The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard is an engrossing psychological thriller that has a dash of mystery thrown in.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

I was so pleased to be given the opportunity to read this advanced arc by Catherine Ryan Howard! I heard raving reviews about Catherine's debut novel... so I was excited to be able to experience this author.

The Liar's girl is a slow building psychological thriller that grabs you by your feet and keeps you running ;). The premise of this novel is what any mystery/suspense fan LIVES for. Allison is a freshman at Dublin University where she meets her handsome and charming boyfriend Will Hurley. Will confesses to killing 5 women and is known as the "Canal Killer". One of the 5 women that is killed is Allison and Will's friend Liz . How could Allison's charming and sweet lover kill her best friend?! Allison's world is turned literally upside down.... she escapes her past as her boyfriend Will is imprisoned for life in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital.

Of course... our past always comes back to haunt us. 10 years later... a woman's body is found in the Canal River.... but Will is in a psychiatric hospital. The Garda ask for Will's help but Will has a secret to confess.......
Will is longing to only see Allison and will only tell his secret to her. Will Allison be willing to come face to face with her awful past again and dig up those awful memories? Maybe there truly IS a darker secret of what happened to Liz and Will all those years ago?......

Overall, I would give this a 3 star. This was a little slow for my taste for a psychological thriller. I loved how Catherine had such a unique and different storyline then we are used to seeing in typical psychological thrillers. I loved the multiple perspective approach in this novel from Allison's past to present.

The only issues I have with this novel are that it just didn't have the twists/turns that I long for as a reader. I was a little bummed out when the premise of the secret/killer was revealed. I was a little confused as to how it actually fit into the storyline? I was expecting everything to come connecting together and to me it just didn't fit like a puzzle. Also, the ending I felt just came to an abrupt stop? Yes, there was some tiny twists towards the end but not enough for me to be extremely impressed.

With that being said, I definitely will be checking out more from Catherine Howard. Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for giving me the opportunity to explore this wonderful author and advanced arc.

What happens when the past you've worked so hard to move on from sudddenly shows up at your door? Alison left Ireland 10 years ago when a serial killer destroyed her life. Now someone she once loved is asking for her help. But, that means returning to Ireland and facing the past.

I devourered this book in one sitting. The characters were very well fleshed out. The past and the present was interwoven perfectly to move the story along. I had no luck in guessing the killer. And the ending caught me by surprise!

I highly recommend this book.

This book was really good! Totally engrossing and kept me turning pages as the story progressed, I could not put it down. The story is original about two college students in Ireland who fall in love and then a serial killer is all the sudden on the loose on their campus. I love how the story is in Ireland because I really know nothing about it, all the language quirks and places in Ireland definitely added to the story. Alison and Will are such a cute couple, but then as the murders increase in number, everyone on campus is on high alert. When Ali's best friend is found dead, the police start looking at and questioning the students including Ali and Will. Through a series of circumstances, Will becomes a suspect and is coerced into confessing and goes to prison which obviously shocks devastates Ali a long with the death of her best friend. She leaves the country for 10 years but then is asked to come back when new killings start occurring and after the police question Will in his psych hospital and he requests Ali's presence. The rest of the story is really interesting, many twists and kept me interested until the very last page. Definitely worth reading! Great psychological thriller! Will definitely read more from this author. Thanks NetGalley!

Ten years ago Alison was starting a new life in Dublin as a college freshman. She was making new friends but also had her best friend from Cork by her side. She had met an amazing man, Will. But girls started getting murdered along the Dublin Canals. Will is arrested and, under duress, he pleads guilty to the charges that he is the Canal Killer. With this confession and the judicial system as it is, a guilty plea leaves Will imprison at The Central Psychiatric Hospital.
It is 10 years later, Alison lives in the Netherlands and Will is in jail for murder. She does not like to think or talk about what happened all those years ago. In fact, her current best friend, Sal, does not know about what happened in Dublin. However, she is now being forced to not only recall those days. but also visit Will in prison. The killings have started and Will indicates he knows information that will help the police, but he will only speak to Alison. When Alison speaks to Will be tells her he is not guilty. Not only does Will claim his innocence, Garda Detective Michael Malone, also feels Will might have been wrongly imprisoned.
Alison and Malone are searching for the current killer and also trying to determine if this current killer is a copycat or if Will actually is innocent of being the Canal Killer. This search is putting Alison in danger of becoming the next victim.
This book was very enjoyable and fast paced. It is told in two timelines, Alison, then and Alison, now. Both are written in the first person. We also get a look inside the mind of the killer which is told in the third person. There is more than the murders which Alison wishes to not remember about her live 10 years ago. This adds to the intrigue of the Alison, then chapters. I do not get scared when reading books, I am able to read with minimal lighting, and alone, but I will be honest, there was one part in which I actually got chills. This book, especially that part will stay with me a long time. Solid 4 star review.

I received an ARC from NetGalley to read and review. The below is my honest, unbiased opinion. Thank you, Catherine Ryan Howard, the publisher, and NetGalley, for allowing me to review.

THE LIAR'S GIRL is a standalone psychological thriller written by Catherine Ryan Howard. Will Hurley is an attractive, charming, and impressive student at Dublin's elite St. John's College. He's also Ireland's more prolific serial killer. He stalks and drowns his young victims in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. When he was nineteen, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, locked away in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital.

Alison Smith is a freshman at St. John's, where she fell fast and hard for Will Hurley. Her best friend, Liz, was the latest victim of the Canal Killer, and she discovered the boy she'd been dating (and sleeping with) was the killer. Unable to come to terms with the twists and turns thrown into her world, Alison fled to the Netherlands and never looked back.

A decade later, a young woman is found in the Grand Canal, and detectives on the case question Will, hoping he will help them solve the copycat killing. Instead, Will offers a confession of his final secret, but there's a catch. He will only tell Alison, who has no intention of being dragged back into the life she ran away from. Reluctantly, she returns, discovering that Will's secret is far worse than anyone could have imagined.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. It was so good. It's perfect for fans of the television show THE FALL. Catherine Ryan Howard did a fantastic job building truly dynamic characters and vividly describing the world (with just the right amount of detail) so you feel like you're experiencing the characters' pain, joy, and deceit. I loved the twists and turns thrown in, and I found myself clinging to my Kindle, itching for the next chapter. I read this rather quickly and in one sitting, because it was so good.

I highly recommend this one if you enjoy a great psychological thriller with mystery elements.

Good read. It keeps you riveted to what the outcome will be and who is really guilty. I found the ending very interesting. I also enjoyed the description of living in everyday Dublin, and the way the story is told in the past and the present.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for an advance copy of The Liar's Girl, a stand alone psychological thriller set in Dublin.

10 years ago Alison Smith's boyfriend Will Hurley confessed to murdering 5 women and was imprisoned for it. Alison ran away from the shame to The Netherlands and never returned but now there are 2 Gardai at her door, not only asking her to return but to try and prise the information from Will that he says he has about a spate of copycat killings.

I enjoyed The Liar's Girl which has many twists and turns and kept me hooked from start to finish. The novel has 2 timelines, helpfully titled Alison, now and Alison, then with the odd chapter titled Will, now. Alison, now covers the events after her return to Dublin which take some very unexpected turns. It makes for interesting but slightly implausible reading. Alison, then covers her relationship with Will and her deteriorating relationship with best friend Liz, ultimately Will's last victim. The reader needs the background which is doled out sparingly to make sense of the present. I'm not generally a big fan of this approach but in this case it works extremely well.

The final twist to the novel is clever. I had suspected something but not what it turned out to be - it's well disguised.

Alison is an interesting character. It is never overtly stated but the general impression is that she has not had another relationship since Will, as she found the fact that she did not have a clue about his murderous impulses totally mortifying. Her mother accuses her of never moving on from the event emotionally and making it more important than it actually was. There's a lot of truth in that as there doesn't seem to be much difference between then and now. I found myself getting impatient with her as she is now and her inability to move on.

The Liar's Girl is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

This was a great thriller with an awesome premise! When Alison meets Will in college she falls hard for him and they spend all their time together...until her best friend Liz becomes the fourth victim in a serial killer's spree and Will is suspected and actually confesses. Fast forward years later as detectives contact Alison informing her that Will--confined to a psychiatric facility--has something to say but will only confide in her. What follows is past and present alternating chapters detailing what really happened. Is Will the Canal killer or was his confession coerced? Can Alison move on with her life, or is she doomed to live with the guilt and darkness that shadows her tortured soul? Kept me turning pages so fast! A must-read for fans of thrillers!

This is a fascinating, fast paced psychological thriller. The suspense builds slowly from the beginning, ratcheting up as new details are revealed. The storyline alternates between past and present. You try to piece together the details of the past as the author expertly weaves them into the present. Alison has done her best to put her past life behind her, but a new series of murders will bring her face to face with her biggest fear, a ghost from her past that she can never outrun. Her ex boyfriend Will, currently waiting out his days on death row in a psychiatric facility, has promised to help the police in their investigation, but he will only tell his information to Alison. She reluctantly agrees to meet him, but she will soon find out that her life will be forever changed by this encounter.

Early on in the book we are given a chilling glimpse into the mind of the killer as he stalks his next victim. The police are desperate to discover any clues that will bring them closer to stopping the killer, using Alison any way they can to get Will to cooperate. When new clues emerge, Alison takes it upon herself to investigate the possibility that the police had it all wrong from the start. She soon finds herself in danger as she gets too close to the truth, leading to a riveting conclusion and a huge plot twist that will leave you stunned.

I would recommend this book to fans of suspense and psychological thrillers. I received this as a free ARC from Blackstone Publishing on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Alison Smith believed she’s left her ugly past behind her, but a murder pulls her back to Dublin and the nightmare she endured in college. Back then, Alison fell hard for a charming fellow student, Will Hurley. She believed she’d met “the one” only to discover behind his mask, Will was a serial killer, and one of his victims was Alison’s best friend. Put away for his crimes, that should have been the end of it, but 10 years later, another woman is found murdered, the MO matches Will’s signature killing style. Will agrees to tell everything, but the only one he will tell is Alison. This is a high octane thriller, I stayed up late to read it, then could fall asleep after I finished it