This one wasn't really my cup of tea, I didn't love the characters and I wasn't engrossed. It had some good elements and might be perfect for someone....just not me :)

The toxicity of family relationships and secrets come to the fore in this chilling read that is partly inspired by a true story. Lily will do anything to protect her life and family – she’s worked hard to maintain it. She’s made ruthless choices to make sure their secrets stay buried, and she’s not going to stop now. But when her daughter Rachel – noted party animal – goes out of control, her mum hires a well known therapist and healer. Rachel needs a confidante and Amber seems to be it – but how much control is her new friend having over her? Does Amber sincerely have Rachel’s best interests at heart? One thing is for sure: someone is lying… This is a fine psychological thriller that isn’t always pretty to read or watch, but makes for all the better of feeling unsettled. I can see this as a Netflix production so it’s no surprise to learn that the author has a TV production background.

When I heard this was a story of a difficult relationship between a mother and daughter, I assumed that the daughter in question was a teenager. To find that she was in fact a woman in her early thirties was the hook I needed.

Rachel is the problematic middle child. Typical middle child, I’m not sure, but she feels like the flaw in an otherwise picture perfect middle class family. In her mid-thirties but still living like she’s newly released into the world, she’s wild in an otherwise ordered reality. When Rachel lets a little bit too loose at a family event, she’s persuaded into therapy with the quietly enigmatic Amber. Her mother Lily expects the therapy to lead Rachel back into the family’s hold, but it instead it unearths some brutal home truths.

Once I started Tell Me Your Lies, I found it very hard to put down. And isn’t that just how a good psychological suspense book should take you? Ruby plants just enough subtle questions in the early chapters to lead the reader to need answers. It’s usual to want to like the protagonist, but Rachel is just a bit too problematic, while there’s something unsettlingly perfect about her mother Lily and her control and vision for her ostensibly “grown-up” family.

Deep into her therapists regime, Rachel follows Amber to a retreat, and here the story becomes somewhat fantastical. With such a turn the story could easily have become ridiculous, but Ruby manages to maintain that quiet sense of intrigue. And the ending? Well, it’s just too perfectly cinematic not to be made into a suitably suspenseful film.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

A well written, book with lots of interesting characters and a good storyline. a well written physiological thriller.

Tell me your lies by Kate Ruby is a tense read that I could not put down

I was very invested in the story and characters, mainly Lily and I had to keep reading this!

What is a perfect family?

Lily and Nick like to show the world their perfect family. Both are high-flyers – Lily in property and Nick is a lawyer. They have three children; Josh is married to Chloe. Sophie is engaged to Toby and their wedding is imminent, then there’s Rachel. Rachel is complicated, she sailed through her A levels and university, works in a high-powered job for the government but she is an embarrassment to her family. She drinks to excess.

Lily had been called to the hospital where Rachel has had her stomach pumped after too much cocaine and alcohol. Lily detests this behaviour. She detests the fact that she can’t control Rachel. In desperation and prepared to get Rachel help, she finds a therapist, who uses both esoteric and holistic healing to treat Rachel. We learn early in the novel that Rachel, as a young girl had experienced a trauma that deeply affected her. However, Lily had turned the trauma into an attempt to get attention. Lily tells Rachel that she doesn’t believe her and refuses to ever discuss the event further. Will these sessions with Amber, the therapist, bring Rachel back into the fold? Will she once again become the devoted daughter?

What an outstanding, brilliant book! Kate Ruby had my full attention from the beginning. I have met families like this where one child doesn’t shape up to the family’s expectations and have watched how they suffer under the pressure. I have also seen mothers see their children start to recover and not like the new, more confident child. Kate Ruby captures the healing sessions, the new Rachel beginning to test her wings like a butterfly and how the family under Lily’s subtle behaviour reject this healed version.

The ending was quite brilliant! Far beyond what I expected, and it had me cheering for the underdog.

It is a truly brilliant book that will keep you turning the pages long into the night, desperate to find out how it will end.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

This book was interesting to say the least. It really hit on hard subjects which was nice for a thriller. The three different perspectives was odd in some parts. I liked the writing style of this book as well.

A really clever story. A really good psychological thriller. Full of twists and turns and impossible to put down. Three women and one deadly secret. This book had me on the edge of my seat. I just had to keep on reading I HAD TO KNOW THE TRUTH. A gripping read and highly recommended.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

When Kate Ruby introduces her readers to Lily Appleby, one of three women who dominate the events in this psychological thriller, we meet someone who has really been through the mill emotionally. With chapters alternating between mother Lily and daughter Rachel, the two women tell the story of a family brought to its knees, rewinding to a particular incident that marks the beginning of their twelve months of purgatory. Black sheep of the family, Rachel, is at the centre of the storm, hell bent on self destruction as yet another drink and drug fuelled episode lands her in hospital. With money no object, Lily, who is desperate to pull her daughter back from the brink turns to Amber Grenville, so called addiction angel as a last resort, in a bid to paper over the cracks and present a vision of the perfect family to all onlookers. Naturally this seems like the ideal solution. Or is it???

Certain words spring to mind when trying to articulate my thoughts relating to the characters within the plot and the plot itself. Poisonous, twisted, manipulative and weird are the most obvious ones. The Applebys are one highly dysfunctional family, broken, divided and in dire straits. Materially wealthy this family may be but in terms of family harmony they might as well be on the poverty line. Nick, Rachel’s father appears aloof and disinterested in his daughter’s problems and an unloving husband to Lily whilst Josh, the perfect son, is condescending and pompous. The only character with apparently no ulterior motive other than to keep the peace is Sophie, caught in the middle between her sister and her mother. But why is it that Rachel was fallen off the rails as opposed to her siblings? That’s just one of the questions causing the reader much consternation as the storyline develops. The author has deliberately created characters you’re guaranteed to loathe; I don’t think I’ve ever come across so many abhorrent characters all in one place. The only danger with this tactic is when you’re faced with characters you utterly detest it can be all too easy to become disengaged from the storyline and ambivalent towards the outcomes. Thankfully that didn’t happen in this instance but I’ll admit to coming close to abandoning the book on several occasions. However the author’s insight into a family ripped apart by lies (whose lies??) is excellent as too is her insight into the world of the therapist so I felt compelled to stick with it. Amber is one of those intriguing characters you’re equally fascinated and repelled by. Together with her unorthodox practices you’re left wondering whether she’s a saviour or a saboteur.

This is most definitely a storyline where you should trust no one and question absolutely everything. Pretty much everyone’s lives are built upon a foundation of lies; you sink into a quagmire of them very quickly, unclear of anybody’s motivations. The only thing you can be sure of is that they’re all acting in their own best interests. There is so much underlying tension it gives you the shivers and as the plot thickens the more uneasy you feel, unsure where the hidden dangers lie but equally certain they’re there waiting to catch you unawares. Some scenes with Amber whose practices could be considered highly alternative (or utter garbage depending on your outlook) are intended to be eye rolling and had me snorting with derision. Generally the air is choked with resentment, hatred, unhappiness and pretence and it’s hard to envisage how Rachel’s problems outside of and within the family are ever likely to be resolved satisfactorily. Overall for much of the time I felt as if I was fumbling around in the dark for the light switch, having only a vague idea in which direction the plot was heading, so blindsided by some of these individuals actions that I forgot I had a spot of detective work to do! When I did finally reach that lightbulb moment and all becomes crystal clear I was glad of my decision to see this book through to its conclusion. The ending in my opinion is worth it!

Tell Me Your Lies is a good, well paced and well executed psychological thriller which I think many fans of the genre will enjoy.

My thanks as always to the publisher Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Tell Me Your Lies. It had plenty of twists and turns to keep me hooked and I could not put it down. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for my ARC.

This is a clever psychological thriller.
I wasn’t sure who to trust out of the three narrators, but it was clear Lily was hiding something.
Rachel is her daughter and after having her stomach pumped, admits she has a problem.
Lily finds Amber, a therapist, and at first is happy with the progress being made. However, when Amber encourages Rachel to admit her mother is the cause of her problems, Lily is far from happy.
This book definitely had me hooked as I really wanted to know how things turned out for Rachel.
A different type of psychological thriller, but one I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

A great story of how someone can control a person who is vulnerable. This is about a girl called Rachel who needs help, so her mother finds a therapist called Amber. What follows is how amber totally controls Rachel and turns her against her family and how her mother tries to reach her but Rachel believes in Amber.
A real dark story with a twists and a surprising ending.
Hope there is a follow up.
Would highly recommend.

A story of a destructive family one with alcohol abuse and the parents spend lots of money on a therapist, healer.
I found this a very slow book and could not gel with any of the characters and struggled to get to the end.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

When I first started reading this book I wasn’t sure at all as to where it was going but all I knew was I needed desperately to find out. It’s a psychological thriller with a slow burn of a beginning that completely gripped me as the tension built and the secrets and lies began to build up. The characters are varied and I was never quite sure of who to trust which made me fly through the book trying to find out what was going to happen. I love it when I start to read a new book and it turns out to be be both different and absorbing and this one was just that.
Told from different points of view and extremely well crafted I thoroughly enjoyed the read and can highly recommend it.
My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was instantly hooked by the twists and turns of Tell Me By Your Lies. The complexity of Rachel’s family history that gradually unravelled itself through her counselling sessions over the course of the novel made me feel as if we as readers were right there experiencing the psychological torment with her.

It was particularly interesting to unpack why Rachel acts the way that she did, as well as seeing how the client-therapist relationship she shared with Amber developed.

If I had to be really nit picky, I would say that the loss of the fifth star was down to the fact that the plot wasn’t as fast-paced as I would have liked, and that I was able to guess the plot twist a while before it happened. However, I still really enjoyed Kate Ruby’s style of writing and will look out for more titles from her in the future.

*Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for this ARC in exchange for an open and honest review.*

Rachel is from an affluent family, has a good job and her own flat, but her life is spiralling out of control with “recreational “ drink and drugs. After collecting Rachel from hospital where she has had to have her stomach pumped, Lily, Rachel’s mother decides it’s time for her to take control. Lily arranges for Rachel to been seen by a therapist, Amber, to get to the root of the problem. Needless to say this is when that spiral really gets going!

As a debut this is very good. The story is gripping and well written, and even though some of the subject matter is very dark, it is treated well.

If there was an award for a storyline of obnoxious characters, this book would win hands down. Apart from Sophie, who is so wet as to be dripping, they were all awful. Good job by the author for getting that reaction!

I enjoyed the book, but thought the denouement between Rachel and Amber a little long winded and unlikely, and the ending a little predictable. Even so, this didn’t spoil the book and I would recommend.

Thank you NetGalley.

Kate Ruby is a new name to me but this is a terrific first crime novel and I look forward to more. As the title implies, the central family is concealing a number of secrets and we have the accounts of mother Lily and daughter Rachel. The latter is on a downward spiral and Lily sets her up with a therapist, with devastating results. The revelations come thick and fasdt in this well written and gripping novel.

This was very well plotted and paced. The author does a great job of exploring family dynamics. I will definitely be recommending this read.

Thanks indeed to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Wow what a debut ! I absolutely loved this psychological thriller which looks at the toxic relationships between Rachel and her mother Lily and her therapist Amber. I love novels that feature therapists and complex family relationships and Tell Me Your Lies did not disappoint. It's told from the point of view of Rachel and her mother Lily and I loved the gradual unfolding of the story and the unexpected twist. A beautifully written and compelling novel that I would highly recommend.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

I really enjoyed this book , very well written and a great debut novel . There were plenty of twists and turns with this manipulative mother . The story didn’t go in the direction I was expecting. I will definitely be reading more from this author and will highly recommend this book . 5 stars from me