Thank you to Random House Children's, Delacorte Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book. This was very meh to me. I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, it just never really sparked for me. I felt like it was a bit predictable and it become repetitive at times. The one liners in the book felt a bit cringe. But I did enjoy certain characters more than I thought and the complexity of them. 3 ⭐️

I liked this but wish it was told from the female main character. I’m not familiar with the original so I wasn’t sure if it was a nod to that. I liked it a lot but just thought it would have flown better with that perspective

I didn’t like the characters. I didn’t connect with the “mystery” at all. I don’t think there was a lot of detecting going on - the female detective basically says she gets all her info that she bases her deductions on from Google. There’s a lot of threads left hanging or plot points included that don’t really go anywhere or serve any actual purpose. Overall, underwhelming and boring.

Liar's Beach is a super fun, summery murder mystery! I really liked the fact that it was a modern retelling, set in Martha's Vineyard. This story was super easy to get into and kept me entertained from the first page till the very end! Definitely a great book to pick up this summer!

Liar's Beach follows Linden who is a scholarship kid at a boarding school playing a sport, but after an injury that hasn't quite yet healed it seems that scholarship could be on the line. While at this boarding school, Linden has grown close to his roommate Jasper and he has been invited to spend the last part of the summer at his beach house with his rich family and friends. What could go wrong? Well, it wouldn't be a mystery book is things didn't go wrong fairly quickly and leaving everyone a possible suspect. This leave Linden curious to figure out why this person was in the pool and what it all had to do with his friend's family. With some help from an old childhood friend Holiday, Linden is going to try and solve the mystery as it seems that the police don't have any idea who did it, or maybe they just don't want to know. It's hard to tell in these types of communities when you are an outsider.

Overall I did find this story enjoyable and the last part had me hooked and needing to know who did it because every person I kept thinking had a part in it always ended up being innocent of that crime somehow. Linden and Holiday ended up being a pretty good team when they were working together, but of course, Linden would get headstrong about something and think Holiday was accusing someone he cared about and it would all fall apart just for Holliday to come back in with a new theory that may or may not be right on who the killer was. Now the ending of this one was good, and I actually liked how it all ended up wrapping up but did leave room for a possible continuation with Linden as a main character.
Having said that what was that cliffhanger ending? Please tell me we're getting more with some of these characters because I need to know what she just had to tell Linden!!

Liar's Beach is another Agatha Christie retelling with teenagers, in modern times. I have not read the original Agatha Christie version, but I still guessed the ending of this one. Parts were engaging. Parts slogged. I don't feel the main characters were as developed as they could be (compared to The Agathas Series).

When I say I LOVE a young adult mystery, I mean it. I find it difficult to not pick up any one of them that I read about or hear about and this one did NOT disappoint. The characters were fun and aspirational, even as a nearly 30 year old woman - I'd love to have a summer home in New England and go to boarding school and just be generally wealthy! I thought this one was intriguing and kept me on the edge of my seat but also recognized early on that it was entirely predictable (but that didn't make me enjoy it any less!).

When I'm in a slump, this is exactly the kind of book I want to read! I had gone months without reading before I picked this one up and it really got my momentum going as I kicked off my summer reading! It was overall average but is exactly what I needed to get a jump start!

Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy. This is my honest opinion.

Liar's Beach is a fun (if slightly forgettable) YA mystery/thriller.

I really liked Katie Cotugno's writing. It made for an easy, addictive read. I also loved the Martha's Vineyard setting--the extravagant vacation home, the beach, and the other locations around the island. Furthermore, there was interesting commentary on class and privilege.

I didn't find this novel to be particularly shocking or memorable, but I had a good time reading it. I would recommend it to young adults looking for a quick, summery mystery/thriller. 3.5/5 stars!

Look, I’ve read a lot of YA mysteries and a lot of books by Katie Cotugno. I’ve never loved a Katie Cotugno book but was hopeful that a mystery about rich teens in a beach house would be her strong suit. Unfortunately, I have read so many great YA mysteries that my standards are stupidly high, and Liar’s Beach didn’t stand a chance. I’ve said before that I can handle a mediocre mystery plot if the characters are compelling enough to carry it, but these ones aren’t. Holiday, our MC’s childhood friend almost gets there, but never feels fully developed. Linden, the MC, is your typical jock scholarship kid that is constantly horny and worried about a sports injury. He’s a got rich bestie that is interchangeable with three other rich boy characters. There’s a love interest that is so wildly “not like other girls” it feels like parody. None of them stood out, and the mystery wasn’t special. It’s fun but not great, and the twist was okay. I wasn’t ever bored, but I was never fully invested. This author just isn’t for me and that’s okay!

I read this book in one sitting and I will definitely be reading more from this author! I'm not usually one to pick a book that has the characters still in high school but this was a great book and it gave me similar feelings as to when I read the book we were liars when I was trying to figure out the Mystery as I read. I think this is also the first book I've read from a teen boy's point of view so I don’t have much to say about that since in a 25-year-old woman haha. However, the book was still amazing and I will be recommending this to my friends. Great book for the summertime.

2.5 stars

I love myself a YA mystery but everyone felt a little too young for me. I was intrigued by the synopsis of this book because I do like Agatha Christie and I have read The Mysterious Affair at Styles, however I don't think that every locked room mystery needs to be compared to Agatha Christie. I found all of the characters so insufferable, which is upsetting because I'm pretty sure I'm only a couple years older than them. It was basically rich white teenagers need to solve a mystery, and most of the time I did not care.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this book.

I was kind of disappointed in this book, The plot seemed so interesting when I requested, but it just didn’t hit, It ended in a cliff hanger that should not have happened.

great book and I enjoyed the characters growth. Loved the friends and how this all worked out. I enjoyed the characters journey to finding oneself and others. I hope to read more by this author again.

This was definitely an entrancing read. I couldn't stop reading to find out the truth while at the same time seeing that your perception is not always reliable. It was written really well and I enjoyed it!

Michael Linden, or Linden as everyone calls him is not your typical preppy private school student but he attends the coveted private school anyway. Linden is there on a scholarship but he doesn’t want anyone to know so he does everything he can to hide it. When he gets invited to the beach house of one his friends he jumps are the opprotunity to enjoy some time off and get some rest after a horrible ankle injury. He is stressed because he isn’t sure he will be able to keep his scholarship to play at his school. Little does he know what he is going to find out while on vacation! He is in for a shock of his life.

This book was very well written and was a quick read to be honest. I was able to read fairly fast and it kept me entertained. It had a development of characters that truly exposed who they are and what their true intentions are. It makes you think about what you actually see versus what is actually happening. There is moments in the book that are thrilling and fun while other portions that are downright freaky. I really enjoyed the novel!

Let me start this review by saying that I will read anything Katie Cotungo publishes. I think Katie is a really talented writer with a knack for tackling messy topics that a lot of other YA writers steer clear of. I’ve really loved all of her YA contemporaries and I am so thrilled to see her tackling a new genre (one of my favorite genres no less) while still bringing her classic Katie Cotugno charm to the characters and the setting. Liar’s Beach is an Agatha Christie inspired YA mystery that takes place in Martha’s Vineyard where the rich go to summer. We’re following Michael Linden, a scholarship student at a New England prep school, who was invited by his roommate Jasper to spend time at his family’s massive beachfront home August House, and is trying desperately to seem like he belongs there. The morning following a big party, Jasper’s sister Eliza discovers an unconscious body floating in the pool and this is where the story really picks up. Something seems off about the whole situation so Michael reconnects with Holiday, the daughter of the family his mother is a housekeeper for, and the pair begin investigating the attempted murder. They uncover a ton of secrets, and strain relationships, including their own, along the way. Going into Liar’s Beach, I think it’s important to note that this is definitely a YA contemporary leaning mystery and not a fast paced thriller. The stakes never feel too high. Overall I enjoyed the book- I was able to binge read 60% of it in one sitting which is a rarity for me these days. My one gripe is that the dialogue felt a little cringey. I’m not a teenager anymore. That might be how kids are speaking these days, but I much preferred inner monologue to audible conversations. I think Katie took a lot of risks with this one between switching genres and writing from a male perspective so while I commend her for trying something new, it was not my favorite of her books. However, should Liar’s Beach get picked up for a sequel as the ending would imply, you can bet that I’ll be grabbing myself a copy!

Katie Cotugno forever. This was the perfect rich-kids-vacation-house story with a dark twist. It was exactly what I needed. Incredible.

Michael "Linden" is visiting his boarding school roommate, Jasper, at Jasper's parents' mansion in Martha's Vineyard for the last couple weeks of summer when someone is found unconscious in the pool. The whole situation rubs Linden the wrong way and he spends his vacation working with his childhood friend, Holiday, to figure out what exactly happened. I think the "poor kid solves a mystery while navigating the wealthy vacation / boarding school / camp environment" is a bit overdone now but Liar's Game was a fun, quick read with a bit of a letdown of an ending. I would recommend it.

This was a great murder mystery that kept me guessing. I really enjoyed reading it.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for this review copy.

I live thrillers and this was no exception

I love Cotugno but haven’t read her latest releases for one reason or another. The synopsis of this one really appealed to me and I liked that she was working in a different genre. There are very few reviews and the overall Goodreads rating is pretty low, which is interesting, but I was still cautiously optimistic. I haven’t read THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES but it’s definitely on my Agatha Christie to-read list now.

Linden is off to Martha’s Vineyard to spend some time with his roommate Jasper and his family at their gorgeous house on the beach. He’s hiding a lot about his true background/socioeconomic status but tries to fit in with them nonetheless. He’s on a lacrosse scholarship at a fancy boarding school and has to keep up appearances. His childhood friend (his mom works for their family) Holiday is there too. When a body of a guy everyone hates shows up in the pool, Holiday and Linden set out to solve the mystery.

I ended up really enjoying this! It’s a little surface-level and super short, which made for a breezy Memorial Day Weekend read on the porch in just a couple of hours. I don’t actually wish it was longer though – she achieved what she needed to in under 300 pages. There are definitely discussions on class, Great Gatsby vibes/themes, and manic pixie dreamgirl energy, which was all a part of the wider story and message Cotugno was trying to convey.

The ending was interesting and I didn’t predict it, so that was good, but the VERY ending (last sentence) was annoying lol. I don’t want to spoil it or call it a cliffhanger (because it isn’t in the sense of the actual mystery), but it was one in other ways. Overall, I think I’d recommend this to those who enjoy YA books centered around rich and privileged kids like I always have lol. It really was a good summer mystery to kick off the season the weekend I read it.