Amazing read! I was totally hooked with this excellent plot. Heart pounding as to how they would get out of the situation! Brilliant characters who I really felt their emotions leap off the page. Highly recommend this excellent thriller.

Two families go on holiday to Oman, staying in a villa together. Following Sara, who is attempting to fix her relationship with her 17 year old daughter Liv after an incident that happened. Sara and Liv are invited to go on holiday with Liv’s boyfriend Flynn and his parents, Margot and Guy Forrest. Sara is unsure but decides she’d rather go to Oman as long as she’s with her daughter, as she’d do anything for her (as Margot would do anything for Flynn). The Forrests’ have secrets, once living in Oman. Margot is unhappy, but she missed Oman and wants to enjoy the holiday now that she’s back. Then Celine turns up…

This is a story that’s full of tension between the characters, secrets, toxic relationships and twists. The characters are unlikeable. After camping in the desert for a night, everyone leaves except one. Paranoia sets in as the characters are afraid of getting caught, always looking over their shoulder, on edge and blaming one another. Kept me guessing and asking questions. With short chapters that go from first person POV of Sara to third person POV of Margot, this made the flow of the book much easier to read.

Thank you to Annabel Kantaria, @HQStories and @netgalley for giving me the ARC in exchange for an honest review :)

An atmospheric thriller featuring a set of unreliable characters, this story does an excellent job of making you - and the protagonist - question just about everyone's motives!

Invited to spend time on holiday with her daughter Liv, whom she is desperate to get close to, and the family of Liv's boyfriend, is determined to get along with everyone and to make them like her.

But it isn't going to be that easy. Not least, when none of them are who they appear to be...

An entertaining thriller with plenty of twists, this gets 3.5 stars. Worth checking out.

I liked the descriptions of the UAE, very atmospheric - but it was a story with no likeable characters which I struggled with.
There was no real reason for the death, the aftermath was cluttered and clunky & whilst the finish was a little bright spot Thelma & Louisa style it wasn’t even ouch to push it for 4 stars.
Enjoyable but not brilliant.

You Lied First by Annabel Kantaria is a sharp, sun-drenched psychological thriller that explores the twisted dynamics of a seemingly idyllic holiday that quickly unravels into something far darker.

Sara agrees to join her daughter Liv, Liv’s boyfriend, and his family at a luxurious desert villa. She’s determined to make the most of this chance to rebuild her fractured relationship with Liv, but the atmosphere soon turns tense. The Forrest family, though outwardly gracious, begin to reveal cracks beneath the surface, and Sara senses something is very wrong.

As secrets simmer under the heat of the desert sun, trust dissolves and suspicion reigns. When one of them ends up dead, the remaining guests are left to pick through a web of lies, betrayal and manipulation. But with everyone hiding something, who is really telling the truth?

Taut, claustrophobic and filled with unsettling tension, this is a perfect choice for fans of domestic noir and slow-burn suspense.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

ha. what a brilliant thriller. from start to finish we are flipping pages faster and faster. with each new part you are wanting more. and your tension and rip on the book gets tighter. everyone in this book needs a good talking to. or just run please red flag! and i really liked the concept of how we have a destination thriller but we also see the coming home too.
its fast and smart all the way through so there are now corners to hide behind. Annabel's writing is tight.
this book brings us Sara who is invited to join her daughters family on their posh villa holiday in the Oman. on the holiday there is Liv, her boyfriend and his parents. but also someone else joins the group and this doesnt bode well at all. well, a little worse than not well.
and lets just say what comes next is a ride and then some. and you will love it( sorry should i be saying that about such a topic, i dont know but you know what i mean? love it in the best kind of dark thriller way)
its all tied up perfectly but the in between parts and character shifts were done so well i new it would be.
it almost felt like a better read because i didnt like one person in this book so was just waiting with joy for them all to unravel and become so paranoid they start become even more unhinged in their actions.

The description of Oman in this book took me back there. What writing!

Sara has agreed to go on holiday with her daughter’s boyfriend’s parents. There aren’t a wealth to like about anyone in this book but there are plenty of bad decisions.

This is the book to read somewhere hot, wherever that is. You’d be able to feel the fog of heat and horrible decision.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this arc in return for an honest review.

This book was phenomenal it was a rollercoaster ride and this is definitely one you won’t want to get off! It made my jaw drop and the plot was like a tube of Pringles – once you start, you can’t stop.

Annabel Kantaria is one of the best psychological thriller writers currently around. I was completely hooked and spent hours staying up to read this as I needed to know what was going to happen.

I loved the descriptions of Oman and wished I was there whilst reading it from the food to the desert! What can I say but WOW!… A most definite five stars from me!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for this ARC.

It's the Christmas school holidays and Sara has been invited to a week in a posh villa in Oman, the Middle East, by Guy and Margot Forrest, her daughter Liv's boyfriend Flynn's rich parents. They used to live in Oman and have rented a villa in their old neighbourhood. On the first evening, former neighbour Celine, a lively teacher, attaches herself to the group and is soon part of it, to Margot's chagrin who is sure that she and Guy are having an affair.

One day they are all going camping in the desert and when they wake up, Celine is dead. The adults agree to bury her and concoct an alibi story, and while it at first seems to have been successful, paranoia soon sets in and everyone suspects one of the others to have strangled Celine.

The story is told in first person POV by Sara and third person POV by Margot. The writing style was fine and I read it quickly, but maybe because there was barely any plot or tension. The culprit was revealed early on and while there were minor twists, they didn't feel interesting. As far as mysteries go, this was pretty predictable.

Apart from the teenagers, everyone was morally ambiguous and unlikeable. Guy held up several red flags and as for Sara and Margot, they both really revealed how far they would go for their children and themselves, and it was mental. There was so much deceit! Unfortunately, the pace felt slow and much less tense than it should have been. Everyone was just out for themselves and I didn't really care about them.

I liked the descriptions of Oman, with souks and deserts and exotic food, and the ending felt acceptable, even though it was morally grey. Read if you like stories with secrets, deceits and family dramas.

This was my first book by this author, but the premise really caught my attention. I immediately clicked with the writing style, so I knew within a few chapters that I would really enjoy this one.

I'm a sucker for destination thrillers, and the descriptions of Oman were fantastic, I was fully immersed in the story and almost felt like I was there myself. The second half of the book takes place back in England, and I was concerned that the pacing would flag at this point, but I needn't have worried, the story continued to hold my attention, especially the last 20% or so which I couldn't read fast enough! The ending was brilliant.

The characters were multi-faceted and felt like real people. The dialogue felt natural, which is a really hard thing to get right but can really make or break a book for me.

Overall I would 100% recommend this book, and I will definitely be reading more by the author.

I had high hopes for this novel, having enjoyed work from this author previously. I was not disappointed - this is a great story, twisty, gripping and nicely exotic - given the sunny Middle Eastern location.

The plot is based on Sarah, trying to rebuild her relationship with 17year old daughter, Liv, by joining a holiday with Liv, her boyfriend and his parents. The destination is Oman, where boyfriend and parents Margo and Guy previously lived. On the holiday they are frequently joined by Celine, an ex-pat they befriended when residing there previously.

All is going fairly well until they camp in the dessert and thereafter things get seriously messy!!

This is a great read, lots of plot twists and a very worthy ending! Highly recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley, author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an advance copy.

Sara and her daughter, Olivia, have been invited to go on a holiday with her boyfriend, Flynn and his parents.

This is only the start of the problems as each member of the family have issues and secrets.

How these secrets unearth eventually show family tensions, and quite soon someone ends up dead.

This is a twisty and addictive read, I'm not sure I cared for any of the characters except for Olivia who is caught up in the grown ups devious behaviour.

The plot is good and the story unfolds beautifully. This is a good holiday read and I enjoyed my reading time

I love this author, so I was very excited to get an ARC of this book. As always, it's really good! I loved the setting and the awkward and tense atmosphere between the characters, and the mistrust that grows between them all. It was addictive in that way, I always wanted to carry on reading. At times characters acted in a way that didn't feel entirely natural, but it had to be that way to keep the secret and twists, which is fair enough! This would be a great vacation read!

So this had great promise, Sara and her daughter, Olivia, go on a holiday to the Middle East with her boyfriend, Flynn and his parents. There’s family tensions, possible cheating, abusive relationships and of course, someone ends up dead. It’s a good book but clunky so what should be a thriller with twists and turns, it’s a tad obvious and I’m not sure I cared.
Sara and other characters have secrets, a few have a murky history and yet none of it was presented in a way you thought it surprising or twisty.
An enjoyable read but I’m confused if I liked it.
Full of promise, but doesn’t quite do what it should.

When Sara gets invited on holiday with her daughter's boyfriends family, she is a little nervous, not knowing his family well but Sara will do anything to make her daughter happy. Things seem to go well, they all make time for each other and they have a good laugh. But when tragedy strikes, is this family really who they say they are. And then things start to unravel and Sara wishes she never came on this holiday. This was such a good thriller read, quick paced, dark in places and full of suspense. I guessed half way what the ending would be but it was still good, there are a few twists along the way and it had me on the edge of my seat on anticipation for the ending. It was so good and I really enjoyed it. I will be looking out for Annabel's books in the future.

This book was hard to follow due to a formatting issue. Pages were out of order or half of the page would be repeated. Quite annoying but I got the jist of it.

Sara and her daughter go on a vacation to the Middle East with her boyfriend and his parents. While staying overnight in the desert, someone ends up dead. They hightail it back home. Tension and tempers rise as the body is found. Who will turn on each other? It was a good book, just the formatting issues made it annoying to try to read.