Tarryn Fisher's An Honest Lie combines cult story with fast-paced psychological thriller. Rainey gets sucked into a girls' trip to Vegas trying to please her Washington boyfriend, but she has secrets about her past that make her hesitant to step foot in Nevada. Once there, she can't help but sneak back to Friendship, the town that holds every one of her secrets. From there, things spiral out of control, and Braithe, one of her friends, goes missing. Rainey has to connect the dots from her past and the secrets that are being held from her now to save Braithe. This book was fun, exciting, surprising, and everything else a psychological thriller is supposed to be. Alternating timelines was a fantastic writing choice here and allowed readers to fully sympathize with Rainey. Every character was at least a little bit bad or flawed and it is almost impossible to disentangle yourself from the story once you've started.

Review for An Honest Lie • Pub Date: April 24

Will Rainy keep her past buried in secret? Or will her new friends, the ladies of Tiger Mountain in Washington state, pressure her to dig them up?

Read this if you enjoy…
Books about cults
Fast-paced thrillers
Girls trips to Las Vegas
A bad ass female MC

I went in blind and I was not disappointed! Overall, I give this thriller 4.5/5 ⭐️ Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! Put this on your TBR because tarryn fisher will not disappoint.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

It took me a minute to get into this book, but once I did I could not put it down.

Rainy is a beautiful artist who has moved to Tiger Mountain from NYC to be with her boyfriend Grant. Grant really pushes Rainy to be friends with the wives of the mountains, but Rainy really doesn't want to be close to these women. Rainy is full of secrets and soon all the wives and Grant will find them out.

This book was crazy-cults, drugs, murder, infidelity, palm reading, the list goes on. I loved it.

Fisher writes in the present and in flash backs. It's like 2 stories in one. It's a must read if you love psychological thrillers.

While I enjoyed certain aspects of this story, there were some things that didn't hit as well. Cult life is so easy to get sucked into, and is certainly scary, this one did it in a way that was more sneaky which elevated that scare factor for me. I felt like there were so many things that could have been better developed, and some ideas were as flushed out as they should have been. I also felt like parts of the story were just missing, leaving holes that needed to be filled. Overall, it was okay . I know I won't love everything an author touches, but I really wanted to like this one more.

I absolutely love Tarryn Fisher and consider her a auto buy author. This one did not disappoint. Fisher once again brings all the twists, turns and what the heck moments. I had no idea this was a cult story but it just added to my enjoyment

An Honest Lie, by Tarryn Fisher, is a suspenseful, rather gut-wrenching, angsty story about a girl who has a troubled past growing up in a cult, who makes her escape, and creates a new life for herself. She has worked so hard to subdue her fears and forge a new life with her boyfriend Grant, when she’s reluctantly forced to relent to a girls weekend away, despite her best judgment, to Las Vegas with a group of his friends from his former school days. What is supposed to be a fun, bonding getaway, turns into a nightmare of sorts as her past and present collide.

In this story, we get glimpses into two timelines, Rainey’s past, with her unstable upbringing with her mother and her time in a cult, as well as her present which takes places mainly in Vegas. The two timelines weave together to tell a compete story. The first half of the book lays the foundation and gives the background for the story, though it definitely builds tension and anticipation of what’s to come. The latter half is where most of the action takes place with the last third occurring fast and furiously, and the resolution coming a bit abruptly. This story is definitely wrought with tension and has its share of pulse-pounding moments. Admittedly, I found the cult elements difficult to read, but all-in-all, An Honest Lie is a well-told, page-turning thriller.

This was okay read. Tarryn gosher is a hit or miss for me i lived a few of her books. The ladt one she wrote not so much but this one was a step up from the wrong family. I enjoyed the plot and had me on the edge of my seat but it wasnt a 5 atar read for me i felt like it was missing something

An Honest Lie has an enticing premise, but the story just fell flat for me. The past and the present never really came together in an organic way at the novel's resolution. It was disjointed and hard to connect with the main character or side characters.

I wanted to love this book. It has so many features of an author's craft that I enjoy: 2 different time lines/perspectives, a cliquey mean-girls group, a cult setting, a girls' trip to Vegas.

It started off very strong but somewhere along the way it lost its luster. It did keep my interest and I was invested in the characters from the cult timeline, but it still didn't quite connect with me and I even found the end kind of difficult to follow. I will definitely read her next one. This one just missed the mark for me.

4.25 Stars

A year ago Rainy moved from her artsy Manhattan city life to Washington State to be with her boyfriend Grant.
With Grant came a nice, quiet life on a mountain and a bunch of friends. Even a girl lunch every week - which is not really her thing - but she goes for Grant.
And now they're asking her to join them on their girl trip to Vegas.
But she can't go to Vegas. Never again.
Why? We don't know.
But in the end she'll go - for Grant - and her past and present meet in some very dangerous ways....

What will happen with Rainy?
What happened to her in the desert 20 years ago?
READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT!

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Well, that was... great. I really enjoyed reading it.
But... the blurb is completely ... wrong/misleading.
The kidnapped friend doesn't happen until waay more than half the book is through!
Someone needs to make a better blurb for this story!
Because now I feel that I can't say anything about what happened because nothing about what happens is mentioned in the blurb - only that Braithe disappears. And I'm not even at that point in the book. I'm writing this now that I'm at around the 66% mark!

But still - I really like the story and Rainy.
We so want that happy end for her. But she still has a lot of healing to do - about whatever happened to her as a teenager.
This book is very sad and heartbreaking, but also hopeful and sweet and a bit funny. And we have some very awful people and mysterious and suspensy moments.

We also do this back in time thing that I hate in books. One chapter NOW and the next chapter THEN. I don't know why I don't like that - in the end I always love the books and I love the back in time chapters, but I always hate it when I start a book and it says THEN on the first page. 🤔
There were also some tiny plotholes and some wrong ages/times/timelines that bothered me a little.
And some of the writing is a bit weird - as if Tarryn grew up somewhere where they use very different expressions. But that could just be me being a weird reader. 🤣
And then I wanted a tiny bit more epilogue - or even a tiny bit more Grant. Or more relationship. I know this is not a romance - it's more a Women's Fiction Hear Me Roar thingy - but still - a tiny bit more Grant to make him a bit more likable for the reader.

But anyway...
Great cover. Great book. I wouldn't mind seeing this on Netflix one day!

► AN HONEST LIE was a heartbreaking and suspensy YA + Adult Women's Fiction Therapy Session Thrillery kind of book. I loved reading it! Run to your nearest amazon for your own Rainy - she'll be sold out in no time!

An Honest Lie will take you on a ride that is emotionally difficult but so worth it in the end. If you love books that are a little tough to read but have an ending that is over the top, you will love Fisher’s newest thriller.

Rainey has a troubled past but she is trying to leave it all behind when she moves to Washington State with her boyfriend Grant. Grant has friends and Rainey is trying to fit in so when she gets invited on a girls trip to Vegas, she is hesitant to go but ultimately says yes. Her last begins to reveal itself and it seems like everyone is acting strange during the trip. Are these women really her friends or is something more sinister going on?

The revenge on multiple sides, the guessing of who is involved and who isn’t, and the ultimate ending is what makes this book a 4.5 star read for me. I love Rainey and her attitude. So many times women are belittled for just saying the truth but Rainey does not care. Her resilience is shown throughout and I love how Fisher creates small twists and turns to keep you guessing on the ending.

My first book by Tarryn Fisher, yay!
I still haven't read The Wrong Family or The Wives by her but I know they’re pretty popular books on bookstagram.

This is a good domestic thriller overall and there’s one subject in here that I’m reaaaaally interested in: cults.

The chapters switch between Rainy’s present and past.

When she was young, her mom made them join a community (errr…cult) after her dad died. The cult is clearly based on The Branch Davidians (If you’ve watched Waco, David is exactly the person I pictured in this book).

I didn't really care for Rainy’s present chapters so I just “skimmed” to go back to the chapters about the cult lol

Overall, a very predictable but enjoyable read.

I went into this book blind, not having a clue what to expect. This author definitely has a way to suck the reader in and wait with baited breath to find out how the story will unfold.

No just. No

I loved her old books. Mudvein is probably one my most favorite indie books of all time. A I guess I’m looking for that in each of her new ones. But this was a cult like book , which tbh has been done so much lately. And it just didn’t hit home with me.
It doesn’t mean it’s not for anyone else
DNF AT 30%

What a fun quick read!!! It took me a minute to connect to the characters but this was a good thriller

All I can say is wow! I was not expecting anything that this book
brought to the table and it was definitely thrilling!
The plot was unique and while I thought I wouldn't like the main
character, I feel her actions were justified.

Holy cow this was a highly anticipated read and it did not disappoint i loved the now and then dual. Timeline it was s interesting to listening to the backstory while the present day story was unraveling and then when they connected did this lnovel ever explode it was intense, emotional wild ride

Normally I love Tarryn Fisher, but her last two books we just not doing it for me. I did enjoy this novel until the last 3/4 of it. The ending felt rushed and unbelievable. I feel like Braithe and Tara did not get enough p9unishment for how crappy they acted. I also felt that Rainy's plan was just so far fetched. If she had slipped that 50 to the clerk, why wouldn't the clerk have done something sooner? I wanted more justice. I wanted an explanation from Grant. I wanted an apology from Tara and Braithe. Again, it was a great plot line until the end where it was a let down for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc and give my honest review. I will still be purchasing this novel for my library's collect.

Thriller and a book with cult-ish vibes? Yes please. I feel like so many new release thrillers have the same general plot these days so the most refreshing thing about this book was the originality. I do feel like I’m some parts it felt a little disjointed but not enough that I didn’t still enjoy reading it. Dual-timeline books are some of my favorite and so I was really happy that was incorporated but I do feel like that contributed to the disjointed feeling because the “then” timeline was more interesting. That being said, it was still really good and unlike anything else I’ve read!

Loved this book - another winner by Tarryn Fisher! Past and present mix in a dual-timeline story where main character Rainey's past in a cult catches up with her, and old wrongs must be set right. Non-stop action, especially at the end, left me reading this book way too late into the night. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an honest (!) review.