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.

This is book 5 in the truly devious series. It was a fast and interesting read that kept me guessing. However, the ending made me very miffed at one of the characters. No spoilers but it definitely makes you want to read the next book immediately.

I have never read any of the Ellington series, but I really enjoyed this YA thriller. The flashbacks to the original murder were effective as were the police statements. Perhaps since I hadn't read the previous novels, I did not understand the purpose or impact of the calls from the woman at their school.

Overall, I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy a light yet interesting YA thriller.

Maureen!! That ending!! I read Nine Liars in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. It didn't quite reach the heights of Truly Devious but I did like it more than The Box in the Woods. I don't know what Maureen has planned for Stevie in the future but I hope it's more books (and less David, who can kick rocks!!).

To say this one hurts to write would be an understatement. I’m just not convinced that these were the same characters and this fits into the Truly Devious series. After loving the other books I am just utterly disappointed.

The book is told through dual timelines and multiple point-of-views. The present time point-of-view comes from Stevie Bell who is off on another mystery once again, although it takes quite a bit to get there. I can’t say that I was invested in the story until around the 60% mark and even then the ending was just not it. I’m actually very upset about it lol. I think that this book tried to do too much and because of that the mystery wasn’t as exciting because nothing really happens with it until too close to the ending and even then it is so lackluster! It just doesn’t feel like the same series.

I felt more irritated with these characters than I ever have before. I hadn’t once had a problem with David or Stevie, but they were both kind of selfish and it wasn’t a vibe. All I have to say about David is that he was fine, a bit bland, but then we get to the ending and he is a dillweed. I don’t like him and I never will. Stevie was too caught up in her relationship to care about her future and when she wasn’t obsessing about that she was on the case for the mystery and lying to her friends. I can see the correlation between her friend group and the nine so I guess at least there was that. 🤷‍♀️

I also felt like this book was trying to be more upper YA and it made the book have a different vibe. I think this point correlates with Stevie’s relationship having more page time and it’s also associated with the friend group the nine. Sex is mentioned quite a lot and it just wasn’t my cup of tea, especially when I am here for a mystery.

Overall, it was okay at times but honestly ended up not being a book I liked. I’m going to be disappointed for quite some time…

As usual Maureen Johnson nails it with Stevie and the gang. I cannot wait for the next in the series. There better be a next in the series!

Stevie Bell is at an awkward, transitional time in her life and the overall tone of this book really reflects that. Unlike previous novels the mystery isn't really the focal point, though it does share some parallels with what's going on with Stevie and her friends. I also found her involvement in the mystery much less plausible than in other stories, because I highly doubt that an MP in the UK government would allow an unknown American teenager into the investigation of their friend's murder. Like the other Stevie Bell stories it was a quick, fun read, but don't expect the mystery in this one to be as interesting or complex as previous books.

I always have such a great time reading Maureen Johnson’s Stevie Bell books. YA mysteries can sometimes be a hard sell for me since they can seem too outside the realm of possibility. So while it is kinda wild that this teenager is solving mysteries that have stumped adults for decades, the characters and storytelling ground these books and keep them from feeling too ridiculous.

This time the mystery revolves around a group of nine Cambridge University graduates back in 1995 where 2 of them ended up murdered after a party at a country house. Nobody was ever caught. In present day Stevie and her friends are visiting London where they meet the niece of one of The Nine who asks Stevie to try and figure out what really happened.

I enjoyed seeing the flashbacks of The Nine in the 90s and seeing the police interviews with them after the fact. Initially it did take me a bit to figure out who all the different characters were and keep them straight in my mind. But after that I was super invested in this group of friends and their antics. In the present day seeing Stevie solve the mystery alongside her friends was a lot of fun. There are also some interesting relationship developments as well as talk about the future and what they’re all going to do for college.

Overall I had a great time reading this book. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as The Box in the Woods, which is still my favorite in the series. But this was a lot of fun!

I didn't realize this was part of a series and having read the previous books would have helped. The mystery is self-contained so it is possible to read it without having read the other books but the relationships between the main characters would be richer to the reader if they'd read the others. So, the mystery is a country house mystery that takes place in 1995. Some fun callbacks to that time. The mystery itself had some fun twists and turns. Lots of London love in the book. And the story made me want to read the previous installments. I didn't love the MC's angst about her boyfriend nor the boyfriend's actions.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’ll talk about the whole book in a second, but I would like to start this off by just saying… WHAT WAS THAT ENDING THOUGH? And where is the next book?!

Ok, now that that’s out of my system…. This was a very fun addition to the Stevie Bell/Truly Devious series, especially as I am someone who is a huge fan of British murder mysteries. I honestly wish there had been a bit more Nate (and Janelle and Vi), but Izzy was a nice new addition.

I pride myself on being able to solve mysteries, but this one had me stumped until about 75% of the way in, when I started getting inklings, which was nice. While I love figuring things out, I also love working for it, and this book did that for me.

Also, can I just say it? I don’t care for David much. Never really have? I think Stevie could do much better. The boy needs to learn to communicate or something here. Yeeeesh.

I did not have a clue what I was getting into. I picked up these books but I’m so excited that I had an advanced readers copy of this one. It was such a fun create afraid. I didn’t want it to end. They author was an incredible writer.

Maureen Johnson has a long history of appreciating British comedy and mysteries in her novels, and nowhere does it shine like in Nine Liars. Reading this felt both comforting and familiar, while still being suspenseful and fun. Readers of other Stevie Bell novels will be excited to continue the ongoing saga, while newer readers will be able to dive right in. It's lovely to see another YA mystery series that is inviting to avid and casual readers alike.

I loved this one!! Stevie and the gang are back but this time they're in England!! Stevie is missing David and she has the chance to spend a week in London after convincing. Dr. Quinn that it's a serious study abroad trip, thanks to Janelle's spreadsheet and planning skills. Murder and missing people somehow always follow the gang.

Maureen nailed the stereotypical London experiences and the atmosphere. It really brought the sense of a cosy mystery. This book immediately hooked me from the get go. I loved seeing the flashbacks again and it really tied into the structure of the first trilogy so well. Merryweather was the perfect isolated setting and I enjoyed having a remote location where all the tension builds.

Izzy was a standout character - her personality fit so well in with the gang and she brought out such a sense of adventure. The six were each well enough depicted where you could keep track of who was who and how they played into the story but you had no idea who was going to be the one at the end of the big reveal. THAT ENDING?! PLEASE give us the next one soon Maureen because we NEED to know what happens next. I am so ready to go on an adventure with everyone again.

I never thought that I wold DNF a Stevie Bell mystery, but I couldn't get into this one. I couldn't keep the characters straight in the flashbacks, and I couldn't get invested in the murder. I also found myself tired of Stevie and her weed-smoking, tortured-genius friends. Sure to delight fans of the series, but inferior to earlier titles.