So this book started off slow for me in the beginning. It was hard to get into at first but once it picked up it was a pretty good read. There was drama, lies, cheating, etc. Anything you could want in a thriller.

Thank you Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This books contains a lot of issue : lies, half truth , abuse, justice, marriage issues, relationship issues ,neighbourhood and community issues. Not to forget a crime! While it was slow at the beginning it picked up pace at the middle. I found that there were too many issues brought up which for me distracted from the main plot and at times I kept myself asking what is the main plot. For that reason I would say it was an ok read.

I'm sorry but I simply couldn't finish this book. I tried hard, but at 30% I finally had to give up. I didn't know which character was which, and I found I didn't care what whoever had done. It was taking too long to get to the story and the writing was not compelling enough to keep me trying.

Excellent read. Hard to put the book down. Right from the start you were sucked in and new this was going to be a good one. The storyline was wicked. Not quite knowing where it was going next. There was lots of twists and turns in the road.

Abbi and foster brother Blake have a secret that dominates the first half of this book. We are not sure what it is - several alternatives are on offer - but it is something they shouldn't have done, something that will devastate those close to them, and something that will destroy them both if it becomes known. But they both doubt their ability to keep it hidden.

It turns out that even though they didn't know it these families have lived with lies and secrets all their lives. Once Abbi and Blake's big secret is "out" nothing is the same.

The structure of the novel is quite confusing at the beginning and then intriguing as the setting swaps between the present and the day and night of the Moon Festival.

This was a perfect book to bring away to a holiday by the sea - so glad I waited until the holidays to read it.

The atmosphere that built throughout the twisty plot was like a dark storm brewing over the ocean, coming to not one, but multiple, climaxes as the many lies characters had become enmeshed in began to unravel.. First one shocking revelation, then another, and then another! Whew!

A complex mess of relationships and unfortunate events in this gripping novel, highlighting the unfortunate circumstances life can throw at us through the actions of others. Consequences was the big theme - and our two different couples, a teenage girl, and shut-in pensioner, and a strange mix of small sea-side town characters, all had their own shocking lies & secrets to reveal. A slow start but ultimately a page-turner just over half way through.

I'll be recommending this to our senior students and teaching staff who love the domestic noir thriller genre which has really come to play in the last few years.

I received this book through NetGalley, hopeful at the comparisons with Big Little Lies. However, I was left very disappointed. I didn’t feel the characters were brought to life. The constant use of Australian vernacular became frustrating, and the use of “teenage speak” just further alienated me. Overall, not an enjoyable experience for me.

“It seemed simple at first – folding one lie over the next. She had become expert at feathering over the cracks to ensure her life appeared the same. But inside, it didn’t feel fixed.”

Abbi & Blake have a deep bond ever since Blake came to be one of the foster children Abbi's family took in. Part of their closeness includes a secret that would change Abbi's marriage to Will and Blake's relationship with Hanna.

An incident occurs during the town's Moon Festival, more secrets and lies develop and threaten to expose the cracked foundation underneath the seemingly solid life Abbi and Will have built. Once the first lie was told, the rest just followed to keep up the facade.

The story moves slowly a few times, I think there some parts that were too descriptive without really adding to the book. But I thought there were enough twists to keep it moving. None of the characters were very likeable to me, but I think the author tried to portray them realistically and there are many people in real life who aren't that likeable.
I received an ARC from NetGalley, and appreciate the chance to read a book by this author.

As much as I wanted to like this book, I really struggled with it.
I very nearly gave up reading but persisted. It was annoying that it was not until half way through the book I started to find out what Abbi and Blake were trying to hide. I think the plot is based on a good premise but it is messy and unrealistic in the telling. I found the numerous characters and their continual secrets quite frustrating and quite frankly I just wanted to finish it and move on to something else.
There were a few errors where I think the author had confused the characters herself at times, this did not help. I also found some terms used in the book kept making me think the book was not based in Australia this also confused and frustrated me.
Not my cup of tea and I am afraid that I will not be recommending it.
Thank you Pantera Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to review this digital ARC.

This started strong, but turned into a twisty mess of a book. I had a hard time keeping plot lines straight, and had little sympathy for any of the characters. I almost DNF, but kept on, hoping for it to rebound. Not my cup of tea!

Thank you to Netalley for giving me the chance to read and review, "The Day the Lies Began by Kylie Kaden. Honestly, this one started a little slow for my liking but it did pick up as the story progressed. Overall, it was a good work of fiction.

‘It seemed simple at first – folding one lie over the next.’

Lago Point, a perfect coastal town. This is where Abbi and Will and their young daughter Eadie live. Blake, the local policeman, is like a brother to Abbi. Hannah, Blake’s girlfriend, has just returned to Lago Point after some years in the USA. Blake and Hannah are hoping that this time things will work out.

But there’s a secret between Abbi and Blake which they want no-one to know about, a secret which eventually threatens both of their relationships. It takes a while before we learn what that secret is (it isn’t what I thought it might be). There’s nothing straightforward about the secret: assumptions have been made, conclusions have been formed, loyalties will be tested, information is slowly revealed, relationships will be tested to breaking point (and perhaps beyond). I kept reading, wondering why a different, more sensible course of action hadn’t been taken initially. I really can’t write more without spoiling the story, but if you read it you will know what I mean.

And then, just when I thought I had it all figured out, there were another couple of twists. Domestic noir is an interesting genre. When it is done well, it makes for riveting reading. This novel has some unfortunately topical issues, including secrets which should never be kept.

Did I enjoy the story? Mostly. I liked Will and Blake a whole lot more than Abbi and Hannah. While most of the twists worked well (for me) there were a couple that did not. I did enjoy the way in which Ms Kaden slowly built the scene, making me wonder about the secret, making me wonder exactly what had happened and why.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Pantera Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

It's been a while since I read a thriller kind of book so when I received a copy of this one via Netgalley and Panterra Press I was excited to read it. I do enjoy these domestic intrigue kind of books, as they're so easy to get sucked into. The tension built really well throughout the book, and the descriptions of characters was super detailed. There were a few issues with the formatting on my kindle, but in terms of the story I enjoyed it, and I like reading books set in Australia so that was another plus. The female characters, especially Hannah, weren't my favourite, and all if the relationship problems tied up a little too easily by the end- I don't love when books end with everything falling perfectly into place- but there were a few plot points I didn't see coming, and I was pretty invested in finding out what happened so it was a quick read.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

the story was slow to build and a tad difficult to get into. I was high hopes, and unfortunately it wasn't all i hoped it would.

Thanks for approved me this book..

It was late to read this book but, someday, going to read this book hopefully..

The day the Lies Began
By Kylie Kaden

3 stars

While this is a well written drama, that develops tension, it is a slow read.

Both the story line and the characters are well developed, which slowly builds.

The story is painfully slow to build though. IN main due to the amount of work in the character development.

It happened the day of the Moon Festival. It could have been left behind, they all could have moved on with their lives. But secrets have a habit of rising to the surface, especially in small towns.

Two couples, four ironclad friendships, the perfect coastal holiday town. With salt-stung houses perched like lifeguards overlooking the shore, Lago Point is the scene of postcards, not crime scenes. Wife and mother Abbi, town cop Blake, schoolteacher Hannah and local doctor Will are caught in their own tangled webs of deceit.

This title has been reviewed by https://books-reviewed.weebly.com/ This title was provided by Netgalley and the publisher in return for an open and honest review.

#TheDayTheLiesBegan #NetGalley

This book isn't what I originally thought it would turn out to be.
I really have enjoyed reading about Abi, Blake, Will and Hannah. Their lives are twisted together from past to the present and when a tradegy strikes that involves Eadie, Abit and Will's daughter, lies ensue and the truth gets hidden with more lies on top of lies.
Until Molly, Hannah's "sister", comes out with a confession about the death of Trevor, which all the lies start from, and then no-one knows what to believe anymore. Who killed Trevor? and how will they get out from the list of lies that just kept growing and growing.

Great book. I took a little to really get going and into the story, but really enjoyed the story. Set is Australia, which is also a bonus. Looking forward to the next story Kylie Kaden releases.

Wow. The reviews on this one are so polarised - but for me, it was a stellar read and the end was well worth the slower start. Stories that have both character and plot are few and far between, and if you are patient enough to get through the first few chapters where we get to know the two couples, you are in for a treat. A great example of the genre, which had me gripped from about 25% til the final twist. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the copy. I'll be looking out for more from this author.

‘Killers look exactly like their victims.’

Well. If ever there was a cautionary tale that screamed: CALL THE POLICE, then this is it. Domestic noir, that new sub-genre born out of the Gone Girl phenomenon, is a bit of a tricky beast for me. Overall, I found this novel, The Day the Lies Began, a compelling read, one of the better ones within this genre for me. Once I got past the first 25% of not knowing at all what was going on, I was pretty much hooked and unable to put it down. But that kind of characterises this genre, doesn’t it? You spend much of the first half of the novel in this zone of not having a clue about what’s happening, the main characters alluding to ‘the event’ without actually mentioning it. I think this is my main problem with this type of crime fiction: it gets old very quick. I don’t enjoy the dangle, trying to work out the unsaid. But fortunately, this doesn’t go on for too long in this novel, so I was able to really settle in for a good story without being too frustrated by the pacing. But seriously, people really can be their own worst enemies. Jumping to conclusions, covering stuff up, heaping lies upon lies. Just call the police. Dial 000. Anything else is just not going to work out for you.

‘She convinced herself that these acts of duplicity weren’t betrayal at all, but instead were well intended, planned measures to protect their family. Impulsive, misguided, perhaps, but ultimately acts of love.’

There’s plenty of twists throughout this story and for the most part, realisation arrived with me at the right time. Kylie definitely doesn’t show her hand too early, but, and perhaps more importantly, nor does she disclose her twists too late, which is often the reason why stories within this genre lack credibility. In essence, this is a very sad story, and it’s also one that is particularly pertinent to our current times. There were however some things about it that made me angry, particularly around the notion of people covering stuff up about the people in their family. I don’t want to spoil any part of the mystery, so I’ll need to be vague, but honestly, if you know someone in your family has an abhorrent interest that is also a crime, but you just sit on it, apologising after the fact when it all goes wrong just doesn’t cut it. I think you’re complicit. The idea that there are people out there who know these things but don’t ever really disclose them disturbs me. I was also bothered by the angle presented that we should be sympathetic to certain types of perpetrators, that they may not ‘choose’ to be the way they are, but rather, it’s an ‘illness’ that compels them to act the way they do. This doesn’t fly with me. Ever. I think maybe you have to be a certain type of person for that level of understanding and I’m definitely not one of them. I kept wondering why everyone was concerned the creep was dead. I guess in this sort of situation, for me, any good a person has ever done is nullified by their depravity. I make no apologies for that view.

‘He thought about their relationship trajectory, more aware now of her flaws. The power had always been with her, from the day he’d arrived at her home as the latest in a production line of troubled kids. She’d shown him the ropes, and held them ever since.’

Now, I’ve often encountered novels where I don’t like the main character but still really like the story. It’s lucky these two don’t go hand in hand for me, because I really disliked both Hannah and Abbi, the two women at the helm of this story. I think that by the end, I was supposed to feel sympathy for Hannah. I didn’t. If anything, she just got on my nerves even more. As to Abbi, she was a first class manipulator and I am never tolerant of characters who ‘can’t adult’. I mean, really? That’s not a thing. Grow up. But, these people do exist, and we all have to suffer them. Just as I think I was supposed to feel sympathy for Hannah, I’m pretty sure I was supposed to feel empathy for Abbi, but again, nope. They were just two very big pains that never eased. Abbi’s motivations for her actions were fundamentally selfish, born out of a need to have someone there for her to make all of life’s decisions and bear all of the responsibility for her actions (remember the no adulting thing?), while Hannah was just a whiny ‘poor me’ selfish cow who kept claiming to have been through a lot but really didn’t go through much at all. I hated both of them and felt really sorry for both Will and Blake for having to put up with them. Abbi also did a lot of really trashy things to Blake that fully crossed the line of brother and sister. This is why I don’t read much of this genre. Honestly, the women are mostly the pits. Both of them realise the error of their ways far too late and the idea that either of them could break the habits of a lifetime was pretty thin on the ground to me. But if anything, hating both of these women kind of increased my enjoyment of the novel, if that makes any sense. It’s like I got a macabre sense of enjoyment out of seeing just what stupid thing each of them would do next!

‘This farce was all on her. From the start, she’d directed this play. She’d cast the roles, and wrote the script. A wave of self-loathing pummelled her, before panic overcame her.’

The Day the Lies Began is a gripping story, with twists and turns that will keep you guessing and plenty of characters to love and hate. It would make for a good television series. Kylie Kaden’s first foray into domestic noir is most definitely a successful one. I highly recommend this to fans of the genre.

Thanks is extended to Pantera Press via NetGalley for providing me with a copy of The Day the Lies Began for review.

#TheDayTheLiesBegan #NetGalley

I really tried to get into this book. As an Australian I'm always happy to read Aussie authors.
But, unortunately, this is one I couldn't finish. I persevered until 30% and couldn't maintain interest.
It is very slow, too unnecessarily descriptive.
There are some nuances only those who live in or have been to Australia will get. But not enough to detract from the story.
There was too much "We have a secret" and not enough actually getting to the secret. I really dislike not finishing books or leaving less than positive reviews, but this book just didn't do it for me.