Thank you to the author, publisher, and Net Galley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I Love the Truly Devious Series and could not wait for this one to come out. It did not disappoint. I love Stevie and her gang of friends. The story flowed well with lots of twists that kept me guessing. It was a great mystery and I loved how Stevie fit into it. The ending though---WHAT was that???
I will be purchasing this for our library. Our students love Stevie Bell and her gang.

I’m so disappointed. I didn’t realize that this was a series when I requested the ARC. The reviews look great and the story seems really interesting. I plan to read soon but need to read the first books in the series first.

Thank you NetGelley for the ARC. I really enjoyed this YA mystery! I am guilty of having not read the prior novels in the series, but luckily it didn’t impact reading this title. For a YA it read more mature, and many times I forgot I was even reading a YA, which I loved!

Keep tracking of the all the characters was a little confusing at times, but overall, it was clear enough. I really enjoyed this author and I look forward to reading the other titles in the series.

Would recommend this title to teens.

What a gorgeous novel full of loveable characters and a storyline that I couldn't put down. This one is a must read!

Nine Liars is a must-read for fans of the four previous books in the "Truly Devious" series. This time, Stevie and her friends go to London under the cover of a hastily-constructed school project (but really so Stevie can see David). They meet David's friend Izzy who tells them about a double-(AXE!)-murder cold case from the 90s that occurred at a country estate where her aunt was staying with eight of her friends. Stevie (of course) can't help investigating and things proceed from there.

I love this series, and this was a particularly enjoyable entry. I do wish there was more about Janelle, Vi, and Nate, and less about David, who I like less and less as the books go on. He's the worst and SO exactly who straight teenage girls are programmed to be into - good lord, did I love his brand of angsty nonsense when I was 15 (one million years ago). Sigh. Anyway -- the mystery in this one is fun and kept me guessing. I'm already looking forward to finding out what happens in book six (please let there be a book six).

Maureen Johnson does it again!

Stevie Bell and crew find themselves in London, visiting David at Cambridge. While there, one of David's friends asks Stevie to look into a double homicide from the 1990s.

In 1995, nine friends from a college comedy troupe head to a country estate to celebrate graduation. During a drunken game of hide and seek, two of them disappear and are later found dead. Can Stevie solve the murder before it has disastrous consequences in the modern day?

Stevie is charming as always in this delightful fifth adventure. Maureen Johnson has created one of the great detectives of our era and I can not wait to see where she takes us next.

This was another excellent mystery starring Stevie Bell and her friends from Ellingham Academy.

It's October of their senior year and her friends are busy planning their college applications. Janelle and Vi want to go to college close to each other but not at the same college. So Janelle has made a spreadsheet... Nate is furiously writing every time Stevie sees him which is unusual because he has been avoiding writing since his book was published when he was a young teen.

Stevie is at loose ends. She doesn't know what she wants to do for college. She's solved some mysteries and none of the emails about new unsolved crimes are interesting her. And her boyfriend David is studying in England for a semester which means it's harder to communicate with him.

When David calls up and proposes that group come to London because he has a friend with an unsolved mystery, they are all eager to go each for their own reasons. They convince the school leader that this will be a great educational opportunity.

In 1995, a group of newly graduated Cambridge students who have been best friends since freshman year go to spend a final week at one of the group's family home. During a drunken game of hide and seek, two of the nine students are brutally murdered. No murderer has ever been found.

Izzy, David's new friend, wants to get Stevie involved because one of the nine was her aunt who said some questionable things about the murder while under the influence of pain killers after knee surgery. Shortly after Izzy brings her friends to her Aunt Ange's to talk about the crime, Ange disappears.

I loved that way the story wove events from 1995, various police reports, and current day activities together. I especially enjoyed the sections from Stevie's point of view because she is a very interesting character. I liked that her inner uncertainties are so different from her outer competence. I loved the setting which ranged from London's tourist sites to a grand English manor.

Maureen Johnson has done it again!

Stevie Bell is back for another stand-alone mystery. This time she's in London, ostensibly to visit her boyfriend David, when she gets roped into helping David's friend Izzy. Izzy's aunt was once part of an exclusive group of nine friends who were also a theater troupe. For their college graduation, they all went to a countryside manor owned by the family of one of the friends. During a game of hide-and-seek, two of the friends were brutally murdered in a woodshed. Now, twenty-seven years later, Izzy brings Stevie to meet her aunt and help solve the case.

I loved so much of this story, especially the setting--London? English countryside? A manor on a sprawling estate? Count me in! I would say the biggest detraction for me was that the love story between Stevie and David took a much more central role in this one, which wasn't my favorite. Honestly, I've just never liked David and Stevie together and I've always felt that their storyline was a distraction in the novels, but it was also always relatively small in comparison to the larger mystery plot. Not so much in the case of Nine Liars. In this book, their relationship is given almost as much space on the page as the mystery is. With that said, I did become a bit more invested in their relationship in this installment.

I'm eager for the next novel, as I'm sure another is coming based on the way this one ended. I hope Stevie stays in London, for my sake--I want more YA British mysteries!

Stevie Bell is what I wished Nancy Drew had been. Stevie is earnest, slightly awkward, makes mistakes, suffers from bouts of insecurity and anxiety, and loves her friends. She is relatable and hilarious at the same time. You need to get to know her.

“Nine Liars” is the latest installment in the Truly Devious series that features Stevie and her friends as they solve a mystery. This time they are visiting London (and Stevie’s boyfriend) and a country manor house where they end up knee-deep in a decades-old murder mystery. Stevie unleashes her well-honed detecting skills to find the killer, but the crew is running out of time before their flight home. Will this case prove to be too complex even for Stevie?

There is much to like about this story and its main characters. Though this is the first in the series that I have read, author Maureen Johnson provides just enough backstory to bring new readers along for the ride. Elements of classic English murder mysteries are sprinkled throughout. Elements of classic teen sleuth stories are there as well (such as the parents who are unseen, but supportive adults).

This book is great for teen and adult mystery lovers. I will be recommending this book to my students and will suggest the entire series to the Bookworms (more on them later, but let’s just say they are buying LOTS of books for a school library). I will be reading the rest of the series (and I SO hope there are more installments).

Thanks #NetGalley and Katherine Tegan Books for an advance reader’s e-copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. “Nine Liars” arrives on shelves at the end of the month.

Oh man, I have to start with the end. I am BROKEN. I need more right now, and it better go in the direction I need it to go.
I love love love The Truly Devious series and have read it over multiple times. I will take any more Stevie stories any day.
I miss being at the school, but do realize we have spent a lot of time in that setting and don't have a whole lot more the explore. Traveling to London did give a dark academia feel, which helped move toward the original Truly Devious style.
The development on Stevie's relationship with David and trying to figure out long-distance showed the growth of both characters.
I thought the mystery was good, enough twists and turns to keep the interest and the story moving quickly.
I need more Stevie NOW!

To say I was excited to jump back into the Truly Devious world with Stevie and her friends was an understatement— I loved the original trilogy and really enjoy Maureen Johnson’s writing style. I don’t read much YA contemporary but something about her combination of gripping mystery and emotional coming of age has always really resonated with me. However, this isn’t going to be the most positive of reviews as I really feel like Nine Liars and The Box in the Woods were pretty unnecessary after the perfection of the original trilogy..

I’ll start off with what I liked. The mystery itself was gripping and I honestly didn’t see the twist coming. With it being dual timeline and not directly effecting Stevie and the crew, the sense of threat wasn’t really there, but I thought the mystery side of the story was played out very well and (mostly) believably. I enjoyed the English setting and thought Johnson did a good job of portraying an extremely close friend group who become so obsessed with each other that things turn violent. I find these character dynamics extremely compelling and it was portrayed in a new and interesting way in Nine Liars.

Onwards to what I didn’t quite like and buckle in, because it’s a lot. Firstly; it really felt like so much of the characterisation that Johnson had built up over books was flushed down the drain in this book. Namely, Nate and David. Nate felt like a caricature of himself; there to pop in the occasional comment or bounce off Stevie’s ideas off of. I really wanted to see more of his reticent, careful personality but instead we got a little shadow who said approximately four words though out the course of the book. In fact, all of the original characters just felt a bit off and I’m not entirely sure how to describe how. And now we come to David. I know he’s not universally liked, which is fair, he is immature and callous, but I do really enjoy him as a character. But man— did Maureen Johnson really have to do him like that?! I don’t want to spoil anything but it’s so unbelievably obvious Johnson wants to turn readers against him. I understand cliff hangers for the point of getting readers to pick up the next book, but the ending of Nine Liars might have just signalled the end of me picking up further books. It was just so unnecessary. Not unlike the book as a whole, if I’m going to brutally honest

I really don’t like leaving harsh reviews but when an established author with a well loved series continues to drag it out at the expense of the characters, it really rubs me the wrong way. I’m not sure if I’ll pick up future books or recommend the series past The Hand on the Wall.

I feel as though I couldn't possibly not love one of these books although the Stevie/David romance aspect was wearing on me a bit.
I don't remember it irritating me in past books so maybe it was just the ending of this one that pushed me over the edge. Other then that I enjoyed the book. I liked the flashback to 95 chapters and found the nine to be an interesting group and I will say the murderer wasn't even on my suspect list so that was a total surprise.
I'm a bit nervous as the crew is applying to colleges and the idea of them splitting up is giving me anxiety. Just wouldn't be the same without all of them.

Unfortunately, I think I’m done with this series. The last two books have not captured my attention and imagination like the original Truly Devious.

YA mystery + dual timeline + London setting!

Stevie is in her senior year at Ellingham Academy and it has not been a good year. Her boyfriend is studying in London & her best friends are obsessed with college applications. But Stevie feels a little lost and unsure about the future.

Her boyfriend invites Stevie & her best friends to join him in London for a visit. He introduces her to his friend Izzy, and Izzy introduces Stevie to a double-murder cold case that needs to be solved.

In 1995, nine best friends went to a country house and played a drunken game of group hide-and-seek. Two were murdered. It was assumed to be a burglary, but one of the remaining seven saw something.

Someone is lying. Seven suspects. And Stevie is determined to figure out what happened.

Read if you love...
- YA
- London
- mystery/thriller
- queer side characters
- dual timeline

Whelp, shit. This one was absolutely wild, as per usual for our cold-case crime-solving heroine Stevie and her best friends!

I loved the dual timeline with the past cold-case from the 90s & the present day with Stevie working to solve this case. The nine friends in the 90s (& in the present day chapters) are fascinating and their lives are so woven together and messy - dating and hooking up and breaking up within each other, and everyone knowing everything about everyone.

I loved that once again, Stevie is joined by her best friends - Nate, Janelle, Vi, and David! And I love how their storylines are woven into the story. Nate & Stevie’s best friendship and the easy banter & sass is my favorite.

The ending. I’m bitter and pissed we have to wait until the next book to find out.

While this can technically be read as a standalone, I’d definitely recommend reading the Truly Devious trilogy & The Box in the Woods to understand the MCs better!

Trigger warnings: murder; panic attacks

I love Marureen Johnson’s books. As much as I wanted to read this , I did not want the book to be over. Her covers are always so beautiful also.

I love this cast of characters and I love getting to return to the world of Truly Devious! It was so cool getting to see the whole gang go abroad and solve an international cold case this time around. This author's writing is so good, I always fly through her books. The characters continue to be complex and show growth, even as they've been developing over the course of a now 6 book series. This was a great read and YA mystery fans should definitely pick it up!
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

⭐️⭐️⭐️
3 stars — 5 stars or the murder mystery, 1 star for the characters
My least favorite of the series so far, but I still liked it a lot! I think for me this was more of a page-turner than the others because the story seemed to happen really fast. I devoured this in two sittings during jet lagged nights where I couldn’t sleep!

The characters are garbage. I really liked the mystery and the London experience plots, but I didn’t love the book overall because I couldn’t relate to or understand any of the characters. (Except Janelle and Nate. They are gems)
- David is a SCUMBAG. His and Stevie’s relationship still makes zero sense to me. I do not understand. Stevie + David ≠ Love
- We’re five books in and I still know nothing about Vi
- Stevie is an awful friend and a liar. I applaud her dedication and determination, but I don’t always love her methods of doing things.
- Janelle and Nate are so precious and kind and I adore them
- I wouldn’t want to go near any of the Nine with a ten foot pole, except maybe Theo or current-day Sebastian. They’re all so annoying and unlikeable in 1995. I kind of like them in the present day scenes when they’ve all grown up and calmed down, but they’re all such drunken messes in the olden days. I loved the hide and seek scenes that flashed back to the night of the murders in 1995, but I would’ve loved them even more if I actually liked the characters playing the game.
- Doorknob the cat was my favorite character lolol
- I adored seeing the Ellingham group explore London; they got to learn so much and see so many amazing sights! Sometimes the amount of description for the places felt a little overboard, but as an Anglophile I appreciated it haha

The ending was really unexpected! I genuinely did not see it coming at all who the murderer was. The plot’s pacing was excellent, and the clues kept me guessing until the very end.

Overall: I enjoyed this! Not as much as the rest of the Truly Devious books, but it is definitely worth the read, especially if you’re a 90s fan. I really loved how the murders happened in a closed off area, so it was very Agatha Christie-esque how Stevie narrowed down who it could’ve been. Hint hint, there may or may not be a toothbrush involved in helping Stevie crack the case;)

This one took me a bit longer to read than the others in the series. It is still very good, but I felt like it was more of a slow burner. Once it got going, it was very interesting and had me turning pages. If you’ve read the previous books in this series, it follows a similar format. Dual timeline with Stevie in the present timeline, trying to solve a mystery that happened in the past.

Add in the fact that she is in England this time, and the fact there is another mystery happening in the present day timeline connected the past timeline. Oh, and they are only there for a week, negotiated with the school for a study abroad chance. Nothing like navigating unfamiliar waters, on a strict and extremely short timeline, with multiple mysteries. Stevie has her work cut out for her. This ending had me like 😒 but already impatient for the next one to come out, even though this one technically hasn’t been published yet because I read an ARC. Good read, but make sure you read the others first to understand the group dynamics fully.

I am thrilled we get to continue to follow Stevie Bell and her mysteries! Truly Devious is one of my favorite YA/Middle grade series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC.

Ok y’all, Maureen Johnson is back!! I have previously posted (and raved about) the original Truly Devious series. And honestly, even though it wasn’t anywhere near my favorite, I liked the first non-trilogy entry- Box in the Woods, quite a bit. But a lot was hinging on Nine Liars for me. The momentum kind of tanked for Box in the Woods, and while I love the central idea- how investigating cases where people tied to the case are still alive is massively different than the previous mystery of a prohibition-era murder, and how you have to show empathy for the living when investigating the dead. But in the effort to focus on that theme, I feel like they left a huge chunk of the characters behind. It was a solid mystery, but I missed the friendship aspects that were so prevalent in the trilogy. But not to fear, this next installment in the series brings the characters back to the forefront and takes Stevie and the gang across the pond to London. And of course, they are sucked into a decades old murder investigation involving a group of college friends, a country estate, and a double homicide. I truly love these characters and this world that all of these books are auto-buys for me at this point, but I really think she hits a home run with this one.