Review By Veronica

An Honest Lie is an addictive physiological thriller that you will not be able to put down.

Favourite Quote:

Mama walked slowly back to the car with him, never taking her eyes off his face as they spoke. It was like she was thirsty for him. 

Summer checked that her braid was neat, then pulled it over her shoulder. Then he was there at her door, opening it and bending down to smile at her. His face was mostly covered by a thick, black beard, but the skin around his nose and eyes was tan, like he spent all his time outside. There was a freckle on one earlobe, almost making it look like his ear was pierced. He held out his hand to assist her out of the car and she felt very la-di-da. 

“Summa, Summa, Summatime…” he said when she was standing in front of him. It was so hot, hotter even than California. He smelled nice and he held out his arms for a hug. She hugged him because she’d seen her mother do it and because she missed her dad. 

“You’re going to love it here,” he said, looking Summer in the eye, “We’re a family.”

Goodreads Synopsis: 

Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget.

If she’s allowed to.

When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room.

And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why.

What follows is a twisted, shocking journey on the knife-edge of life and death. If she wants to save Braithe—and herself—the only way is to step back into the past.

I will be honest before I started reading this book, I had these preconceived notions that it would just be your typical thriller novel. I figured I would like it, but I wasn’t expecting to be wowed. All I have to say is this book completely blew me away and I found myself so absorbed in the plot that I was slightly irritated that I had to be an adult and go to work when all I wanted to do is sit all day and read this book. Tarryn really has created a story that has a complex and well throughout plot, that offers its readers enough twists and heart-pounding moments to keep them entertained. The plot is also incredibly interesting and in my eyes, Tarryn has included some story elements that really made her book stand out from other thriller books I have read. 

An Honest Lie is told from a dual timeline. The present-day timeline follows Rainy, who is reluctantly going on a girl’s trip to Vegas, and the past-time follows Rainy as a teenager living in a cult with her mother. Both of these timelines work seamlessly together. They did a great job at moving the story along and giving readers those perfectly timed cliff-hangers that had me wanting to turn the page to see what would happen next.

Tarryn does a great job using the past timeline to give Rainy’s character a lot of depth and to help readers understand her character’s motives better. Her back story is just so damn interesting and complex. I wasn’t expecting it, and for me, I loved learning about Rainy through those flash-back chapters. The secondary characters in this were just as interesting as Rainy. If the girls from Mean Girls were all grown up, they would be the group of women that Rainy was travelling with. They are snide, cunning, and would push you in front of a bus if it meant getting what they wanted. I loved it!

What really made this book stand out for me was the whole cult portion of the story. It was really, really good. I just found it so fascinating. Honestly, I could have read an entire book based on Rainy’s time living there. The cult parts were what made this book so different from other thriller novels that I have read. It had such a different and unique vibe to it.

The last bit of this book went in a direction I wasn’t anticipating, and I was enthralled in the cat and mouse game that Rainy found herself in. The killer was not someone I was expecting, and their motivation for wanting to kill Rainy had me saying, “holy crap.”

An Honest Lie is a nail-biting and heart-pounding thriller that will stay in your head days after reading it.

Thank you Harper Collins Canada, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.