DNF at 38%

I really enjoyed Douglas' The Couple at No. 9 when I picked it up last year and the synopsis for The Woman Who Lied led me to believe that I would love this even more! I mean, come on - it's an author trying to figure out who is recreating the plots of her mystery series after she decides to kill off her main character. That is right up my alley!

Unfortunately, the characters and the writing in this one just did not do it for me. Our main character Emilia is super dull and all of the other characters felt immensely one-dimensional. The lack of depth in the characters might have been forgiven if the plot had any tension in it, but we don't get much insight into Emilia's mind and therefore, I have nothing to grab onto in terms of her fear and terror. The book-within-a-book sections were honestly my favorite part, but I don't care enough about it to make me want to push through to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Paperbacks for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Great premise: Emilia Ward, the author of a popular mystery series, had just sent her latest (and tenth) book to her publisher for review when she begins to to be plagued with weird pranks that mirror events occurring in her series. She becomes more and more concerned for her own safety — and her life — as the pranks increase. Her fear and concern escalate exponentially when events occur that mirror those in her latest and yet unpublished book, a work which only a handful of people have had access to and in which she has killed off her main character. This is a very well-written thriller with interesting characters and plenty of twists and turns that keep the reader on a roller coaster ride. All in all, a very good read!

THE WOMAN WHO LIED was a twisty, suspenseful read with a really interesting premise. It drew me in right from the start, and was well written throughout. It was a little slower than the typical thriller and that did drag the story on at times; however, it was overall enjoyable and would not hesitate to read another one from Claire Douglas.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Paperbacks for the opportunity to read and review THE WOMAN WHO LIED.

Emilia Ward is an ordinary mom living happily in suburban London with her husband and two children - a teenager from her first marriage, a little boy from her second. She also happens to be the bestselling author of the Miranda Moody detective novels. As Emilia embarks on her tenth novel, life takes a disturbing turn: an incident straight out of the plot of one of her novels occurs in real life. Just an unsettling coincidence, she thinks. Until it happens again - and again. Then someone she knows dies in the same way as a victim in the book she's currently writing . . .

Claire Douglas knows how to write a suspenseful thriller. This book sucks you in from the start with a great story line and a set of interesting characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Paperbacks for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Emilia Ward is a best selling mystery author. When she hits a dry spell, a well meaning friend offers her a tantalizing story line.
Disturbing with dark secrets and red herrings, especially when real life mocks Emilia’s books.
Great characters and a well crafted story made this an unexpected book. Thank you Netgalley and and Harper Perennial for an early copy. This review is my honest opinion.

This book is fantastic! The plot twists and the plotting !! I couldn't read it fast enough. I was hooked from the beginning and didn't want it to end. This is one of the murder mystery books for the summer! Love love loved it!

This book was awesome! I have read her books before but this one was awesome. It had everything imageable.
Suspense, and mystery ! It was a great!

I couldn't put it down. It had me turning pages so fast and it had my attention thru the whole book. Amazing read.

Great book! I would highly recommend it!

Enjoyed the book, but found it hard to concentrate at the beginning. I feel like a lot of nothing was happening before we got to the main mystery! Was happy with the way a wrapped up and was engaged more into the book at the end.

So this one had many "The Woman Who Lied" but I thought Douglas did a great job giving us a main story, with another story, and a story within that. I think some readers may get confused, but I followed the threads we got and changed my mind a few times about who the "bad guy" was here and thought the ending was really cool and definitely I can see this one being a potential thriller of the summer. The main reason why I gave this 4.5 stars and rounded to 5 stars though is that the book purposely leaves out information if you wanted to even figure out who could have done it and why. All of a sudden we get some reveals and you get, oh this is why so and so is the bad guy. I always think that's a bit of a cheat in mystery and thriller books.

"The Woman Who Lied" follows a bestselling mystery novelist named Emilia Ward. Emilia has a detective series that has done quite well, but she's now thinking about killing off her main character and doing something else. But when someone starts stalking Emilia and her family, it appears that person has read her not released new novel and is incorporating aspects of it into her real life. Emilia starts to wonder who could be the person doing this, and most important why.

The book follows Emilia mostly and we learn she's in her second marriage, and quite happy, though still has ties to her first husband because of the daughter they share. You quickly find out they talk, but neither of the new spouses like it for various reasons.

Emilia has a jet-setting best friend and a new friend in the police force. When the incidents starts, she leans on them, but quickly wonders if they, her family or her ex could be behind things.

The book provides excerpts from Emilia's novel, but we also follow around another Detective Inspector (DI) too.

The plot was interesting and I liked the flow. I honestly didn't put this one down until I finished it. But as I said above, I called BS on the final reveal because it was things that the readers were not privy to.

Still as a I said, a solid thriller/mystery I thought. I would love to read Douglas again in the future.

Seriously?

You had me at Claire Douglas. ,

“Hey kor, it’s ok if you don’t get approved, you have a ton of books, you can wait”

No I couldn’t! I didn’t want to! I love Douglas!

The Woman Who Lied

Hmmm.. this is wasn’t I expected . I like thrillers, suspense, I suppose “popcorn thrillers” but this was none of the above . More like thrills, shrills, twists and what goes bump in the night?

This book right here exceeded all expectations and quite literally BLEW my mind !

The dishes went unwashed, the laundry remained unfolded and dinner never made it to the table! As my very large husband consumed his ubereats, I was digging my heels deeper and deeper into my book.

There was not one pause. I devoured this book.

We have ourselves a bestseller right here.

The Woman Who Lied, releases July 30th and I promise it’s worth the wait!!!

Check out this teaser :

Emilia Ward is just an ordinary mum living happily in suburban London with her husband and two children - a teenager from her first marriage, a little boy from her second. She also happens to be the bestselling author of the Miranda Moody detective novels.

But when Emilia embarks on her tenth novel, life takes a disturbing turn: an incident straight out of the plot of one of her novels occurs in real life. Just an unsettling coincidence, she thinks.

Until it happens again - and again.

Then someone she knows dies in the same way as a victim in the book she's currently writing . . .

Why is someone doing this?
How do they know what she is writing?
And what if Emilia and her family are next?

Emilia Ward. Mother. Wife. Bestselling author.

After finishing the 10th book of her Miranda Moody series, Emilia has a few scary incidents that resemble events in her book. And then...a friend dies, exactly like a character in her newest book. How are these things happening...when the books hasn't been published yet?

I love the premise of this book from Claire Douglas. All of the characters are well-developed and rich with details. As expected, the story has the twists and turns and the final reveal might just knock your socks off. The pacing is a bit slow, but does make for a more rich story.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Well, it's official: Claire Douglas is my favorite author in this genre. Not only the characters, the elements, and the plot are well constructed, but also each chapter is so captivating that you can't put the book down at any point. And even though at one point I thought I knew what was going on... well, not at all. She definitely knows how to intricate a plot and mess with your head. If you like this genre, you definitely need to read this book because you won't regret it at all.
Big congratulations to Claire on another successful master piece (can't wait to read the next one). And thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for sending me this wonderful book.

The plot for this book was so fun! An author who experiences creepy things that happen in her books. I had such high hopes for this book, however, the first 60% was a bit slow and dragging for me.

I did guess one of the twists, but I didn’t see the rest of it coming. All the characters in the book are questionable. Any of them could be doing messed up things to Emilia. They all had jealousy in their mind.

There were a lot of characters throughout the book, however, they weren’t hard to keep straight.

The build up to the big twist was great, but the actual twist was mediocre at best. I felt like it was rushed. It did give me a bit of anxiety, but it was over so quick.

You get all the answers you need by the end of the book. At first, I thought the author was going to leave me hanging but she didn’t, thank goodness.

This was my first Claire Douglas book, but it won’t be my last!

Thank you to negalley for the early access, this book comes out July 30th to the US, but has been out in the UK since last year!

What do you do when something from your imagination seems to be happening in real life? Well yes, you might think yourself mad, or like Emilia, you decide there is something evil afoot and you use your little grey cells to figure it out, as you cant trust anyone anymore. Full of plenty of red herrings, this book is a roller coaster as first one potential suspect is dismissed, only to have another take their place. It will definitely keep you guessing til the end, and definitely one we recommend for those who love a well crafted mystery!

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review so here are my thoughts.
I really liked this book I couldn't put it down. There were so many plot twists that I never expected. It always had my questioning what I thought was going to happen next. I Highly recommend this book.
Side note this book says it was published July of 2023 and on here it say it will get published July 30th 2024 so not sure whats up with that ( Yes I made sure it was the same book)

I have been going back and forth on how to rate this book and how I truly feel about it. Truthfully it was a lot of plot and story to take in and at times felt like there were too many different layers going on and other times it was incredibly slow.

Emilia is an author of detective novels and is about to release her 10th and final book in the series. Only a few people have read the final book. Unnerving events start happening to Emilia and she begins to realize these events are being taken from her own books. The really scary part for her is when something occurs that mirrors her final book that has not been released yet… and so the who done it and finger pointing begins!

As I stated before I’m on the fence with this one because while I felt the story had a good idea behind it I didn’t care for the exact execution. There were several side plots happening at once. I wasn’t a fan of the second half when the POV changed, the book was incredibly slow to start, the middle lost me, and the end was a rush of jumbling and trying to wrap up all the layers going too quickly.

I am a huge fan of this Author so definitely check this book out!

Thank you to the Author, Netgalley, and Harper Perennial & Paperbacks publishing for the opportunity to read this one .

I enjoyed this one! I loved the idea of someone taking Emilia's thrillers and bringing them to life. The plot moved quickly and had enough twists to keep me hooked. All the characters seemed a little shady, and I'm pretty sure I thought everyone was guilty at one point. The reveal at the end was one I didn't guess, so I enjoyed the surprise.

Thank you so much NetGalley for the ARC! I always love Claire Douglas' books. This one is a fresh storyline with many twists and turns with the protagonist being an author herself. The turns and surprises will never be guessed. Enjoyed it!

Emilia is a novelist who just finished what she plans to be the last book in her series about a detective. She's spent 10 years with Detective Moody and is ready to write something new. But not long after finishing the book and sending it out to a few friends and family members to read, things start happening. Events from her early works start happening to her--weird flower deliveries, stalking, moderate harassment. But when the person harassing her steps up their game and starts including things that happened in the unpublished novel, Emilia must come to terms with a terrible fact--someone she knows is targeting her, and she's afraid she won't make it out alive.

This was one of the best thrillers I've read lately! I tend to ruin them for myself because I guess who "did it" super early on, and then feel bored after. But I genuinely had no idea who was going to be the person behind everything until it was revealed. Everyone seems like a possible suspect while also no one seeming like a suspect. Douglas does a fantastic job making you feel like Emilia does--helpless, worried, and frustrated.

This was definitely more character driven than plot driven, and I do think there were things that could have had the pacing changed a bit. But I loved how this story was told in three parts--Emilia's POV, Daisy's POV, and a third POV to help you understand the past, as well as the present from multiple sides.

Characters were developed juusssttt enough to give you belief that they could be behind it all, but not so much that you can make an informed decision. It's SUCH a hard thing to do and do well, but Douglas nails it in this one. And she also shows that maybe you need to be careful selecting your ARC readers, just in case one of them wants to hurt or kill you and your family. Just maybe.

This was my first book by Douglas, and I'm definitely excited to pick up another one! If you're a fan of B.A. Paris, then you'll definitely be invested in this one.

Claire Douglas is just fantastic! The premise of this story hade hooked from the description. It did not disappoint! This book held my attention throughout and I was pleasantly surprised by the end. Recommend