With Color of Lies being a YA book, I was not confident I would enjoy or even like it. As it turns out, I loved it! Loved it enough that I will be recommending it to my 17 year old granddaughter.

Blessed, or maybe not, with the gift of synesthesia, Ella Cleary has been reading people her whole life. Like her mother before her, she sees colorful auras about people, auras that can change with moods, auras that keep her somewhat isolated as being “different” leads her to have few friends.

Following the death of her parents in a fire that swept through a beach cottage, Ella was raised by her grandmother, Helen, her Uncle Joe and godfather, Darren, Ella is thrown into a season of confusion, anger and fear when a stranger enters her life.

Confused by Joel, whose aura is the first she is unable to see, Ella somehow finds that a part of him trusts him. And his off the wall story about the fiery death of her parents, well that cannot possibly be true, can it? Her parents died in a fire, it was an accident, they were not murdered as Joel says.

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this book; I’m older than the author’s average reader. To me, that says a lot about an author’s storytelling abilities, to be able to entertain a cross-section of more than one generation is an outstanding example of good writing.

On the day that Ella is turning 18 and struggling with how to choose between art school or going into the family business, Alec, an aspiring journalist, shows up wanting to write a story about the tragedy that took Ella’s parents from her 15 years ago. Ella is immediately entranced with Alec because she can’t use her synesthesia to decipher the color of his aura like she can everyone else in her life. All of her family members on her mother’s side have synesthesia that manifests itself in different forms which keeps Ella close to home and secluded from the world...or is that just what they want her to believe?

This has a pretty unique premise that I’ve never seen in a book before that kept me interested the entire time. My only complaint with the plot is that the ending was pretty predictable which seems to be the case with most YA mysteries/thrillers. Thankfully the predictability didn’t take away from my enjoyment at all, so much so that I was still riveted right up to the end. This could have been 5 stars if the ending had left more of an impact.

A great YA thriller with heart!

Ella Cleary has never been like everyone else. She has grown up with a special medical condition called synesthesia, a scrambling of the senses that gives Ella the ability to see colors that show people’s true emotions. Others have it affect other senses. This ability has always helped her when judging and reacting to others until she meets a guy she can’t read. Alec comes into her life unexpectedly and drops a bombshell in her lap telling her the truth about her parents’ deaths. She had always thought they died in an accidental fire, but it turns out it was no accident at all and the real truth of what happened has never been discovered. Finding out this truth makes Ella wonder whom she can trust and if everything she has believed has been a lie. The only way that Ella can discover the truth about her past and what really happened to her parents is to find a killer.

The Color of Lies is such a new and unique book to me that I couldn’t put it down. I loved the characters and the story arc. Ella and Alec have a great chemistry that leads the story down just the right path. There is a little bit of back and forth in the story between the present time and what happened over a decade ago to Ella’s parents. Also, readers need to be aware of the flipping of point of views between Ella and Alec, they are at the top of each chapter to distinguish who’s point of view it is in so that greatly helps. For readers who have trouble following the switch, they may want to pay extra attention to follow along. For me this was a great way to move the story along and give the readers the most information to be fully involved in the story. One thing that surprised me was the fact that this book has much more prose than dialogue, something that usually slows a story down for me, not here, I was too intrigued with what was going to happen and didn’t really need the dialogue to speed things along. All of the supporting characters were significant to the story and added to it without taking away from the main characters and what they were trying to accomplish. Overall I would say this was a very enjoyable read and will recommend to both YA and adult readers who love a good mystery.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.

It is Ella’s eighteenth birthday and she is getting a little time away from her home when she meets Alec. Ella can’t read his emotions like she can everyone else, and this intrigues her and scares her at the same time. Ella has synesthesia and sees colors that represent a person’s emotions. The fact that Alec is a mystery to her makes her feel like everyone else. Alec is a journalism student and quickly reveals that he wants to learn more about her parent’s death. He was there after the fire and has not been able to get the aftermath out of his mind. What truths will Ella discover about her past and her family? What will she need to do in order to uncover the facts about her parent’s deaths?

The Color of Lies is a stand-alone novel that defies one genre. Lyons has created a story with a mystery, a possible romance, and a hint of the paranormal. Readers will enjoy uncovering the secrets alongside the characters and will also relish the chance to try and discover the answers before they are revealed. The book itself is not very long, the events all transpire within a few days and would be a perfect read to finish in a sitting or two. The Color of Lies will be enjoyed by all mystery fans, of all ages and of all genders.

This YA Thriller was not what I was expecting. The mystery filled with a lot of plot twists was fast paced and engaging. The story bounces back and forth between two perspectives, Ella and Alec's. It was interesting twist to the usual YA Thrillers. The characters and story was well written. The ending felt a little rushed, but over all an enjoyable read.

This book was one of favorite reads of 2018. The writing was interesting and I love reading about Nora’s synesthesia and her relationship with Alex. It was a bit predictable but still a good read with all the twists and turns. I would highly recommend this book.

The Color of Lies brings you a YA Fiction book that reads so much more than that. You get romance (but not too much to be lovey dovey), tons of suspense, and a bit of mystery. The thriller aspect is lower than you’d expect, and I assume that is because of the YA genre label, but it was enough.

My favorite part of this story was the characters. The story leaned heavily on characters that were well developed and interesting. I found the characters relatable even if they really weren’t because of their special abilities. I was intrigued by certain behaviors and felt emotions when they felt them.

I also found the suspense in this story to be just enough. There was enough to make me want to keep reading, although I will say that there were multiple times when the story slowed to a point where it was interesting, but lacked urgency. I wished it was more intriguing at those moments and held my interest more until it picked back up.

With that said, I think people who love multiple genres will love this book. It has a little bit for everyone. I encourage everyone to check it out and decide for themselves what they think.

I received a NetGalley ARC of The Color of Lies from JustRead Tours.

Oh. My. God. I was not prepared for the whirlwind that was The Color of Lies. I don’t think I’ve read a thriller quite like this one. There a tad bit of YA-ness in some of the language and character building, but the storyline is completely out of the ordinary. So buckle your seatbelt for this one.

The Color of Lies follows Ella, a girl with synesthesia, who lost her parents in a fire when she was a toddler. So Ella basically sees people’s emotions through the color of their aura. Pretty cool, huh?
Ella’s world is turned upside down when she meets a guy named Alex who tells her that her parents’ deaths may not have been an accident at all.

I won’t lie, the book starts off a bit slow. A lot of the characters annoyed me at first and Ella’s best friends, Max and Rory, were pretty one dimensional. But then the mystery slowly starts to unravel and all of a sudden tryout caught up in a story you can’t put down. Seriously, I didn’t even want to take a sip out of my water glass.
My brain was like “I gotta know what happens next”.

I was completely caught off guard with the resolution. Pretty shocked. I had to reread a couple of passages because I couldn’t believe it. C.J. Lyons does an amazing job at building the suspense in this novel, which makes up for some of the one-dimensional characters. She weaves a story that is both fascinating and horrific.

If you’re looking for an awesome thriller that’s out of the ordinary, pick up a copy of The Color of Lies!

The description grabbed my attention. I've read (factual) books about synesthesia in the past, so I thought I'd enjoy this one. However, I found the pacing too slow, along with some over-detailing and some things that just seemed too convoluted, even for a fiction novel. The instant romance didn't work for me either. I would have enjoyed more with the mystery, instead. The character development really wasn't there, sadly, which left me wondering why I should really care about some of the events and characters. This one just didn't live up to other YA novels I've read (and I've read a lot of them). I'm sad to say that, as the topic of synesthesia is an interesting one, and I wish more had been done with this story, overall.

This one is hard to put down! I was glad that it is not a terribly long book, since I devoured it pretty quickly. I loved the mystery and the look into the life of someone with synesthesia, since a couple of my friends in high school had it. This book will keep you on your toes!

I wanted to really like this book. The plot seemed interesting from the description, but it really suffered from poor pacing and frankly the really far fetched end to the book. And while I realize that the "instant romance" does seem to be a bit of a YA trait sometimes, it really wasn't working here for me. It seems like there are so few YA mystery/suspense books compared to other genres that I'm always excited to see one, but I'm not sure I'd wind up recommending this one to any of the teens.

Ella thinks she knows how her parents died, she's accepted it and tried to move on. Then someone from her past pops up on her birthday to change the way she see everything. Her life becomes chaos and confusion. She realizes she doesn't know as much about her family or her friends as she thought she did. The Color of Lies was a fast paced thrill ride, full of twist and turns! I wasn't expect that ending at all!

I was very excited about the premise of this book, but it just didn't deliver. It's a short, quick read but so repetitive! The amount of time that passes is just a couple of days and the author has the characters share the same thoughts over and over again. For example, Alec mentions turning down bigger, more prestigious colleges several times. There was no character development and the whole story felt unfinished. I also felt it was a bit unbelievable that Ella didn't remember much about the night her parents died or that she spent a good amount of time with Alec's family after the event. Yet, Alec, who is only one year older, has been obsessing about it ever since. I wish the author had told more about the past with Ella's parents and spent some time developing the characters and story. I read a lot of YA novels and they can have more depth to them than this one did.

This book just wasn't what I was expecting from the summary. I couldn't get into it; I would not recommend.

This was a wonderful and different YA novel. The uniqueness of the heroine and the mysteries surrounding what is going on leave the reader finding it hard to put the book down. The characters have depth, the story is plausible and the twists and turns and quick pacing keep the reader engaged beginning to end. Wonderful book!

When Ella was little, her parents perished in a fire when they were on vacation in South Carolina. Her grandmother took her in and has raised her since with her uncle and godfather’s help. Ella and her family are also different since they have synesthesia, the ability to experience senses differently. Ella’s uncle can taste words, her grandmother is sensitive to sound, and Ella can see people’s auras. It isn’t until mysterious Alec shows up in Ella’s world that everything she thought she knew crumbles around her.

This storyline was an interesting one to explore dealing with the definition of synesthesia imbedded with mystery regarding the character’s past. The beginning left me intrigued, and I quickly breezed through the read, but the main weakness was the lack of pace. The page count was less than 300 and yet for the first 60%, 24 hours passed in the book with the audience still knowing nothing expect the key facts: Ella thinks her parents died by accident. Alec claims her father murdered her mom then committed suicide. Ella says he’s wrong. Alec says he’s right because he and his dad were there that night, and so was Ella. Ella doesn’t remember being there. Ella still thinks it wasn’t her dad.

This went back and forth to the point where I skimmed descriptive paragraphs just to get to the dialogue and figure out what happened next. The instant love between Ella and Alec was another weakness. The first time they lay eyes on each other is love at first sight. I also figured out the twist and the bad guys at the beginning. There was one huge clue implanted, either purposely or unintentionally by the author because it was never addressed right after it happened when it should have been.

I expected something different from this story, but am content I had the chance to read and review it.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I'm not going to lie and claim that I am in the target audience for this book by CJ Lyons. I am probably way past her demographic. However, I do enjoy reading mysteries as well as young adult books. In the end, when all was said and done, I felt that the big reveal was just way too unrealistic. It was "cool" to think about but just not plausible. I don't mind suspending a bit of disbelief but I feel that this was so over the line that it distracted from the overall experience.. Also, I felt that there needed to be more character development between Ella and Alec. It was too much emotion too soon. I've enjoyed other novels by CJ Lyons but truly believe that this book could have been much better plotted than it was.

It started off well, but it hit a point where it started to stretch too far for me. I do think some of my students would like the mystery and excitement, but it fell short for me. Full review on Goodreads.

CJ Lyons never disappoints keeping the reader in suspense from first to last page! Love her thrillers, couldn’t put this one down.

I've heard of synesthesia before but I didn't know much about it and I thought this book had such a fresh perspective on a thriller to include that. The mystery itself was compelling, the reveal was shocking! I did figure out a few for myself beforehand but it didn't detract from my enjoyment at all. 4 stars