Thank you to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for the arc of We Are All Liars by Carys Jones.

5 stars- This follows friends Diana, Stacie, Gail, Emily and Allie whom are nicknamed The Fierce Five and have by each others sides for as long as they can remember. But as they have grown up they have ended up growing apart from each other and there are huge white lies and big secrets being hidden. Gail then proceeds to invite the whole group of them to a scottish cabin to try fix there estranged relationship, snow storm hits the cabin and one of them are found dead on the ice but who can you trust and who will get back alive.

Hooking, well written edge of seat highly recommend,

A vast majority of this breath taking, intense tale of toxic friendships, betrayals, secrets, survival and deception is narrated from the perspective of Allie who along with Diana, Stacie, Emily and Gail had been known as the Fierce Five since their school days. The reader is made aware from the minute that Allie is first introduced into the story that she has reservations about attending the friend's reunion at Gail's isolated cabin that was situated in the Scottish Highlands. As the story which is set in the present day and the past unfolds it becomes apparent that the friendships between some of the women were not as close as people outside the group believed them to be.

As the temperature plummeted on both the inside and outside of the cabin, the women found themselves cut off from civilisation with no means of summoning help. But how and why had the reunion gone so badly and tragically wrong? Who was the unnamed person of interest who was being questioned by Officer Fields in chapters that were scattered throughout the story? It was obvious that the mysterious individual was one of the five friends but the author keeps the reader guessing by keeping that character's identity a secret until towards the end of the story.

The author added dimension to her realistic group of females by including chapters that were written in italics and took the reader back into the women's pasts. During these parts of the story we were given insights into events, interactions and relationships with other individuals who had played some part in the friend's lives both individually or whilst they were together as a group. We all have our own unique personal histories, events that have contributed to our characters and behaviour as adults, memories that we either want to remember or lock away in a tiny box and lose the key forever. The question was, was there any connection between events in the present day and the past?

The younger and older versions of each woman had their own unique personalities and character traits. I could easily empathise with Allie's feelings of being a outsider during some of her interactions with the other members of the Fierce Five but I can't say that I thought she was a very likeable individual as a adult. I thought that she really needed to remove the rose tinted glasses that she insisted on wearing and open her eyes to the truths hiding within certain situations.

Wow....just wow, I loved this intense, atmospheric thriller that hooks the reader in from the first page, keeps you captivated and hardly gives you a opportunity to draw in a breath at times as the story winds its way towards its unexpected,very ingenious, jaw dropping conclusion. I love books that are based in isolated locations especially where the characters are cut off from civilisation and have no way of summoning help. I really really enjoyed this extremely well written,cleverly plotted story and if possible would give it far more than five stars. Very very highly recommended by little old me.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book good, but a little bit slow in places. A bit crazy in places, but a good read nonetheless.

A remote location book. Five best friends “The Fierce Five” have been friends since primary school, throughout secondary school and university but time is taking its toll and they have grown apart naturally. Gail invites them up to her house in Scotland which is where we catch up with them. A trip to reconnect turns a little sour.

A bit far fetched but generally good.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Well written, this book was an interesting premise based on the relationship of 5 girls through their lives. Encompassing all sorts of rivalry and betrayals it was a good read. The characters didn’t quite grab me enough to root for them in any real way though. Overall worth a look!

We Are All Liars tells the story of 5 best friends since they were very little, the time line jumps around a lot but I was OK with this. These girls are said to be the "fierce five", nothing and no one will tear them apart. However, throughout the years, they lie, backstab and betray each other.
I didn't find it too exciting to be fair and it took a very long time before any type to action happened. However, I kept reading as I was intrigued to find out who was being interviewed by the police during the present day, the possible only survivor.
What I did like was the literal final twist, It does make you rethink the entire story which is quite clever, but one thin
g I found unusual about the final twist was the decision that was made about the main villain? Surely they was the most loyal in the end??
3.5 stars rounded to 4
#NetGalley
#WeAreAllLiars

The Fierce Five are a tight knit group of friends who have been together since the beginning of primary school, spending secondary school and even university together. But as they've grown up, they've grown apart and loyalties are stronger in some friendships than in others.
One of the five. Gail, lives in a remote Scottish cabin; she invites the others to come and celebrate her birthday. The other four all make their way up to Scotland, where snow is falling heavily, and settle in for a weekend of celebrating. There's an incident which means that some of the women need to venture out into the snow, whilst others are still in the cabin. Both groups of friends share some home truths and confessions that are long overdue.

I enjoyed reading it but felt some of the twists were a bit too far fetched for me; though looking at other reviews, this might just be my impression.
Thanks for the chance to read it,

A thriller with a different writing style. Firstly, written in the past when the five friends were younger, through their teenage years and young adulthood. Secondly, written in the past when the five friends are all in the remote Scottish cabin. Thirdly, written in the present with a ‘person of interest’ being interviewed by a police officer. For a start, this style of writing seemed a bit confusing but to be honest, once you get into the storyline it all becomes clear and is easy to follow.

The ‘Fierce Five’ have always been the best of friends from an early age. Gail, Allie, Emily, Stacie and Diana all get together to celebrate Gail’s 35th Birthday at her remote cabin. With a snow storm raging you just know there are going to be problems but what follows goes way beyond the terror of a snowstorm and power cut! Five go up the mountain. How many will make it down?

Clearly some of the friends are keeping secrets, hence the blasts from the past, which slowly unravel the mystery of what happened, when and to who?

I certainly didn’t see the end coming and I can’t make my mind up as to whether I was thrilled or disappointed. It was that much of a surprise and has left me totally gobsmacked!

Many thanks to netgalley, the publishers and the author for a copy to read and review. A strong 4 out of 5 stars for sure.

When you start reading it is initially a bit confusing as it is told in a 3 part perspective and the first person we meet we don't get to find out who they are for a while. But I actually enjoyed this approach once I warmed to the idea. Some chapters are not clearly defined so characters can merge into each other whilst your'e reading, but it's not dramatic. There is a switch between past and present too so we get to learn about the 'The Fierce Five'

It really does keep you guessing until the very end and there is a twist that changes everything. It was an exhilarating to read.

Full review on my blog

A fantastic book which is well written and completely engaging. I have been completely pulled in and kept hostage by this one.
This is unique, intriguing and one that I have devoured.

I found this story really gripping, and I didn't see the end coming. The author created the setting really well, which helped fuel the intense atmosphere growing throughout the book. Would highly recommend as a twisty thriller!

This is a very eerily set thriller full of secrets and lies. In an isolated spot in the midst of a snowstorm, five friends who haven’t seen each other for a while and who don’t always see eye to eye are reunited to spend quality time together. It’s a chance to bond and to rekindle their former friendships but, as you might suspect this is full of far darker, more disturbing secrets, grudges and frightful feelings.

Swinging back and forth, like a pendulum, between the past and the present day, this allows us to explore the innermost secrets of the Fierce Five; the five female best friends. At school they were the closest of friends but, even then they had their secrets and it’s these that re-surface to bring things to a head at a remote cabin in Scotland. Designed to be a celebration and the opportunity to spend it like they would have done all those years ago; dancing, chatting and enjoying a meal together, after a lot of turbulence this rapidly turns to tragedy. With police interviews scattered throughout we don’t know who is being interviewed and what they too are hiding. Testing my memory of what we had been told of the girls in their younger years I tried hard to piece together what I knew of them to see who was responsible for the way things had turned out.

To me an isolated setting always creates a sinister setting and this is no exception, it’s tense, exhilarating and fraught with devious characters, and I wasn’t sure who could be trusted. Each of the ‘fierce five’ seemed to be working to their own agenda and I really wasn’t sure that I actually liked any of them! This kept me reading on with tension and apprehension about what would become of the fierce five and kept me full of trepidation right until the last page.

The perfect book to sit up with on a dark autumn evening! If you enjoyed The hunting party and Shiver I think you’ll enjoy this too!

Interesting characters but I could not find any to root for. The writing was gripping enough to keep me turning the pages to discover the secrets killing those five best friends who in the end did not really talk, act, and feel like friends at all! The final twist caught me by surprise. Nice read.

I found Allie to be an enjoyable protagonist - at first. The disjointedness of the narrative meant that any kind of flow was easily disrupted. I found Allie less and less relatable as time went on. The lack of likeability meant that I wasn't as invested in the discoveries/secrets/betrayals than I should have been.

After a good start the story slowed down. Because of the many flashbacks but also because the general narrative was going in circles. The conversations became repetitive and felt like meaningless bickering; filler to reinforce how angry they were at each other, as if it wasn't clear how fractured their relationships are.

I thought the twist was good but I was uninvested by the reveal so it left me unsatisfied.

This was a crazily unusual read for so many reasons. For the most part it's quite repetitive, overly descriptive and slow as the friends try to contend with the snow storm. There were lots of hints but nothing was explained properly and so it took a long time to find out what had happened to cause the present day tensions. But, the ending is something else - although I still can’t quite decide if it’s really good or just really confusing but what I do know is that it was totally unexpected and unique! The structure is also unusual, flipping regularly between the present mostly from Allie's POV, the police interview of an unidentified person of interest, and flashbacks from multiple viewpoints. These flashbacks are not in separate chapters, chronologically ordered or quantified so at the start while you're still trying to get all the characters and events straight it's all a little random and confusing. I sort of enjoyed this but it's definitely different.

We Were All Liars by Carys Jones

The ‘Fierce Five’ have always been the best of friends. Gail, Allie, Emily, Stacie and Diana are all different in character, but have complimented each other. Gail is the organised one who tends to get them altogether. Allie is quiet and tends to be more introspective than the others. Emily is the traditional one, with her twins and husband Adam at the centre of everything she does. Stacie has been married twice, someone who is proud of being straight talking, but is still holding a lot inside. Finally there’s Diana who came from a more deprived background than the others and has a more cynical or realist’s perspective on life. They are all invited by Gail to celebrate her 35th birthday at her cabin, an isolated and atmospheric spot in the Scottish Highlands. The girls plan on catching up, having a drink and enjoying the remote location where they’re removed from their everyday lives. However, when a snow storm threatens to cut them off completely, events are set in motion that no one expected.

This was my first book from Carys Jones and she certainly knows how to ratchet up the tension. This wasn’t my first remote chalet thriller this year because there have been a few books with a similar premise such as Catherine Cooper’s The Chalet and Ruth Ware’s One by One. I found this story compulsively readable, with well-drawn characters and a real sense of surprise and menace. The story is told in two timelines, the current stay in the cabin and then back into the girl’s pasts where we could explore their past interactions and the events that shaped who they are. These sections were not necessarily chronological, but each section informed the situation in the present. A third section is written as the transcript of a police interview with an unnamed person of interest. Since one of these transcripts starts the book off, we know how important they are to the story and that something very very wrong has happened on the girl’s weekend.

The storm is menacing and I felt like the author depicted it like a sixth character in the novel. Even though it’s outside, it seems to influence what happens inside, so as the storm builds so do the friend’s emotions. When the storm is at it’s height the secrets, and lies of the book’s title, come to the surface and events take a drastic turn. I loved the way the author depicted this complicated friendship, because it was realistic. Often large friendship groups like this do have factions - two of the group who are closer than the others, another pair keeping a secret from the group or one member feeling isolated from the others. It’s impossible for groups like this to last years without changes happening. Individual experiences shape and change us over time and that might mean friendships wax and wane, but in groups like this those changes can cause resentment and jealousy. This happens especially if two people bond over an experience they’ve both had, switching allegiances such as friends who’ve both have children tending to gravitate towards one another. As the secrets come tumbling out and the girls battle to cope with the revelations and the effects of the storm things reach boiling point. Which of the friends will snap? This is an entertaining novel about old friendships that might just put you off your next school reunion. Tense, claustrophobic, and an unexpected ending. I’ve been reading this in a remote cabin in North Wales and it definitely added to the experience!

This will appear on the blog tour tomorrow,

My first read from this author and when I started it I wasn’t sure. For me this was a slow burner, and I was also a bit confused with the timelines/ flashbacks. But if like me you find the same then stick with it. As secrets are revealed the pace escalated quickly. The story turns quite dark and you wonder how there could ever have been an expectation of rekindling their friendship with all the lies and subterfuge simmering beneath the surface.

Briefly, five best friends since childhood have become estranged over time, until one of them, Gail, invites them all to her remote cabin in Scotland to celebrate her 35 birthday. However, there are reasons for their estrangement and the chance of resurrecting their previous friendship is smashed to smithereens when one of them is found dead during a freak snowstorm.

A good read that I did enjoy but I think the flashbacks slowed the story too much for it to be a great read. Characterisations are good but I never felt myself particularly drawn to any of them. There are lots of secrets to be revealed and the ending was very good and I give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was very intrigued by the blurb of We Are All Liars so jumped at chance to be on this blog tour. That intrigue stayed with me throughout the entirety of the book. The author does so much to draw the reader in: the creepy mountaintop location, four flawed main characters, and the promise of a death. The story alternates between the present day and different instances in the friends’ lives. We become more and more aware of their back story and the events that shapes who they are today. And we become very aware that their friendship is not all it seems.

I love how We Are All Liars explored all of the main characters but I feel like they could have been developed more. While I got them for the most part, there were some actions I felt could have been explained better. I also felt that the layout of the book was a bit difficult to follow at the beginning. When the plot jumps back in time it alternates between the different characters and it made it difficult to connect the story and see where it was going.

While I did enjoy We Are All Liars, a tighter telling of the story would have elevated it from a good to a great read.

Friends and secrets that will explode in a white snow weekend… Really, what more do you need to spend your night with? 😉
The Fierce Five, Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail have been friends since they were young but life has separated them, now they want to recover their friendship during a weekend in Scotland. But, not everything will go as planned when one of them dies… Who could have a motive to kill and why now?
I’ll begin admitting that I love family reunions, they always end with someone dead! Yes; secrets, lies and mysteries are the best way to keep the reader invested in the story and to make your own plots while reading the book.
I think after reading to many “friends reunion” I would never go to any school reunion again, just in case someone wants to kill me… Because, even if you were really a bad person during your teenage years, I don’t think killing will ever be the answer. But, let’s be honest, the reads are so much fun!
This is a story well plotted and engaging; with multiple characters to love/hate and keep you turning pages without noticing it!
Are you ready for “We Are All Liars”?

Thanks to NetGalley and Orion for my copy of this book for review and my place on the blog tour.

This one intrigued me from the start - the idea of a group of friends with a whole host of secrets between them. I couldn't wait to read about Allie, Gail, Diana, Stacey and Emily - young women in their thirties whose lives have gone in different directions, but who are bound by their shared past.

When Gail invites the friends to her Scottish cabin for her birthday celebrations, they envisage a chance to catch up and spend some time together. They don't, however, foresee the storm that puts them in peril and pits them against each other for survival...

As expected, this is a tense and exciting thriller. The twists and uncovered secrets keep coming and the reader - like Allie, the main narrator - is never quite sure who to trust. The plotting is cleverly paced, although the second half of the book definitely steps up a gear and is more engaging. There is no way I could have predicted the ending - but I'm not sure how I feel about it even now!

The setting of a remote Scottish cabin on a mountain is well chosen - especially when it becomes cut off by the storm and the reader is thrown into a Christie-esque 'And Then There Were None' situation. There's real danger in the brutal conditions and it kept me turning the pages to see how it ended.

The characters are mostly quite unlikeable, but I think that is intentional and important to the story. My biggest issue is why on earth this group would choose to stick together given their traumatic pasts and the fact they don't seem to like each other very much. It works for the story but in real life I'd have wanted to be as far away from the Fierce Five's toxic friendship as possible!

I'd recommend this tense and twisty thriller for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware. This is my first book by Carys Jones and I'd be interested to read more. Overall, it is an engaging and lively read about a circle of friends bound together for all the worst reasons.