This is a great debut by Jess Ryder. The plot kept me guessing. The characters were believable. In my opinion, this is a solid book that you will gain much insight from.

Meredith’s entire world to falls apart when she watches a videotape of her four-year-old self with Becca, the mother she’s never known.
Meredith can’t believe what she seen on that videotape. Has her memory locked away the painful reality of her childhood? Is there any truth in the strange story her mother forced her to repeat?
Meredith is led to Darkwater Pool in search of answers. Darkwater Pool is the scene where a young woman, Cara, was murdered, over 30 years before. Is there a link between the victim & Meridith’s mom?

Thank you NetGalley, for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

A fab debut from a tLented author. Lots of twist and turns Would highly recommend

A great debut book. A twisty psychological thriller that I couldn't put down. Looking forward to Jess Ryder's 2nd book
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Meredith thinks she is the reincarnation of Cara, a young woman murdered 30 years ago. It's her belief because that is what her mother believed before she walked out of the mental hospital and disappeared a very long time ago. Her mother, Becca, was so convinced she videotaped her young daughter.

So what was the tie between Becca and Cara .. and now Meredith? Is it true ..or just the ramblings of her mentally ill mother?

To find the truth Meredith must search through a past that is not her own. The problem is, she’s not the only one looking…

This is a debut novel, very well written. Characters are fully defined and unforgettable. The story is told from several view points. Chapters alternate from 30 years ago and the people involved in that time period to today with Meredith searching for the truth.

Twists and turns will keep the reader turning the pages. The ending was quite a surprise! This is definitely a psychological thriller worth reading ... and an author to watch.

Many thanks to the author / Bookouture / Netgalley for the digital copy to read. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

This book was ok, I read it to the end, however it did confuse me sometimes! There are two timelines. In 1984 we meet Cara who after university, comes to live with her best friend Isabel. They set up a small theatre company and then Cara is murdered. In the present day we meet Meredith, her mother Beccy was the one to find Cara's body. During the trial she changed her story of that night and the man accused of Cara's murder, Christopher Jay, was released. Beccy disappeared years ago and Meredith was brought up by her father. One day Meredith finds an old video, it shows her as a four year old, with her mother. Confusingly Meredith states on the video that she is Cara and Christopher Jay killed her! Meredith wants to find out the truth and what happened to her mother! Read on!

I was attracted to the title that promises a good read. It has a slow start but has lots of question marks that pique your interest. But I really could not understand why a little girl of 4 years old would imagine that she has reincarnated Cara? I find it confusing between the different time period and characters. I don't understand why she gave the tape to her ex-boyfriend, then to Isobel. I find the behavior idiotic. If she's really close to her father, why were they not able to talk about it? I mean, it might be painful for him, but surely his daughter is old enough to understand?
I guess the book has a good storyline, but I didn't like the main character. I find her irritating and incoherent. There are really lots of other ways to find her mother, especially why ask her ex when he's insensitive to her.
The story of Jay on the other hand did spice up the book. . I have difficulty in understanding why she became close to Isobel and ending up in her country house. It all seems too obvious for the ending.
I didn't find this book "gripping", although the ending was good.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for my honest opinion.

While trying to decide what to read next, I read the blurb for this book and saw the online review were pretty positive; I happily agree. This was a great book!

Meredith, while helping her father sort out belongings in the attic, finds a videotape in her baby clothes and assumes it is from her childhood and her mother, who is not in the picture would be featured, she can't help buy watch it, even knowing that her father is dead set against it. What she sees changes her life and she cannot go back now, even if she tries.

She gets wrapped up in a 30 year old unsolved murder mystery in which everyone thinks the murderer got away with it because of her mother and the evidence she gave at the trial. She enlists the assistance of her ex, Eliot, who I didn't like, and who didn't really assist her so much as take over. Meredith struggles to find out what happened and to find out what happened to her mother, did she commit suicide, was she murdered, did she just disappear, was she still alive somewhere; and how did her mother tie in to the murder at Darkwater pool.

The characters were likeable and understandable, it was easy to see where there were coming from and although I guessed at some of ending, there were still some shocks to enjoy. All in all, a great book with a complicated enjoyable storyline. Thanks to Jess Ryder for a great read!

I really enjoyed the book, it has everything I love in a novel from start to finish. I can’t wait to read what the author has planned next!

This was Jess Ryder's debut novel and it was completely intriguing. The story telling was absolutely wonderful! It was kind of a slow burn, but I was completely captivated from pretty much page 1!

In order for you to fully understand my review, I'll need to summarize the story for you. Which if you normally read my reviews, you know that I don't really do often unless it's crucial to understanding what I need to say about it. So, of course I will avoid spoilers as much as possible. 

This book follows a woman named Meredith (Meri) who has very splotchy memories of her childhood until she finds a video tape recording of a very troublesome interaction with her mother. In this video, Meri is forced to give details and names about the gruesome murder of Cara that occurred at Darkwater Pool years ago. It alternates perspectives with a man who has been accused of murdering Cara, but acquitted. Then there's the twist of how the heck is Meri's mother Becca entangled with all of this?!

What I enjoyed the most about this book was that the story telling tried to get you to believe that one person was responsible for murdering Cara, all the while I was completely accusing someone else in my head. But the big reveal of who ACTUALLY killed Cara was completely unexpected and took me by surprise! It was amazing how Jess Ryder was able to not give any hints about the big reveal!

I mentioned earlier that this is definitely a slow burn type of thriller. I had no issues with this, I thought it played well into the tension of the story. A lot of the book was spent scene setting in my opinion. Like you knew the basic premise of the story, but it just took until the end of the book to reveal the details instead of getting little snippets of details throughout the story. I think this played into the surprise of who the murder was even more!

I should also note that I really enjoyed the story building and the relationship development of the characters. I completely didn't even realize it was a slow burn until I saw another review of this book and was like yeah, it was. 

This book had some heavy underlying issues that were prevalent and crucial to the story line. We saw the definition of a toxic relationship, addiction, violence, unrequited love, and so much more. I know you're probably thinking "well duh, there's murder in the synopsis" but I wasn't expecting to see some of these other aspects in the story.

In my opinion, this book was a very solid debut for Jess Ryder and I cannot wait to read her next book The Good Sister which is set to release on August 16, 2017. Not to mention that the cover is freaking gorgeous and the synopsis on Goodreads has me wanting to read it right now! I'm expecting big things from Jess since her debut was this good!

A great psychological thriller. Really had me gripped from start to finish. Well worth the read.

Thanks for the advanced copy

From my blog: Always With a Book:

My thoughts: This is the debut psychological thriller by Jess Ryder and while I liked it, I found it hard to get into at first. I love my psychological thrillers - I read of ton of them, but sometimes they just don't grab me as much as I had hoped they would based on the synopsis of the book.

The first half of this book is rather slow-paced--almost to the point of dragging. It's not until the end where it really picks up and gets exciting. That's where things really start happening and when I found myself totally absorbed with the book. Until then, I had thoughts of putting the book down a few times, but I really wanted to see how it all played out - I really have a hard time not finishing a book...and I am glad I finished this one...it did have a few really good twists at the end that I never saw coming!

The book is told from a few points of view and at first it's a bit confusing to keep track of - there's Meri in the present day; there's Cara in the past; and there's Jay in the present day. Until you read enough of the story, it's confusing to know how these all come together...but believe me, there is a link and it's a pretty good one.

While I didn't love this book, as I said, I was intrigued enough to keep going until the end. And I'm glad I did - the ending to me was the best part - the way Jess Ryder tied everything together, the twists and turns she gave us were enough to make me want to read more of her work.

I liked this one. It was dark, twisty, and just the right amount of suspenseful.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy of this novel.

I enjoyed this book.... it was a bit slow at times but came together nicely in the end.

Lie to Me
Jess Ryder

A Gripping Psychological Thriller is what caught my eye and made me want to read this book. I really enjoy reading books with a twisted ending especially if I'm unable to figure out who the killer is.
Jess Ryder did a good job with her ending. I hadn't figured it out by the end so that made me happy. Although I wasn't able to really connect with any of her characters. There wasn't much suspense in this story with the exception of wanting to know who the killer was. I didn't get much background for Cara to where I would normally grow attached to the victim and feel sadness when she died.
I would only rate this as 3.5 stars because I didn't become engrossed while reading and was easily distracted and only wanted to finish it to find out who the killer was.
Thanks NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book didn't grab and keep my interest. I couldn't finish it.

Overall, this was a good book. I didn't especially like the way the story was told by different people. Each chapter alternated with a different narrator which made it a little difficult to follow. I did enjoy it, though, and was anxious to find out how the story ended.

Meredith is sorting through her parents attic after her Dad is forced to downsize and finds a videotape....3 minutes is all it takes for Meredith’s entire world to fall apart when she watches the videotape (even though her father warns her not to) of her four-year-old self with Becca, the mother she’s never known. Yet what if her memory has locked away the painful reality of her childhood? Can there be any truth in the strange and dangerous story her mother forced her to tell on camera? The search for answers leads Meredith to contact Elliott her ex-boyfriend who is a Police Detective and visit Darkwater Pool, the scene of the murder of a young woman, Cara, over 30 years ago as they search for a link between her mother and the victim.

As psychological thrillers go, it was good, however, to me it was very confusing and the switch from past to present and one person to the next was sometimes hard to follow. I hated the ending too, it left me a bit disappointed and is possibly left open for a sequel?

Missing mother, father who keeps secrets and one of them is about rear it's ugly head. Meredith finds and old VHS tape and when she asks her dad about its content he tries to grab it away from her so he can destroy it. He fails and tells her not to watch it. And of course she now has to watch it. She will soon wish she never did! This book has it all, murder, love triangle, missing person, insanity, bad guy, good guy and all that comes with that.

What an amazing first novel by Jess Ryder as soon as i read the psynopsis for this book i just had to read it and i wasnt't at all surprised that i absolutely loved it and couldn't put it down. Meredith went up to the attic one day and she came across an old vcr tape and saw a clip of her four year old self talking to her mother who was acting very strangely and making her say things to the camera then her mother went missing after the video was made and Meridith sets out to find out what is going on. A fantastic and thoroughly addictive read! Can't believe this is only Jess Ryder's first book, can't wait for the next one!
Much thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!