squirm be squirt and I can’t stop laughing). There are characters I wanted to throat punch and characters I wanted to snuggle and tell them that everything will be okay. All of that said… I read AND LOVED this author’s first book but this one was so different. I’m nervous and super excited to see what she puts out next!!! Stephanie DeCarolis is my new favorite auto buy author!!!!

I'm afraid, for me, this was an OK read. It's about a woman trying to come to terms with a childhood event and is faced with it after many years of keeping it a secret. Unfortunately, I found the characters uninteresting and one dimensional and the storyline just OK.

It's an easy read, so, for those who fancy just losing themselves in a who/whydunnit, try it - there are plenty who have loved it, but, not really for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and HQ for the opportunity to preview.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle by HQ, HQ Digital and #NetGalley for my honest opinion. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Emails from beyond to grave? That’s where the thrills begin.

Juliana finally has the life of her dreams. Perfect husband. Great job. Until she receives an email from Jenny. The only problem is, Jenny is already dead. Juliana's there college friends also receive the email. Who's messing with them and what do they want?

Told in altering timelines of today and from her college days, this is the PERFECT stay up all night thriller that'll keep you up these long winter nights. It'll draw you in and keep you guessing until the very end. One of the very best thrillers of the year!

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

Thank you to NetGalley, Stephanie DeCarolis, and HQ Digital for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Summary:
Juliana has the perfect life: a loving husband, a shiniy new home, and a great career as an attorney. But when she gets a message from an old college friend: "Remember Me?" But Juliana knows, it can't be Jenny. Because Jenny is dead. So who is this person who seems to know her every secret - not only from college, but from her adult life, too? Qhy are they set out to destroy Juliana's life? And how is she connected to Jenny's death?

My opinion:
This book has strong Dark Academia vibes, which I loved so, so much! I love a good reunion thriller, and this one has everything I could have wished for - mysterious messages, a mean-girl-like clique and a suspicious death. I was hooked right from the beginning, and I couldn't put the book down until I knew what was going on. I loved to hate all the characters, except for Juliana's husband who was such a great person! I guessed a part of the twist, but the big part really took me by surprise. If you love a chilling dark academia thriller with secrets, lies, and suspicion, I highly recommend you check out this book!

This was my first book by Stephanie DeCarolis, and I will definitely read her first one, too! 😍

Parts of this book reminded me of:
- The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
- Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson

This book was so so good .. It kept you in suspense right till the end . What a fantastic read this was . I would highly recommend reading this .

College sure held a lot of secrets for the protagonist and her friends! This was a very twisted thriller that shows that all lies are destined to be revealed. A superb read!

Thank you to HQ and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Deadly Little Lies by Stephanie DeCarolis is like what would happen if the main characters in Pretty Little Liars went to college. I've never said this before in a review, but I would love to see this book as a movie. I think it would be a hit! The story revolves around Jules, an attorney about to make partner, who lives with her loving husband Jason in Manhattan. All of a sudden, she gets a text message, ostensibly from an friend from college who is dead. Could Jenny really have sent her that message? Or could it have been one of the other women in their former clique? What secrets are the four of them keeping from their college years?

Here is an exciting excerpt from the Prologue:

"We stand there, watchers in the trees, like a coven of witches. But we’ve traded in our dark cloaks for skin-tight dresses, flowing blonde curls, and swaths of red lipstick pulled over sparkling white teeth. We are the most dangerous kind of predator—the kind that is designed to look like prey.
...
“No one can ever know,” I say breathlessly, my voice escaping my throat in a jagged whisper.
I look around at the others, all staring straight ahead, the blue lights reflecting in their wide, glassy eyes. No one replies, but I know that they will follow my lead.
They always do."

Overall, Deadly Little Lies is an amazing college-based thriller with a splash of romance. It will appeal to fans of The Divines, The Girls Are All So Nice Here, and other thrillers that explore what happens when a former mean girl returns to her college years. The plot is told in alternating chapters that go back and forth between Jules' college years and the events in the present, where someone is threatening to unearth all of the secrets that were left behind in college. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed reading this book. It was unputdownable, and I couldn't stop reading until I reached the end. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of thrillers, you won't regret checking out this book when it comes out in November!

Loved loved loved this book!! Big fan of the author as well! Didn't want to put this book down! Great fast read. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review!

Think this plot is pretty much standard. I didn’t feel invested and although I finished it I wasn’t overly enthralled with it. I did talk to my friends about the plot so it must have got under my skin. I feel that this is the starting book for an author who will go on to great things.

Overall this was a well written book although I did find it a bit slow in parts of it and it did fail to grab my attention. For me, personally it wasn't an edge of seat thriller read and the characters were a bit bland and I couldn't really get on with them.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read this book.

My first novel by author Stephanie DeCarolis and I liked it very much.

We meet Jules who is an attorney in New York with a lovely husband and cosy apartment. One evening she receives a text that changes her life in that very instance. We uncover that many years ago Jules and her friends covered up a secret and they have all now got this terrifying text and reconnect. I loved the dynamic of the group of friends and flew through this novel.

The only negative for me was I found the story quite repetitive with regards to the amount of text regarding the background story of when this group of friends were younger but nonetheless a really good read.

If you love a good old whodunnit and a good thrilling plot then do pick this read up.

Thanks to Stephanie DeCarolis, NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.

I enjoyed this book, it was a steady read, a little predictable in places, i had guessed most of the twists.

Jules Daniels is happily married and on track to be made partner at her law firm. Everything seems perfect. But, then she receives an email. An email which claims to be from a dead girl, and the secret Jules has kept from her husband, the one which led her to cutting ties with the friends she made at university, is at risk of being revealed.

This story is told in time jumps, split between Jules’s first year at university, and her present day life 20 years later. The time split is handled well, and it’s never confusing even when the same characters are met in the present and in the past.

A tightly plotted story, the tension remained high throughout. The secret is gradually revealed, but the impact it has is felt throughout the book.

While she doesn’t always make the best decisions Jules is an easy to empathise with character. Her friends group is a kind of cross between Mean Girls and Pretty Little Liars, and head mean girl Emily is both unpleasant enough and charismatic enough to help drive the action.

An absorbing easy-to-read thriller.

When I started reading i was really intrigued by what was going on... Jules gets an email from Jenny Teller... but Jenny Teller is dead and it seems that Jules knows why. When Jules contacts her old college friends, they've all heard from Jenny - and worse - Jenny seems to know all of their secrets and fears. They all know she's dead and it seems they all have some responsibility for it. The book follows a 'then' and 'now' format as we are taken back to college days to find out exactly what happened and find out what Jenny Teller wants in the present day.

This book really held my attention for about 75%. Its fast paced and there is a lot going on. But as things came to a climax I did guess who Jenny Teller was but not why... and I never guess book endings! It was also a bit 'scooby doo' with the big reveal and explanation at the end that just all felt a bit unlikely. This book does make you think about how people change from their college days and the real difficulties associated with that time. But overall, none of these girls were very likable.

Overall I did enjoy reading this book and found it a real page turner but was disappointed with the end.

This book was a wonderful little mystery that kept me guessing until the very end.

Our story focuses on 4 college girls & flute between their lives then, and now as grown women. They are all hiding secrets of their own, as well as one secret that binds them.

It is this secret that threatens to tear their current lives apart.

This was a thoroughly well written book with believable characters. If you have the opportunity, you should definitely add this to your TBR pile

This book is brilliant! I can say nothing negative about this one!! Absolutely brilliant from beginning to end.