I was definitely intrigued when I first read the blurb of this book as it sounded just like something I would read, and I'm delighted to say that this book kept me glued to my seat and urged me to want to read more, I barely put the book down!

This book was a quick read for me! it may have taken me a while to start it but i finished it quickly!
i would recommend this to anyone who loves psychological thrillers, i enjoyed parts of the story but i didnt like sophia.
3/5 stars
thanks to netgalley & publishers who let me read and review this book.

What a superb read full of twists and turns!! I started reading Everything is Lies not really knowing what to expect. I had read the blurb but it didn't really give me the full picture. The story opens with Sophia out on a Friday night after work when she gets a phone call from her mum asking her to come home that evening. Home unfortunately is a drive away and Sophia, being out and over the limit, says she will visit the following day. When she arrives the following day she is met with a scene from a horror movie, her mother is hanging from a tree in the garden and her father, stabbed on the ground beside her. The police believe it to be a murder/suicide. Sophia knows her parents and knows that not to be the case. Her main questions are what really happened and why?

Told in a dual timeline of then and now, between Sophia and her mother Nina, this book delves into the past lives of Sophia's parents. Upon receipt of a letter from a publisher about her mother's forthcoming memoir, Sophia finds two notebooks chronicling her mother's life just as she is entering college in 1989. Being a shy and awkward girl, Nina becomes enchanted and later obsessed with a charismatic, supremely handsome older rock star who, it is rumoured, has started a cult. The notebooks only tell two thirds of the story though, where is the third notebook? What is the full story? Why had Sophia's parents' home been burgled four times in six months, leading them to buy a shotgun, which is now also missing? Are people following Sophia? Is she now in danger?

Reaching out to Sophia through her notebooks, Nina has penned her experiences in this dark, riveting and compelling story. The writing style of Helen Callaghan really captures Nina's vulnerability, the control and charisma of Aaron, Nina's grooming at Aaron's hands, the house at Morningstar and all that follows. Every character in the book is really well drawn out and Nina, Sophia and Rowan particularly likeable. This is a riveting read which I would have no hesitation in recommending.

This is a book about a mother and daughter. It is told in the first person, by both the mother and her past and the daughter in the present.. it was an interesting story that starts of with the mother,s death. There are many twists and turns in this book as you discover what happened in the past. The story was interesting however I wished on each chapter they had who was telling that part of the story as sometimes you thought it was the daughter but actually the mother part of the story. I would recommend this story.

A diverting thriller. When Sophia's mother commits suicide and stabs her father, leaving him in a coma, Sophia is shocked and can't understand how her mother could do something like this. When she finds her mother (Nina)'s notebooks. Sophia realises Nina had a dramatic past life she never knew anything about. I actually think the book's major strength is also one of its weaknesses: Nina's story is so interesting that it makes Sophia's look bad. I'm inclined to think the book would have been better if it had just been about Nina's experiences as part of a cult, and I thought it was a very bleak ending for Nina that she never escaped from Wolf. I didn't enjoy this as much as Callaghan's debut Dear Amy, but she is a good writer and I will still look out for her future work.

I found this book quite disturbing from the onset. It follows Sophia and her Mum Nina. Nina kept journals of her past from her days at Uni and afterwards. I found Nina to be weak and spineless at times and felt she could have taken a different path to the one she chose. I enjoyed the book and had to keep reading hoping she would see sense and take control of her own destiny. It is well written and enjoyable, but I I couldn’t relate to the subject matter and sometimes found this hard to follow as I felt it so unbelievable in this day and age. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book for an honest an unbiased review.

Sophia always thought her family was just normal.....maybe mildly dysfunctional but basically having a fairly standard dynamic. But one day, after a late night call from her mother she goes home to find her father stabbed, close to death and her mother hanging. The police seem sure it's a murder/suicide scenario but Sophia can't believe her mother would hurt anyone let alone her husband. She begins to delve into her mother's past and soon realises no one is who she thought and everything has been a lie....

Helen Callaghan has delivered another great mystery...it's been too long since Dear Amy but it was worth the wait. This is a well written tale with many twists and turns. My only disappointment was that I found it a bit easy to work out the main reveal. But despite this it's still a very enjoyable story that kept me hooked from page one.

This book was very much not what I expected it to be.
When I read the blurb I was expecting a completely different story but I was very pleasantly surprised.

Sophia is a great character and I really loved reading the notebooks Nina left. All in all, this was a really fun read.

The beginning of this book is just so haunting and chilling. Our protagonist returns to her childhood home to find her mother hanging from a tree and her father almost dead nearby. If you have ever seen the film sinister you will understand why the idea of finding her hanging in the garden gave me the UTTER CREEPS! (I will never forgive my husband for making me watch that film...)

So it was off to a great start. You just knew that nothing was going to be as simple as it seemed and you couldn't take anything at face value. I absolutely loved this mystery, the idea that someone you have known your whole life could actually be hiding enormous secrets that you know nothing about.

The rest of the story follows Sophia's journey as she starts to unravel what really happened in her mother's past and who she really is. This story is interspersed with her mothers' notebooks, where she chronicled everything that happened to her. This is an absolute favourite story telling technique for me, when we switch between two narrators - one telling the story in the present day, the other in the past.

Unfortunately, this is one where saying anything more about the plot would really give the game away. I hadn't read any spoilers and definitely wasn't expecting the story that eventually unfurls, so it's best to go into this one blind.

However, I do need to justify that 3 star review ... there were a few plot holes for me. A few things that happened, that after finishing, I couldn't reconcile with the rest of the story. I am prepared to accept stories that are a little far fetched in places for the sake of an entertaining read. But there were a couple of red herrings thrown into this tale that I felt actually confused things. Things that were built up to be part of the plot, or odd characters, that by the end you realised 'Oh, that thing that happened or that person ... they actually had nothing to do with anything - they were just odd....huh'

I wanted this to be a bit shorter and punchier and to live up to its amazing opening. It's still a good psychological thriller though and a great Summer read!

I'm off to try and shake off Sinister flashbacks. Man, I really hate that film!

Thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for this preview copy in return for an honest review.

Everything is Lies is out now by Penguin UK - Michael Joseph.

This book is wow.i didn’t guess till right at the end what was going to happen,I couldn’t put this book down ,I kept saying to my husband just one more page.i didn’t see the twists and turns coming ,would definitely recommend this book

This was a great read, dealt with in an original and imaginative way. Nothing in the novel was what I’d imagined, in a very good way. It was a fresh and engaging novel. The ending for Sophia was a little rushed, but that didn’t matter much. I found Jared’s character wasn’t quite rounded enough for me for reasons I don’t want to go into as this would spoil the novel; I enjoyed reading it with relatively little information.

Everything is Lies! Wow...I could not give this book any less than 5 stars! Great storyline with a heart thumping twist i really didn't expect! The story builds and the twists and turns just get better with each page turn. This book will definitely stay with me for a long time. Highly recommend. A great read!

Thanks to Penguin UK & NetGalley for ARC This is my honest review

Secrets and Lies. What do children know about their parents past lives only what they choose to share with them and it’s not always the full story. As parents we edit our memories, not to be untruthful but more that there are some things our children just don’t need to know. So what would happen if I wrote a book about my life laying everything open. My children honestly would not be that surprised or shocked but then neither of them are Nina

This is a great book which will hold the readers interest and with many twists and turns

Enjoy

A different take on the story of a cult and what happens to those who leave. The story was told through a survivor’s daughter reading her mother’s notebooks. There was the added intrigue of unexplained deaths and serious injury, which kept me hooked. I’d thoroughly recommend this book

Thanks to netgallery for a copy of this book.
Well.... I was not expecting a dark cult based read at all! I honestly thought this was going to be another run of the mill psychological thriller. I really enjoyed it. The twist at the end..wow!

This was a very twisted story about cults and domination, mistakes and escapes but never totally resolved. A fascinating story that left me hanging.

The first couple of chapters of this book made for riveting reading and I was hooked instantly. Wow, this one got off to a cracker. I immediately bonded with Sophia, and my heart went out to her. The terrible situation that she found herself in, the guilt, the pain, the "what if's", I could understand it all, and it made me feel immediately invested in the story.

When I started reading this book I was excited to discover that it was a dual time-frame narrative, as I really love those. This story moves between the present where Sophia discovers the death of her parents, and her mother's past and the secrets that it holds, which past has been recorded by her mother in a series of notebooks that her mother had planned on publishing.

For me personally, I loved the chapters set in the past, the chapters explaining the strange and ultimately abusive relationship between her mother and cult leader, Aaron. There were times throughout the story when I felt so irritated with Nina (Sophia's mother), where I just couldn't handle her meek and mild ways, her inability to stand up for herself and to see the truth of the situation for what it was. But ultimately this led to a story that gripped me, that made me feel something for the characters, and of course, that made me want to see how things would pan out.

As this story develops it becomes clear that Sophia's initial gut reaction to the death of her mother and the stabbing of her father - that this wasn't a murder-suicide - is correct. Her mother's strange and secretive past may very well have something to do with the death of her mother.

This is a great book that I really enjoyed. In a year where I'm battling slightly with my reading mojo, this book had me excited to get home every day and to open it up. I highly recommend this one.

I really enjoyed this. It was something a little different to my usual 'who dunnit's' and, the fact that I had absolutely no idea what was coming, or where the story was going to lead kept me turning the pages till the very end.
Sophia is a young woman working on a project for Scottish Heritage at her job as an architect. She enjoys a good social life with friends and work colleagues and after moving into her own little flat in Brixton she has the freedom to enjoy everything London has to offer.
Back home in Suffolk her Mother, Nina, isn't coping very well with her daughter living so far away and makes regular calls to her daughter pleading with her to come home. One particular night when Sophia is in a bar drinking and enjoying herself Nina calls and tells her she must come home urgently.. Sophia's been drinking so can't drive and it's to late for a train, but anyway, she doesn't take the call to seriously and hopes her needy Mother will get used to the situation soon.
Feeling guilty,early the next morning Sophia drives down to Sussex and to her Mum and Dad's house. She finds her Mother hanging from a tree and her Father clinging to life on the ground nearby. She's been dead for a few hours and he's been stabbed with a pair of scissors and might not survive. The police put it down to a murder-suicide, but Sophia can't believe her Mother would hang herself, let alone try to murder her Father first. With no evidence to support any other explanation the police are no help and everyone else seems satisfied to go along with what the police have said, except for Rowan who has worked with her Father for years. She learns from him that the house has been burgled a few times, and there's been a campaign of vandalism going on for months. Whilst searching the house Sophia comes across some notebooks, and what's written in them has Sophia shocked. She realizes that she didn't know much about her Mother's life before she was born at all. The notebooks are draft copies of a book Nina had been writing about her time, as a young woman, when she was in a cult. There's things in these books that certain people wouldn't want published. Could this be what the burglaries have been about? Is this why Nina had become scared to be alone at home? Was she being intimidated so the truth about what happened in the cult would never get out? Sophia thinks she's onto something, especially when she finds out a publisher was interested and she was followed after a meeting with him. To discover what really happened to her parents she has to delve into their past lives, and the lives of all of the members of the strange cult. Can you ever really escape cults and go on to lead normal lives,? Had she been in hiding all these years? Did someone from Nina's past come back to silence her forever or was the killer right there the whole time?
You'll have to read it to find out. Trust me; it's worth it.

Five out of five for this one! Well written, good plot and realistic characters dealing with real life issues. I got so into this book that I actually pulled a sick day at work just so I could finish reading it!
I feel the synopsis is slightly misleading, there is a death and points of the book obviously do focus on that but this is a story of a cult, of love hate and everything inbetween! Will be recommending to everyone, I absolutely loved this story.

Great book. Well written and kept my attention. Not everything or everyone is what they seem. . Would definitely recommend