Alison Smith was just a teenager when she moved to Dublin as a freshman at St. John’s College. She’d dreamed of it for years, and the reality was so much more than she imagined. Her best friend, Liz, was with her, and she soon fell in love with Will, a charming boy she spent all her time with.

Then she found out Will was the Canal Killer, who murdered five women by dumping them in the canal—and one of them was Liz. Alison fled to the Netherlands, with no intention of every returning to Dublin. Until the police showed up on her doorstep ten years later, telling of new bodies, a copycat killer, and Will’s request to speak only to her.

After she sees Will, Alison doesn’t know what to think. Could he be telling the truth about his innocence? She’s not sure, but she knows she must find out the truth once and for all. Because she’s the reason Will went to jail in the first place…

(Galley provided by Blackstone Publishing in exchange for an honest review.)

This was one of those stories that had quite a very slow burn and a work up to a somewhat puzzling conclusion.

Alison Smith and her best friend, Liz, have been accepted into the college of St John's in Dublin, Ireland. The girls are anxious to begin their college life and start to participate in all things college oriented, classes, drinking, partying, and being carefree nineteen year old girls. Alison even meets a young man she is drawn to, Will Hurley. He is cute and charming and Alison becomes his girlfriend thinking that love has found her at St John's. However, there has been a series of murders in the area of the canal that runs through the campus and now the area seems to be plagued by a serial killer. When the killer murders her friend Liz, evidence points to Will and though Alison can't believe it, she does become convinced that Will probably is the serial killer, especially after Will confesses to the crimes. To escape from all the hurt and pain, Alison moves to Holland and never returns to her native country.

Ten years later the killings start up again and Alison becomes involved in the search for what they believe to be a copy cat killer. However, when Alison is forced to see Will in the facility he has been held in for ten years, all her doubts about his guilt come back. She and the police try to piece together the clues, find the killer, and determine Will's guilt.

The story is extremely slow moving. The parts between Alison ten years prior and now are somewhat foggy and abrupt and there were times when one was not sure at which stage we were at, the before or the here and now of Alsion's life. The ending also seemed off, as if the author just decided to stop writing and bring this story to a close. It just seemed to lack that element which make thrillers, at times, such a compulsive type of read.

So, in essence I was somewhat disappointed in this story but I do want to thank the author, the publisher, and netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book for my unbiased review.

I seem to be on an Irish thriller/ mystery kick ... and I have to say I'm enjoying it.

This book only got a 3 star rating from me because I found that it started REALLY strong and ended REALLY strong, but got a little slow in the middle.

Alison is off to Collage in Dublin with her best friend Liz. That first week she meets Will and they fall head over heels. Everything is perfect until Liz becomes the 5th girl to be killed in a matter of months, and Will is accused and pleads guilty to the murders.

Faced with the fact that she was "sleeping with the enemy" - Ali runs away to the Netherlands with the goal not to return to Ireland ever again.

10 years later and it seems there is a copy cat - two more bodies have been found - and everything is a little too similar to what had happened all those years ago. Will also declares his innocence - but is only willing to speak to one person: Ali.

Ali returns to Ireland, unsure of what she is going to face - but she is finally forced to deal with what happened 10 years ago.

The Ali story is solid. Will's story is solid as well. My issue is with the copycat/real murderer (???) - we get his perspective and it's just never developed properly. It felt almost like it was a hodgepodge of a motive that never really got very clear.

That said - it's still a solid mystery. The beginning really left me feeling anxious. The ending had me smiling at how well the author was able to pull the wool over our eyes. If you like the British/ Irish show "The Fall" then I think you will enjoy this book.

This slow burn psychological thriller follows Alison, a woman whose boyfriend was charged with murdering five women ten years ago. Over the past decade she has desperately tried to leave her past behind but when the bodies of more young women turn up, the Irish police ask for Alison’s help to gain new information from her ex-boyfriend.

Normally I prefer my suspense reads fast-paced and twist-filled so I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed this slower paced thriller. The story flips back and forth between 2007 and current day and is from Alison's perspective but the inclusion of another character's point of view adds to the building suspense. The time shifting was done well and helped show why Alison tried desperately to leave her past behind her.

Readers will be kept engaged throughout the story but instead of packing in twist after twist, Howard focuses on strong characterizations of her characters, including the secondary characters who each play important roles within the story. Alison's struggle to overcome her past is told with sensitivity and her current concerns are believable but I didn't find her an overly likable character.

But, it was the sinister feel kept me reading into the wee hours. There was one scene with a small twist that took my breath away and had the hairs on my arms standing up. It was creeptastically good!

This is a compulsive read that I finished in just over one day. It has a slower build-up but if readers are patient, the tension builds to a nail-biting final scene and the addition of the last twist packs a good punch for a solid finish.

Disclaimer: This ARC was generously provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Ari has moved from Dublin to The Netherlands after her boyfriend, Will, is convicted of the murder of 5 women, all by drowning them in the Grand Canal. Ten years have gone by when two Dublin Gardai show up at her front door and want her to return to talk to the ex-boyfriend now in a mental correction institution. They think he may information on some recent murders despite the fact he has been locked away 10 years.

Ari complies and comes to see him where he claims his innocence in spite of confessing the murders. Ari is torn but she decides to check it out. One of the victims had been her best friend. One of the gardai, Malone, assigned to her decides that Will might be telling the truth and off they go to investigate.

This book is just a hot mess to me. The story alternates between Ari 10 years ago and currently. It also throws in randomly little stories about the victims and the current killer on the loose. There is very little transition. It got confusing. Also do the Dublin Gardi really drive civilians around, give them access to police files, show them tapes of police interrogations, cart them out on witness visits and then have them house them in their own homes? It was just hard to swallow. Once the current killer is unmasked, the story line is so weak and unbelievable. You'll never guess because it makes no sense.

There are so many good books out there. Do yourself a favor and read one of those.

Ten years after she disappeared, Alison is visited by the Irish police (Garda) and asked to come home to speak to her ex-boyfriend, William, who is in prison after confessing to multiple murders. Seems killings similar to the ones he is imprisoned for have begun again. Is it the same killer? Is Will innocent? Is it a copycat? Or did William have a partner who has come back to kill again? The prospect of visiting Will seems less daunting to Alison than the idea of seeing her parents or being recognized as his girlfriend who stated she believed his innocence, at the same time he was in jail confessing. A bit misguided worrying, in my opinion. But through a series of back and forth, the reader learns about Alison and William when they met and were going to college and the times surrounding the original killings. Ms. Howard gives a good solid story with an ending that manages to pull it all together with a nice satisfying twist at the end.

The book was slow going and the murder of the five girls by the Canal Killer was overshadowed by the relationship between Alison , Will and Liz. Their relationship was typical of young people everywhere who leave home and attend university for the first time. Girls meets boy, they fall for each other and girl’s close friend also is attracted to same boy. I just felt the murders and the killer’s motive and methods should have been a more focal point of book . Also the idea that Alison who was out of the loop and country for ten years was able to help solve a crime experienced policemen were unable to was far fetched. The ending had a twist but also ended abruptly with really no closure for any of the characters and definitely not for the reader. A book that certainly had potential but full short for me. Thanks netgalley. Review is honest .

Very good read. Characters are well drawn, the story is well paced and the ending nicely twisted. Looking forward to reading more!

Sometimes, I get tired of mysteries set in places like London, New York City, or Los Angeles, so I was pleased to discover that The Liar's Girl was set in Ireland. Plus, the synopsis sounded fabulous, so I decided to give this psychological suspense novel a try, and I'm pretty glad I did.

It's been ten years since Alison Smith has been back home to Ireland, but she thinks about it almost every day. She tries hard to push all thoughts of the people she left behind and the events that caused her to relocate to the Netherlands from her mind, but there are some things you can't forget no matter how hard you try. For the most part, Alison likes the life she's living now. She has a close-knit group of friends, and her job isn't terrible, but Alison knows this isn't the life she was meant to live.

When she was just eighteen, Alison moved to Dublin to attend university. There, she met and fell head over heels for Will Hurley, a charismatic young man who treated her like a queen. Her university experience was everything she dreamed it would be, and Alison couldn't have been happier.

A few months into her first term, the bodies of several young women were found washed up along the Grand Canal. Most of the women Alison associated with were frightened, though they all hid it the best they could. And then, terror struck incredibly close to home for Alison, when the final victim turned out to be her best friend Liz. To make matters much worse, Will was arrested and later convicted of the crimes, leaving Alison bereft and utterly unable to cope.

Now, Alison's past is coming back to haunt her, for the body of yet another female student has been found washed up on the banks of the canal. Law enforcement officials questioned Will - who is still in prison for his previous crimes. Will claims to have information about the latest murder, but he refuses to share it with anyone but Alison, and so, Alison reluctantly returns to Dublin and to Will, in hopes of uncovering the truth once and for all.

I was expecting a fast-paced story filled with lots of twists and turns, and, while The Liar's Girl is pretty twisty, I wouldn't exactly call it fast-paced. The middle portion drags quite a bit, and I found it hard to remain interested in all the minutiae the author choses to include. We also spend a great deal of time with Alison and her thoughts, which grew tiresome after a while. It's not that there's a lack of dialogue exactly, but there are some pretty long stretches taken up with Alison pondering something or other.

I found Alison quite relatable. Her relationship with a convicted serial killer has obviously scarred her, but she experiences quite a bit of growth throughout the story. She doesn't end up completely healed, but she's made some great strides in that direction by the end.

Will is a very tricky character in more ways than one. When Alison visits him for the first time, he tells her he didn't kill anyone after all. He insists he was framed, and he has all these wild conspiracy theories to back up his claims. At first, I dismissed what he was saying, but, as the story progressed, I found myself wondering if he had been set up after all, but I never actually liked him. The author makes that pretty hard to do, but I did end up feeling more sympathy for him than I expected to.

The end of the novel totally blew me away. I thought I had things all figured out, and then this huge twist came, seemingly out of nowhere, and it totally changed my perceptions of previous events. Twists are kind of the hallmarks of these types of books, and I've been known to figure them out before the author intended me to, but not so with this one.

The Liar's Girl is far from my favorite mystery so far this year, but I still consider it worth reading. Its setting is refreshing, and its characters are complex enough to feel like real people. Plus, it has an utterly stellar ending. If I could recommend this book on the strength of that ending alone, I totally would.

Buy it at: A/BN/iB/K

This book was kind of a let down. When I saw it on NetGalley my first thought was: That's different, that sounds like a page-turner. The first half took me so long to get through and the second half I read a bit faster... because I was sick and was taking it easy.

I'll start with a positive. I loved Liz, Alison and Sal. They were all so believable. They weren't perfect, but they also weren't overly annoying and idiotic like so many characters in thrillers are. They actually cared about their well-being and didn't just run straight into danger. It was refreshing to not be constantly screaming at the characters "don't do that! Turn around!"

The premise was interesting as well. They think they caught the killer, a false sense of security and then BAM! They kill again. This is the real interesting part, as well as the motives behind the killings.

Unfortunately, that was where the good things stopped. It was enough to keep me reading, but not enough for me to daydream about the book while I was doing other things.

First, there were some things that just seemed strange. Like the fact that I was 87% of the way through the book before I found out the main character had glasses. Did she sleep in them? Did they not get in the way when she hugged people? So many other chances to mention it and I know it's a nit-picky thing but it really bothered me.

Honestly, it just wasn't twisty enough. There were twists and although I didn't guess them all I wasn't surprised by them either. It was more of a "that makes sense" feeling. I never felt like I was on the edge of my chair waiting to see what happened. I just didn't have that much of a connection with Will to care if he got out or not.

The perspectives were strange. I was getting major vibes of YOU. The majority of the book is told in third person, but every once in a while it slipped into a third person but through the eyes of a specific character. I really enjoyed those parts because I was wondering who it was and what was going to happen and I was more shocked at the end of those sections. I did get a bit confused when the shifts to the murderer's point of view came. 
Review will be live 9 am February 24th.

Ireland, college kids, + a murder = great vacation read! The story moves between the world of today, where Allison is living in a town in the Netherlands, has a good job and caring friends, and has not returned to her homeland in almost a decade and her college world of the past. When Irish police come to call at her home in Breda, Allison is compelled to finally return to Ireland and confront the horrors of the past where her freshman year boyfriend was not only arrested for a series of horrific murders, but confessed and has spent the last ten years in a psychiatric hospital. Now that a copycat murderer is once again busy at their Dublin university, the police need Allison to confront Will, eliciting details and information about the crime so they can catch the killer. However, Will now says he is not the Canal murderer so who does Allison believe? The twists and turns are compelling, the writing is solid, and the characters are well developed; it is a solid first mystery outing for this author.

The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard is a very good psychological suspense. There is much to like about this book! The story line is so intriguing - what would you do/how would you feel if your first love turned out to be a serial killer who had killed five women, including your best friend? How would that affect your future self, and your future relationships? That's what happens to college freshman Alison Smith when her boyfriend Will Hurley confesses to being Dublin's Canal Killer and is sentenced to the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital.

Ten years later, the killings start again. Will, who has claimed for years that he confessed under duress and is not the Canal Killer, now says he has information that will help the police find the true killer. But he will only disclose it to Alison. Alison has tried hard, but unsuccessfully to move on with her life and put this whole episode behind her- the last thing she wants is to talk with Will and bring it all back. But she feels she must, not only to help the police stop the current killings but to come to some sort of resolution herself.

The story is told from three points of view - Alison past, Alison now, and the thoughts of the killer. It works brilliantly!

This is a very good read. A bit slow in the beginning as things are set up, but don't give up - you'll be glad you spent time with this book!!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Blackstone Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When Ali was in College her boyfriend Will, her first and only love, confessed to being a serial killer. He was convicted of killing numerous women, including her best friend. Ten years have passed and the killings have begun again, Will says he has information but will only talk to Ali. Is Will as innocent as he claims or is this just the work of a copycat? This story unfolds slowly until the investigation is in full swing and then it really takes off until the surprising end.  Well worth the read.

Mediocre at best. I read her first, Distress Signals and it was decent. This one still needs work.

This book was very good. Solid 4 STARS. I think that Catherine Ryan Howard has written a great story about living with past regret. This book is so much more than a crime thriller! Alison is so fleshed out, and her guilt and sadness is so realistically written. I could and would recommend this to people who like well done characters, stories of female friendships in flux, and who done its. This book has it all! And the setting was wonderfully descriptive without being over done.
Great read!

First line: It’s 4:17 a.m. on Saturday morning when Jen comes to on a battered couch in a house somewhere in Rathmines, one of those red-brick terraces that’s been divided into flats, let out to students and left to rot.

Summary: Alison is asked by the Irish police to return to Ireland to help with a murder investigation. She has not been home in ten years. While attending university she was dating a young man, Will, who confessed and was convicted of the murder of five girls. After the shock of this revelation she left everything she knew in order to escape her past. But when the murders start happening again they need her help in order to catch who is commiting them. And the only person who says they know how to help is Will but he will only talk to Alison.

Highlights: I liked the character of Will. At least the little bit I got to see. The only part that was a little suspenseful was when the man was hiding under the young girls bed.

Lowlights: I thought the story was boring. It moved very slowly. I made it through about the first half of the book before deciding to give up. Very little had transpired and I didn’t really care how it ended.

FYI: It’s not the next gotta read thriller.

Who can blame Allison for moving far way from Dublin when her friend Liz is found dead and their friend Will is arrested and convicted of the crime? Unfortunately, that's not the end of it though, because the Garda ask her to come back and talk with Will when another girl is found dead. This is really about Allison, not the crime, and in some ways it's a tad slow. That said, her evolution is interesting. This is well plotted and nicely written. Thanks to NEtgalley for the ARC.

I feel bad for Catherine Ryan Howard who may be a terrific author, but this book is so poorly formatted I will never know. I did not finish it. If a publisher can't be bothered to format the correctly, I can't be bothered to read it. 1 Star only because NetGalley insists on some kind of rating.

SHOCK FACE!!! Ten years ago, Alison Smith found out that her college boyfriend, Will Hurley (who she was madly in love with), was a serial killer. Okay, happens everyday, NOT! Present day, boyfriend is still in jail, no contact between either of them, and. . .the murders start up again. Was Will innocent or guilty?

Okay, this for me, was a pretty good book for the most part. The self talks Alison kept on......having were becoming a little tiring and annoying for me with their many appearances. But, I guess if your boyfriend had confessed to these murders a decade ago, and was now trying to get off, you would wonder constantly too.

However, for the most part, I enjoyed the book and was glad that I got the chance to read it.

I will say there was one especially "way super" creepy scene when someone was watching Amy ( a new victim). The last sentence of that chapter, while already tensed up at the situation, blew me the eff away. I had to stop reading, it was totally unexpected. Not giving you any spoilers at all, just letting you know it was majorly bone chilling.

Huge thanks to Blackstone Publishing and Net Galley for, yet again, allowing providing me with a free e-galley of the author's latest in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I have conflicting feelings about this book. On the one hand, I really enjoyed reading it and couldn't put it down. Howard's writing style is very accessible and the plot is very fast-paced. On the other hand, I finished it feeling slightly dissatisfied and disappointed. The ending felt rushed and glossed over. There is technically a twist at the end, although I was able to guess it relatively early on. This is a thriller that might be a good choice for a book club, as certain elements were deliberately left open to interpretation/debate.

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