For me this was quite a disturbing.read. I had to remind myself it was fiction. I did read this over two days. Tense and emotional, I had to read to the end.

Pacey, emotional, quite different from other thrillers with a similar premise. A quick read, whizzed through it!

A totally engaging and absorbing book! A young girl goes missing on a crowded station platform and 7 years later walks into a police station with a little girl who was abducted a couple of days earlier. All the people closest to her, mother, stepfather, auntie, uncle, cousin and twin brothers are all happy to have her home but what secrets are they keeping between them? Each layer of deceit is gradually peeled away leaving a devastating truth at its kernel. Highly recommend

I was really hoping my first book of the new year would be a good one but I was just so totally at odds with this one.

Portrayed as a thriller it's anything but. It feels completely flat and totally devoid of any emotion.

A real slow story that continually dragged and I just found so difficult to get into, I tried leaving it for a few days and going back to it but it just didn't grab my attention in any way whatsoever.

Sadly a 1* from me.

Thanks to netgalley and HQ for the ARC.

There sometimes appeared to be conflicting views but there would be as the story was told from 2 different view points, lots f things didn’t seem to add up and I found it a confusing story

I hate to give up on a book, but this i just couldn't get into. I tried leaving it for a few days and trying again but to no avail.

Not sure if it is the same for most readers/reviewers but there is always a point in a book when I know it is a book I will like and I start to get really involved. A small number don't have this point. Some books have the point in the first few pages but for some it takes well into the second half of the book to reach it.
I did not reach this point with Little White Lies until I was three quarters through so I found for most of the book I was turning the pages not in the 'can't wait/put down' feeling expressed in the summary reviews but in the 'really hope something happens soon' mode.
But, when it did, I found the last 25% to be absolutely brilliant and a superb read. I never knew how it was going to finish but you always have the feeling there is something else behind the disappearance. I can't give it a 5 star rating as it took so long for me to get into the book but I would rate the last 25% as 10 stars!
My only concern with the ending was what I define as a Hollywood ending. I would have preferred a confrontation ending primarily with words. Still, you have to make up your own mind but certainly give it a read.

A good book, enjoyable and real but lots of questions through as to why people are behaving like they are. Did expect a bigger twist but still good.

This book was really odd to me as I assume it is supposed to be a thriller but it is far from it. The book is very slow-paced and drags on and it became clear to me about 50% in that the reveal wouldn't be exciting, there just was no way it could be done with what we had already seen before.
The story is told from the perspective of Anne and Jess. Anne is the mother of Abigail and Jess is Abigail's cousin. When Abigail is 8 she goes missing in London and she isn't found, not until she's 15 and she's returned to her family. The first issue with this book is the characters we see it from, they both provide a very distant and far away feeling throughout the book, you honestly would have thought they were people in the family who weren't in the heart of the drama. Although Anne is her mum she really provides nothing of interest, her cousin Jess is too obsessed with being the 8 year she and her cousin were that anything from her was useless because it was clear she had no idea of the scope of emotions her cousin could be feeling.
The book lacked any sort of emotion around what Abigail may be feeling or going through and I just found that odd, we're witnessing a child who has been abducted come back but her mum is too busy harbouring some guilt about the day and just seems to sit in the housekeeping notes on her daughter.
Honestly, the lie that we find out isn't groundbreaking and really doesn't change anything as it seems like Abigail would still have been abducted.
I'm sorry to say this book was just really flat and devoid of any emotion or thriller material.

I found this book slow and difficult to read. In fact I put it down and then came back to it twice as I simply had to know what happened!

Seven years ago Abigail White disappeared whilst travelling on the underground with her mother and twin brothers. Unbelievably, seven years later she is found and is now approaching her sixteenth birthday. Understandably her behaviour is difficult and it soon becomes clear that there seems to be more to her disappearance than was first thought. What does she remember and what is it that her mother seems to be hiding?
I really enjoyed this book, thank you Netgalley for letting me read an early copy. It had me gripped, was well constructed and absolutely believable. If you enjoy a good mystery, you’ll enjoy this.

An intense web of secrets, a mysterious lie hanging over them. Little White Lies was a riveting read showing how complex trauma is and how it destroys not only the victim but also their families.

The two different perspectives worked well and the voices were distinct. I found Jess naive and somewhat childlike and I felt sorry for her. I didn't connect well with Anne but only because I knew she was hiding something and I couldn't trust her.

It was intriguing to see what could happen when a missing child is returned after so many years. How it can tear families apart and change not only the kidnapped child but also the ones closest to them.

I quickly realised that all was not as it seemed and some of the characters were hiding things. Anne's reaction to her daughter coming home was somewhat strange and angered me at points. I couldn't understand why she reacted the way she did, however, it all becomes clear at the end.

Overall, this book was riveting, exciting and kept me engaged. I had so many questions and I couldn't stop reading because I needed to know the whole truth. A great debut novel and I'm so excited for the author's future books!

I'd love to get in touch with the Publisher as when I was trying to find this title it came up with many other titles with the same or similar names, then there is the series with the similar name "Big Little Lies".

For me the book dragged and I skipped pages though I did want to see what happened at the end so I kept reading. As suggested by the title and the nature of the book it is a sad book especially reading it as a mother. It's frightening to think of how a child could be abducted though in this case, the daughter returns several years later.

Aspects of the book were unrealistic but we would be going into spoiler territory and I'm reluctant to do that.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for my ARC version of the book.

Like others have said, this one started out a tad slow but the last third was quite addictive and I had to know how it ended. Very well developed character world and I give it thumbs up.

I was really looking forward to this , the plot is a good one . Abigail is abducted and years later walks into a police station with another younger girl . It's a difficult readjustment for her family . The book is told from Abigail's mum and cousins pov . I really struggled to engage with the book , I found it slow and just wasn't for me

Slow to start but ended up really enjoying this one if you struggle with it I’d say to keep at it it it’s off in the end !!

I found the this book to be quite slow until the trial began towards the end. I didn't feel particularly engaged with any of the characters through most of the book which is probably why I found it quite hard going. I'm glad I persevered though as I did enjoy the ending.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

Little White Lies was a great read. The story centres around Abigail who went missing at 8 years old, who has now been found 7 years later and comes back to her family who are have been in turmoil without her. But her return raises many questions for the family she returns to, and her cousin's family as well.
I thought the book was very well written and it kept me reading until the end wanting to know what happened.
Thank you to Netgalley, Phillippa East and the publisher for an advance copy.

Little White Lies is a clever and fast moving thriller with a slightly different spin on the lost child trope in literature. Anne's daughter, Abigail, went missing some seven years ago, vanishing from a train station without more than a glimpse of CCTV footage. The family have never stopped searching for their missing child, but most people assume Abigail is dead. Until she walks into a police station holding the hand of a young girl who went missing just a few days ago. Told from the perspective of Abigail's mother and her cousin, it is a stark depiction of how even that which we wish for most in the world can turn out to be a double edged sword.

This is a book that draws deeply on the relationships in a family dynamic, both good and bad, as well as just how complex even supposedly clear cut events can be. From the very beginning you are aware that Anne is hiding something, a piece of information about the day Abigail was taken that is supposedly inconsequential according to her sister. Her relationship with her daughter is fraught, she struggles to reconnect with this teenage version of her daughter who is so different from the child she remembers. Jess is almost the complete opposite, immediately reconnecting with her beloved cousin but often not seeing just how much Abigail has changed during her seven years in captivity, instead trying to be exactly the same as they were at eight years old. The two families are exceptionally close and the relationship between Anne and her sister Lillian is one of the most interesting ones as so much of what has happened is linked to the absolute control Lillian seems to have over her sister.

All in all, this is a tight and emotional read and it tackles what is a common theme in books with a unique twist. The use of the two characters works well, as it gives a different perspective than just that of the mother who it goes without saying is going to be struggling with feelings of guilt over the day her daughter was taken. Jess as a character is heart-breaking and really highlighted just how much trauma the event had on everyone, not just Abigail. She has virtually put her life on pause since the day her cousin was taken. I felt the depictions of Abigail as a survivor were realistic and moving as well; as a character she can be quite dislikable with her moods and some of her behaviour, which was a brave move but one that hits home. It was interesting to read how Jess and Anne felt about her and to be in the same situation as them, where they are so desperate to try to understand her but always looking through a tinted looking glass.

So yes, this is a well written and tautly paced novel that focuses on the aftermath of the abduction rather than on the event itself. There is a lot of build up around the family relationships which made for really interesting reading and it is difficult not to spend the book wondering what that white lie really is. Some aspects at the end could have been explored in more depth but as a whole this is a really rewarding read that is well worth picking up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free copy of this book.

This book could have been so much better. It was just bits of it seemed unrealistic and I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential that could have been reached. The ending was anti climactic and none of it hit a note with me.