"We're best friends. We trust each other. But...We are all liars!" If that doesn't intrigue any thriller/mystery fan then I will log off now. It reeled me in that's for sure. I was eager and excited to read this and was over the moon to have the opportunity to review it.

This had multiple points of view, and timeline jumping, from past to present, throughout. Although I can understand fully why the author chose to tell the story this way, it did mean I had to stay really focused on what was happening, as it would be very easy to get lost in this plot and end up confused.

The beginning for me was a little too slow to say this was "gripping," however the jaw-dropping conclusion makes this worth reading to the end. The pace picked by the second half of the book, making this a more entertaining read, full of suspense and plot twists, that I have to admit, never saw coming.

I enjoyed that this allowed me to do the investigational work alongside the Police Team written within this story. This was a perfect read, for any readers, that like to play detective and find out if their suspicions were correct. I was way off the mark on this one, which actually is a positive in my opinion.

This is an author I will be recommending to any thriller/mystery fan. A great read in the end!

This is my first book by Carys and it certainly won’t be my last. I loved the premise of the book and the setting sounded beautiful (apart from the obvious)!
The book is about 5 school friends that reunite in the Scottish highlands during the worst snowstorm.. any guesses as to what might happen?! This story will keep you on your edge of the seat and the way the police interview is slotted into the story helps bring it to life. I was hooked right from Allie’s first page and the story looked to unfold the 20+ year friendship and the lives of all the girls.
A really well written thriller that leaves you wanting more, excellent work Carys!

Review to come to blog/goodreads during the tour, I got a stop on October 14th.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange of an honest review~

So I was waiting for October to come around before I wanted to read this one because it is perfect for my Spooktober reading month! And I am glad I did wait because this was a ride! At times a tad slow, but there were enough moments that I was fully invested.

We got three ways of story-telling. We get flashbacks to tell us several events in the past that ruined everything and made the friendship cracked and broken. Especially the summer when they were 15. I loved the flashbacks so so much as it gave some clarity on everything, on their secrets, on their relationships, on their past, on their friendship. We see that each one of them carries secrets, has lied, hasn't had it easy. Then there is the police interviews with an POI (I had my suspicion on two people, glad I was right). And lastly we have the story itself. The cabin, the birthday party, how everything went horrifically wrong. How things just went south. At times a bit boring as accusations flew by and no one listened to each other, or too much dialogue, but at times very very exciting and I was on the edge of my seat (today 6-10) or curled up in bed (the last 2 nights) just waiting to see what would happen. Who would survive. Who stole Emily's insulin. Things got more hairy as the story continued and secrets were laid bare.

I really wonder why these girls have been friends, have stayed friends. I mean since those events in the summer of their 15th things just burst. Things went wrong. And I wonder why they stuck so closely to each other. Why they still acted like friends while the reader can clearly see that this isn't a healthy friendship. Not at all.

Allie was for most our MC and see most of the events through her eyes, at least those in the story itself. In the flashbacks it is also about the other girls. I am still not sure how I felt about Allie. On the one hand I am happy she is continuing life, on the other hand I just wanted her to get over things, it's been 20 years. She seems so stuck into that accident. As Lucas said, a part of her is seemingly still there. I wanted her to be honest. To tell people no. To talk to Lucas, because I found it a big dick move of her that she never told him she couldn't get kids... while he wanted those. Hello. Talk about that. I know I did with my husband. I don't want kids of my own (due to health reasons) and I made that clear quite early in the relationship because I wanted to be sure he is OK with it. I would definitely NOT hide such a vital thing to anyone.

The ending. *boom* My mind is blown. I won't say anything more, but DANG, I didn't see that one coming. That came totally out of the left field for me. XD

All in all, slow start, sometimes a tad confusing or too much dialogue, but when it gets going it goes and it was very exciting and I had fun reading this book and see all the twists/turns (though that ending. WOW)

This book by Carys Jones started as something I thought I would enjoy thoroughly but I ended up loving it. The turns in this book included moments that had me stunned and sitting in disbelief. The premise of friends - collectively known as The Fierce Five since their youth - meeting up in a secluded Scottish cabin had me intrigued from the get-go and the characters pulled me in from Ally's first passage.

Some moments and reveals I saw coming from a way out but it didn't stop certain circumstances within each still a surprise. There is also so much from the Five's backstories in this that I could be further invested in - such as Gail and her life as I found myself relating to her (minus being almost a recluse in the Highlands!). Emily was so emotionally fractured and although you can see why some of her actions would harm friendships, she was written as a full character who your heart went out to. I loved them all in their own ways, whilst being ever-frustrated by how friendships can simply last a long time even when they don't necessarily feel the same as they once did.

I am thrilled to have got the opportunity to read this as the spoilers I could tell are fantastic. A wonderfully dark and atmospheric read that will be just right for the colder winter nights that are fast approaching. Do yourselves a favour and get a copy to devour and if you are like me then it is such a quick read because you want to know everything! I now intend to read The List by Carys soon as it also sounds right up my alley.

The Fierce Five aka Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail were friends from school. The kind of group you wanted to be a part of but they were too exclusive to join their gang. As the friends move into adulthood they lost the close contact they once shared. An invitation to a reunion brings the group back together but ends in disater.

This is such a rollercoaster ride. Lots of secrets and lies and as the storyline unfolds its hard to work out what is going to happen next. I enjoyed the backstory as the book moves from now and then. The characters were brilliantly flawed and I couldnt put this exciting thriller down.

The Fierce Five have been friends since early childhood. Once close, they have drifted apart as adult life takes hold. In an attempt to rekindle the feelings they all had for each other, Gail invites the women to her cabin in the Scottish Highlands for the weekend. Will they find that friendship again, or will they discover that the lies we all tell each other are too big and too serious?

‘We Are All Liars’ is exhilarating, terrifying and very, very, clever. Told from the point of view of Allie, we see the lives the women lead now and how that has affected their friendship group. But the past cannot and will not be forgotten. There are secrets and lies that have remained hidden for twenty years, but once the women are together it becomes increasingly difficult to keep them from surfacing. I was shocked and surprised and could never have guessed where it was all going. Carys Jones took me on a rollercoaster ride, one I could not get off until the brilliantly conceived twist was revealed. What an amazing story.

I was given this ARC for review.

They had been best friends since starting school and were jokingly known as The Fierce Five, they trusted each other implicitly BUT…….We are all liars!

Allie, Diana, Emily, Gail and Stacie had been really close friends while growing up and through university but then came jobs, boyfriends, husbands, growing apart and little white lies. The lies that became bigger secrets but secrets not shared between them all as in the past. They didn’t catch up and reply to each other like they did, friendships were fragile hanging by a thread.

Gail had invited everyone to her Scottish cabin to celebrate her birthday and a few days away together. While they are reminiscing over old times and old friendships are being rekindled with the atmosphere in the cabin defrosting, the snow storm outside the cabin is building with the electricity being knocked out. Emily can’t find her insulin which she desperately needs as she is diabetic. Allie and Diane set off down the mountain to get help but only Allie comes back after Diane falls and dies.

Little did Allie know that exhausted as she was, she was now going to start another fight for her life….

This book gripped me from the start and I totally enjoyed reading it. I read it in a day. This was a ‘now’ and ‘then’ book which I like as the ‘then’ gives some backstory to the book. I found I couldn’t put the book down as I wanted to find out what was going to happen next and the tension usually got ramped up even more! An interesting ending which caught me out and put one of the girls in a new light for me and made me think of her as a bit manipulative. It highlighted the seriousness of Diabetes which some people may not be aware of but my mum has suffered with this and it can be really bad, not an easy condition to manage. It was well covered in this story so I applaud Carys for that.

Credible characters, stuck in friendships that should have long since withered on the vine, planted in a remote location.

The people were relatable and good fun picking through their flawed relationships.

The story kept me hooked from the opening chapter to the last.

A good read.

Recommend.

The story of five friends with hidden secrets. Are they all they seem? Well written, you want to read just one more chapter. Highly recommended

Ice cold, bloodthirsty thrillers are having a bit of a moment right now and I, for one, can’t get enough of them. Isolated, cruel environments can have a profound effect on mental faculties and it makes them perfect for gritty murder stories. I was delighted to be invited on to the Orion Dash blog tour for this brand new release and I’m delighted to say I couldn’t put it down!

Allie, Stacie, Gail, Emily and Diana have been best friends their whole lives. Although husbands, children and careers have meant that they no longer see each other as much as they used to, their bond remains unbreakable. So when Gail invites them all up to her remote cabin in Scotland for her birthday, the group will be reunited for a fun, boozy break. But the snow starts coming down and it doesn’t stop, leaving them cold and cut off. Then the bodies begin piling up…

Allie loves The Virgin Suicides and openly admits to her ex-husband Lucas that it’s because it reminds her of her bond with her friends. Anyone who knows the story of The Virgin Suicides will immediately see this as a red flag and it perhaps foreshadows what is to come, to some extent.

The group is described in simple, potentially cookie-cutter, Breakfast Club-esque terms by Stephanie, a reporter who I’m assuming knew them at school because she seems to harbour a crush on them. I had great fun figuring out which character fitted which stereotype and they all certainly subscribed to them. I wondered if these roles had been assigned to them years ago or whether they really were their real personalities.

Stacie almost immediately establishes herself as a prize bitch, who craves attention and validation from her friends. Therefore, before anything even happened, she was my prime suspect for triggering off the chaos that I knew was coming. I think she was the only character that I didn’t like at any point in the narrative, so I struggled to see her as anything other than a villain.

We get glimpses of various points throughout the group’s history. It becomes apparent that despite them portraying a very close connection, there are a lot of big secrets. We needed these sections to give us a deeper understanding of the group dynamics and what each of them have been through away from each other. However, we were given these sections weren’t in a linear order and in the version that I read, there was no indication of when the memories were, i.e. titled with dates or anything. So, this whole half of the book was disjointed and sometimes confusing to follow.

Allie is haunted by the past and that’s obvious from the beginning. However, she seems unable to be outwardly vocal about her demons and I think that eats away at her. I kept wanting to encourage her to let her secrets out and find the inner peace that she desperately needs.

Diana is the straight-talking one and no one else could have addressed Allie’s problem as bluntly as she does. When you’re part of a group of friends for your entire life, like these women have been, it’s natural that you would become the role that you play in the group. Therefore when you’re removed from it, your sense of self is somewhat non-existent unless you have other sources of joy. Allie is blatantly stuck in the past and what the girls used to be and this drives the story to a heartbreaking, dramatic ending.

We Are All Liars is a page-turning, heart-racing thriller that explores the intricate workings of lifelong female friendship and the dangers it poses to individual development. Some scenes are very intense and unpredictable, so sit tight for those rides! The very end made me look at the whole book in a different light, which was a highly unique, appreciated twist. Pick it up if you love Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley stress-filled, suspenseful mysteries!

If you’re looking for a thriller to curl up with this Winter then you can’t go far wrong with this book, the snow and the cold just envelopes you and I found myself shivering.. It has a great twist at the end which I totally got but I predict others may be confused by it, which will certainly spoil it for them. It does cover different timelines and it took me a few chapters to work everyone out and it was a little repetitive in places, but overall it was a very enjoyable read. Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for letting me read and review this book.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

A great read about five friends with a complex shared history. Loved the ending.

Arrrggh!! This book is amazing!! I loved the ending and screamed in delight as that was not expected at all. Seriously peeps, go buy this book!!

I loved the plot, the idea of childhood friends, attempting to maintain a friendship whilst they have drifted apart throughout adulthood..

The story uses different timelines to reflect their friendships, which helps to understand their experiences and how these have affected them.

The setting of the book was perfect and I could really visualise the surroundings and emotions.

This is an outstanding book and it’s hard to discuss without blurting out spoilers, this is an absolute must read for any thriller fans.

Thank you so much to the publisher for having me on the #blogtour.

The twists and turns in this book were fantastic! The whole toxic friendship with plenty of deep, dark secrets is also a trope I adore. I also appreciated the world building to really paint a picture of their surroundings.

The issue I had with this is that some bits felt too long winded, and the pacing was sometimes a bit slow. It also took me a while to fully grasp who each character was and paint a clear picture of them in my mind.

If you love a murder mystery or are a fan of Lucy Foley, I'd definitely recommend this one!

This book has intriguing writing, lots of hints and ‘half tales’ are well told, to reel the reader in and get your brain involved. The characters: Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail are all very different and easily distinguishable from each other, but not necessarily likeable.
The story revolves around the friends, increasingly estranged in adulthood, travelling to meet up to celebrate Gail’s birthday in remote Scotland where she lives. The secrets build and the tension ramps up during the stay and I found myself tense and reading quickly!
There are interesting alternate points of view to create mystery - now (in Scotland), then (growing up) and interviewing ’one’ of the friends about a death as a POI.
Learning a little about their childhood / upbringing leads to more understanding of the present circumstances, I was constantly trying to figure out the secrets they were all keeping buried.
For me, the ending of the book, although clever and twisty, was disappointing and sadly lost my affinity with the characters.

3.5 stars rounded up due to the bonkers factor.
I don't think the author would appreciate me calling her book a bit bonkers but - well, it kinda is! It's a bit OTT in places, a bit implausible, but also, at the same time, one heck of a wild ride.
Five forever friends who have become a bit estranged of late reunite for a birthday. In a remote cabin. With a storm on the way. Throw in long standing secrets and lies and, oh dear... what could possible go wrong...?
A lot as it happens. And most of it quite devastating. As the secrets and lies which are more than hinted at for quite a while before they are divulged are, well, not pretty! And have rather nasty aftershocks for most of our cast.
This was one of those books where I had to make myself a cast list and also write notes. There are a lot of flashbacks which did confuse me initially until I started listing. It also escalates quite quickly and rather intensely and that's when my eyes started rolling a bit. I know long seated issues get more intense with time but I wasn't wholly convinced. That said, it did hold my attention and got on with itself very well and delivered quite a clever ending. Not what I was expecting at all...
Characters skirted the boundary of being caricatures and, as already mentioned, I wasn't wholly convinced by their escalation. I know the relationship between them was on the wane already but boy did things get dark very very quickly...
All in all, a solid read that I did enjoy albeit with a pinch of salt. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, Orion Books and Carys Jones for the ARC of We Are All Liars

I have previously read and enjoyed Carys' book The List, so I was excited to see what her next release had in store.

Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail are the Fierce Five and have been friends since their childhood. As they have grown up however, life and it's events have pulled the girls further and further apart.

Attempting to reunite them all, Gail arranges a reunion get together in the Scottish Highlands - a remote cabin and 5 friends catching up for old times sake - what could possibly go wrong?

When a storm hits the cabin and one of the girls can't find her insulin, a race against time starts to save their friend, What follows is a rollercoaster of secrets, lies, history and twists that kept me reading long into the night.

This book took me a little while to get into and during the opening chapters I did find myself having to pay really close attention as the characters were first introduced and we learned about their history. That said, the pace picked up as soon as they reached the cabin and left me completely gripped, with a couple of great twists at the end that came out of nowhere. Reading a lot of thrillers means I am rarely shocked these days so it is always a pleasant surprise when a book takes an unexpected turn!

Whilst the ending will probably fall into the marmite camp (you will either love it or hate it), I really loved it and felt that it bought everything to a great conclusion.

Another really great read from Carys!

Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail are friends since childhood. They called themselves the Fierce Five and they swore each other to be friends forever. Now they are in their mid-thirties and life came in their way. They are not as close as they used to be. Gail decides to invite all of them for a reunification to her birthday to her remote cabin in Scotland. But soon you see that there are fractions in their friendship. They cling to their group but it seems that not all of them like each other anymore. When a storm hits the cabin and cuts them off from the outside things quickly escalate.

The characters have all their own backstory and their distinctive voice. We are closest to Allie. There are a lot of flashbacks to their past. Sometimes from things they experienced together, sometimes we only see a glimpse of one of the girl’s life. The flashbacks are within the story whenever the author thought it suits the story. They are not in separate chapters. And they are quite often. For me it took some of the tension out of the main plot. It slowed the story down. I must admit that I did not enjoy that way of handling the flashbacks. At first I liked Allie but after I while I stopped to feel sympathy for her. It seems that none of them, especially Allie and Stacie, grew up in the last twenty years. When they were fifteen something happened to two of them and this changed the dynamics within the group. And some of them never seemed to have moved on.

After a good start the story slowed down. Because of the many flashbacks, of course, but also because their conversations were going in circles. Especially when Allie and Diana are going through the crazy snow storm to get help they are bickering about something that happened twenty years ago. I found it highly unlikely that that would be on your mind while you are fighting your way through knee-height snow to get help for your friend who is in danger of dying. Later on there is a similar conversation on an old topic which goes on and on for pages but leads to nothing and it just seems so unrealistic. I did not understand why those women still spent time together. There were so many secrets and they never were all very supportive to each other. Their friendship became toxic without them realizing it and they handled their relationships like they were still teens.
The further I got into the story the less I enjoyed it. I got annoyed by the constant bickering, the conversations were all repetitive and the flashbacks slowed the story down. The ending was, well, a bit of a surprise. But to be honest, I did not get the point. And who was Stephanie?

I did not enjoy the book as much as I hoped I would. Allie likes to be the victim and never digested what happened to her. She stayed immature and makes stupid decisions not only while they are at the cabin but throughout her whole life as an adult. Even the twist at the end speaks volumes about her weirdness and her immaturity. It left me a bit confused.

A brilliant story of the Dark betrayal of friendships. I really didn't know who to trust in this story and was kept on the edge of my seat throughout xx

This is a great thriller; a cabin in the remote Scottish highlands, a snowstorm, five best friends. Who may be liars. Plus a murder. It has great pace and the story is told along several different timelines. We are in the present, with a police interview, the recent past up at the cabin and also back in time, into the girls' childhoods. It's quite clear where we are in time and we get to know each woman and her background, what brought them all together and where the cracks in the friendships started. There is so much tension, it's really quite immersive and as long as you suspend belief a little, there is action aplenty! A cracking thriller that carries you along and a great twist at the end! If you like the blurb you'll enjoy the story!