A solid 5/5 stars for me ⭐️ Listen For The Lie is Amy Tintera’s adult thriller debut that follows main characters and best friends Lucy and Savannah (Savvy) and all the events that surround Savvy’s unsolved murder after they both attend another friends’ wedding. Lucy is deemed the main suspect but is never charged, and interestingly enough she also can’t remember anything from that night! Fast forward five years later, in comes smug true crime podcaster Ben Owens who flips the town of Plumpton, Texas on his head as he dives head first into finding out the truth behind this murder.

I loved every second of this. I loved the humor the author brought to this story and I feel it’s not something that is done a lot in thrillers. I found myself laughing out loud at times; the characters were all likeable and it kept me so engaged! The quick writing and “whodunnit” aspect made this so bingeable and I already can’t want to see what Amy Tintera comes up with next. 🔍

Thank you to NetGalley, Celadon Books, and author Amy Tintera for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review! ❤️

- Pub Date: March 5, 2024 -

My favorite part of this adult thriller debut was 100% the dark humor. Lucy is funny as heck and made me chuckle throughout. Her grandma was a close second favorite.

I found the ending a bit “messy” and really last minute but I definitely didn’t see it coming.

Lots of awful people and surprisingly bingeable for a podcast murder mystery that isn’t new to the genre.

Ben was my favourite character! Lucy’s jokes also cracked me up 😂

I was really intrigued throughout and wanted to find out wtf happened that night, but ended up being a bit disappointed in the ending.

I devoured this book! From start to finish I found this book so entertaining. I am a sucker for a podcast plot and this one made for such an interesting story. I also really loved Lucy’s character. For a thriller I found myself laughing out loud multiple times throughout this book. She was so quirky and funny and I wish I had her mentality of not caring what anyone thinks of her. I also really liked Ben’s character. He made a great host for the podcast and I loved watching everything unfold during the investigation. The ending was so shocking to me. I actually didn’t see it coming! Overall I REALLY enjoyed this book!

I'm not much of a mystery fan but this book was FABULOUS! 🤩 Kept me guessing until the very end. The characters were well developed and new information unfolded with each chapter. I loved how the chapters switched between Lucy's point of view and episodes of the podcast. Within it all was the steady yet wild Grammy living her best life and loving her granddaughter. I encourage everyone to grab a copy of this book! I'm off to find other books by Amy Tintera!!

I’m not really sure how I felt about this book.. I just finished it and I kind of wanted more. I love to read books with characters with my first name, hence why I picked up this book and I love thrillers.

Lucy and Savannah are best friends since high school. Savannah gets murdered after a wedding and Lucy is the prime suspect. She can’t remember what happened that night though and a podcaster is trying to find out what really happened and if Lucy is actually guilty or not. The whole town believes she is.

Overall, a decent read. I would recommend it to friends who love podcasts and thrillers.

Thank you netgalley and publisher for a chance to read this book for free in return for my honest opinion.

Five reasons why I gave this Listen for the Lie 5 stars:
1. We have an unreliable narrator, having hallucinations of her dead friend.
2. There are vague flashbacks as the main character is getting her memory back. There are also other characters that are lying. At no point did I have a confident guess as to who the murderer was.
3. The podcast transcript chapters were well done; they were not fluff or rehashings of information we already knew. They moved the story along as the characters were finding out the information in the podcast.
4. The book is funny. I enjoyed the dark humor.
5. I loved the grandma. She's the reason that the podcaster is investigating the murder 5 years later. She's got boyfriends, drinks all day, and is sly.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and loved it! I loved the inner voice of the main character. It was so fun to read with a twist I didn’t see coming.

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Lucy is from a small town in Texas where she had the perfect life. Then her best friend Savvy is murdered and everyone believes she did it. She has no memory of that night and was found covered in her blood, so it must be true. Years after her murder Ben Owens, host of the ‘Listen for the Lie’ podcast, decides to cover Savvy’s murder and figure out what really happened that night. With a town full of secrets it’s not a surprise that Bens snooping isn’t exactly welcome.

Oh. My. God. This was so good. I was so skeptical at first because things started really slow and were very repetitive. However, it got harder and harder to put down. I loved the formatting of this book. As this story centers around a true crime podcast the author made it very real for us and put the episode transcripts in the book. This was perfect. We were getting all the juicy details at the same time everyone else was in the book. It was really fun trying to figure out what happened to Savvy. I felt like I needed red string and a theory board, maybe I should have done that to be honest. I laughed a lot during this book because Lucy is a sarcastic spitfire. “Listen for the Lie” is perfect for any true crime enthusiast and anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery. I kind of hope this author turns this into a series. I would LOVE to see a few more books like this.

What a relief to read a thriller that I actually enjoyed!! I have started feeling like such a thriller snob because nothing has been impressing me lately, but luckily Listen for the Lie has redeemed the thriller genre for me.
I wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did reading a story about a woman who may or may not have killed her best friend, but our girl Lucy was snarky as heck and more sarcastic than me, which I didn’t know was even possible. Throw Granny into the mix and I was having a great ol’ time learning if our favorite snarky suspect was a murderer…..or not.
The fast pace kept me turning pages and abandoning my buddy reader yet again as I couldn’t wait to see what dirty secrets were exposed in this lil Texas town next. While I didn’t suspect the ending until….almost the ending, I was actually really happy with the way it ended up. I usually despise the endings/twists in thrillers lately, as they all seem to be trying so hard to get us to the shocked/shook point that they remove all plausibility whatsoever. Fortunately, Lucy and Savvy’s story ended in a way that was still plausible enough for me to believe it could have happened, and I wanted to go back and read it again to see where I could have started unraveling it all earlier.
The podcast chapters alternated with Lucy’s chapters were really fun, and as a true crime podcast fan, I would have loved to listen to this one so I could have really felt like I was listening to a podcast as well as reading a mystery thriller.
Between laughing at Lucy and Granny, CRYING (in a thriller? what?) and turning the Kindles pages at a pace never seen before, I happily gave this 5 stars and recommend it big time!

Quite entertaining—a potboiler version of Rebecca Makkai's much superior I Have Some Questions for You. I wasn't blown away or anything, but I'll check out the author's next book.

This book made my head hurt, but in a good way, I promise! Listen for the Lie is an addicting slow-burn that will have you questioning everybody and everything in the small town of Plumpton, Texas, and guess what? you’ll still be wrong in the end 😉

I really enjoyed almost everything about this book. It was a captivating and intense thrill. I can definitely see it being pretty popular in the Mystery/Thriller genre! The characters are strange, intriguing, and really grasp your attention. I absolutely loved Lucy and Ben and the banter between them. I could not get enough!

I love the writing style in this one. I am a big fan of mixed media and since our MMC is a podcast host, the majority of this book is written in an interview format, which personally I love in mysteries because you’re really given the chance to pick the characters apart. But don’t let the mixed media stop you if you’re not usually a fan because it really adds something to this story and is 100% worth the read. Very different and fun!

Like I said, this book is good. If I have to “complain” about something, I wish it would’ve been a bit more fast-paced. Certain parts of the book felt like they dragged on forever, but I still thoroughly enjoyed every page. Highly recommend picking this one up on March 5th 🎧

Thank you to NetGalley, Celadon Books, and Amy Tintera for an advance copy of Listen for the Lie in exchange for an honest review. I will preface this by saying I am a huge sucker for a podcast theme in books and Listen for the Lie knocked the podcast angle out of the park. We find ourselves meeting Lucy, from a small town in Texas, who was accused of killing her best friend Savvy but never was charged. Due to this, Ben, has dedicated the second season of his podcast to this case. She heads back home to small town Texas to celebrate her grandmothers birthday. Little does she know, Ben is in town working on the podcast. The story goes through many interviews with different characters & Lucy herself as Ben (and Lucy) try to figure out what the heck happened in this case. I would say I had the ending figured out about 80% in of the book but it still didn’t take any of my love away from this book. I look forward to reading more from Amy in the future and I cannot believe this is her first adult novel because it was THAT GOOD! Get your hands on this great book on March 5th!!

It's hard for me to rate this book because I had conflicting feelings about it. None of the characters were good people. The town should have been called Cheaterville because it seemed like every character was messing around with someone else's partner. They were all making terrible decisions while intoxicated, then pointing fingers at everyone else. The author tried to make the main character Lucy into a witty one-liner queen, but the quips got old quick. I appreciate some sarcasm, but not in every sentence. So, I was thinking 2 stars.

However, I finished the book. I wanted to know what happened to Savvy. The murder mystery was enough to keep my attention, so 3 stars seemed appropriate.

Lucy is thought to have killed her best friend, Savvy. Following a wedding in their small town, Savvy is found dead from head trauma and Lucy is located not far off, injured and with no memory of what took place. Lucy continues to live her life under the shadow of suspicion until there is fresh interest / spotlight by a true crime podcaster who starts digging to determine what took place.

A ride of a read, I wasn’t sure where we were going but I was ready to put down the windows and feel the wind in my hair. Dubbed a world-class whodunit by Stephen King, I knew it wasn’t going to be bad but there was something missing for me when the story wrapped up. It was really good, but missed great. There were a lot of facts presented at the end that were new to the story in order to have the pieces fit together. My preferences is always to have the same set of facts presented at the beginning but the wool to have been pulled over my eyes. A matter of personal preference, I still certainly recommend.

This took me a little bit to get into, but when it did I was completely incapable of doing literally anything other than finishing the story to figure out the truth. And the saying “I didn’t see that coming” is very true for this book. While I was sure I had it figured out multiple times throughout the story, I was wrong, and the only time I like to be wrong is while reading a thriller/suspense novel. This is a goodie for sure!!

Amy Tintera knocks it out of the park with this one! I loved the true crime podcast part of this book and trying to solve the crime along with it. I also loved the characters and their personalities. Oh my gosh, the grandma was hilarious and I laughed out loud multiple times. And Lucy’s sarcasm was so good! I loved that I laughed out loud in a thriller/mystery book. I went in blind and definitely recommend doing that. This book was so much fun!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I'm usually not a huge thriller person but, I really enjoyed this book!
I really enjoyed all the characters in this. Lucy, with her macabre sense of humor. Ben, with his sung smile. Lucy's Grandmother, with her chaotic energy, reminded me of my grandmother. The whodunnit story was great and kept me guessing! I bet this would be great to on audio with the podcast part of the book!

This is an on the edge of your seat thriller that I couldn’t put down. The twists and turns were exactly what I needed, and were missing in other thrillers I have read. I was questioning everyone's true motives the entire story. Needless to say I did not suspect the guilty party! Grab this immediately if you’re stuck in a thriller rut like I was!

If you are just as obsessed with true crime podcasts as I am, you have to check this one out! I loved the podcast episodes interspersed throughout and Lucy in general was a sarcastic and direct FMC in the best way possible. It was intriguing, seductive, full of unexpected twists and characters you can’t trust and I couldn’t put it down. Overall, a phenomenal thriller! 4.5⭐️