Lucy Harper starts spinning stories as a young child when her brother disappears and continues into adulthood as a writer still spinning stories. She is successful as a writer but her husband is envious of this skill and disappears just like her brother did. Who is responsible and why are questions that force Lucy to finally tell the truth.

Lucy is a writer with a secret in her background, make that two secrets. At the opening of the book, it appears that she has a supportive husband, a failed writer who is now her manager. Well, we all know how that will end up. Over the course of the book one of Lucy’s secrets comes out and her husband Dan betrays her in several ways. There is some suspense and a few red herrings. I didn’t find Lucy very likable, so the book was not as enjoyable as I had anticipated. While some of the story was formulaic, there were some surprises, which kept me reading to the end.

I received this arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! What a ride! The Way Out is an excellent, new, dystopic/scifi novel that is action filled from the beginning. This story is set in the future, where babies are born using artificial wombs in labs. It is actually the law, and it is to prevent certain birth defects from occurring. But some people don't like that law and want to do more.

This story follows three different stories/people that all converge at the end. We follow a doctor studying the effects of natural birth, a journalist, and a mother trying to protect her naturally born son. Soon the government gets involved in all their lives and things get crazy!

There is a lot of action in this story, and never a dull moment. The world building is excellent, and by the half way mark it is pretty easy to understand what is going on. The characters are interesting, although not as fleshed out as one might like. In general, the focus is more on plot than character development. My one complaint, is the strange obsession with sex, especially in the first half. It is talked about a lot in this book, but doesn't really add anything to the story. It's just always there and not in any good, romantic, smutty way.

All in all, a very fun read! I am eager to see what happens next in the sequel!

2.25 stars

When Lucy Harper was a child her brother Teddy disappeared and was never found. Lucy was the last person to see him, and no one believed the wild tales she told about that fateful night. Now Lucy is an adult, a best selling author, and wife to a controlling and jealous husband. When said husband goes missing and turns up dead, all eyes are on Lucy once again. “Finally, now, Lucy Harper’s going to tell the truth. Cross her heart. And hope to die.”

I had a really tough time with this book. It is well written, but personally I didn’t find it compelling. The characters are horrible. They are terrible humans, with no redeeming qualities, so I honestly didn’t care what happened to them. If I don’t care about the characters in a book, it’s hard to connect to the story.

Disliking the protagonist, Lucy, was the biggest loss for me. Lucy has an imaginary friend/alter-ego called Eliza. Nothing about this is ever touched on or explained however. Does Lucy have schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, what? She lets everyone she knows and meets walk all over her constantly and is a spineless coward. At one point she says, “...being handled produced the usual miserable feeling of powerlessness in me.” This is Lucy the entire book, and nothing about these qualities made me want to keep reading.

The end of the book was not predictable, which is obviously fantastic. I love a good twist. Unfortunately, the twist was so far fetched and fantastical it just did not work for me.

*I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

The characters and plot of this book were like none other. I had such high hopes for this book, but to tell you the truth, the plot twist at the end left me feeling disappointed and wanting more resolution to the book's mysteries.

I have read gilly’s books before and this one didn’t disappoint me.
I was in from the first page and everything I thought I had figured out wasn’t how it end which makes for a good thriller for me.
A husband who’s jealous of his wife’s career goes missing, and Lucy’s past makes her the prime suspect. Lucy and the childhood imaginary friend she’s had since she was a kid go on the hunt to see if she can figure out who killed Dan and maybe figure out what happened to her brother all those years ago.
Who killed dan?
Where’s Teddy?
How is she gonna survive being back so close to her childhood home and the woods that seem to be calling her?
Definitely a page turner you do not want to miss!

Lucy was 9 when her younger brother went missing following a late night trip to the woods with his sister on the summer solstice. Now she is a successful crime writer married to Dan, a not so successful writer. Dan moves them to a beautiful house—one with a view of those very same woods Teddy disappeared from. Suddenly her old and new life collide and secrets long held begin to manifest themselves—and then Dan disappears.

An exciting and intense book. The character, a successful author, was interesting and the story was riveting. I liked reading about the inside scoop of a writer's life and what happens after the writing of the book is completed and turned over to the editor. I was a little disappointed with the ending, I wanted to know "what happened to a certain character. Overall, a good book to read.

I really enjoyed this book! It kept me entertained and guessing throughout. The author’s writing is so descriptive and flows nicely. The main character is an author who writes crime books based on a female detective with an extremely devoted fan base. Her husband also wanted to be a writer, but it didn’t pan out for him so he became her assistant which he resents her for. As a child her brother went missing and was never found. She left her childhood home never wanting to return. Then unbeknownst to her, her husband buys a home near the same woods where her brother vanished. She is basically forced to move in and then things just get eerie and suspenseful from there. I definitely recommend this book!

Interesting concept - held my interest enough that midway through I didn’t want to put it down. Really wanted to figure out “who did it”. Decent twist at the end. Worth the read.

"To Tell You the Truth" was a decent thriller/suspense novel. There really wasn't anything wrong with it, but I was expecting there to be a little more (or maybe a something a little different) about the relationship between the main character, Lucy, and her "friend" Eliza.

Wow what a ride! This book about an author Lucy and her past and present was so hard to put down. Great psychological thriller!

This was definitely good. I am leaning more towards a 3.5 or 3.75 than a 3. It was very well written and I liked the story but I was often just waiting for the other shoe to drop and felt like I needed more than I was getting.

Thank you for allowing me to read the book before the publish date in exchange for an honest review.

Though this particular book wasn't my cup of tea, it was well written and I enjoyed the writer writing from a writer's perspective.

You can always count on Gilly Macmillan for a page turner! This was entertaining, engaging, and endearing. I really loved the mental health aspects addressed here, and the idea of a lifelong delusion.

To Tell You the Truth by Gilly Macmillan is a psychological thriller that I found to be a quick read. Famous author Lucy Harper has fame, fortune and fans, as well as a would-be-writer husband who appears to be living selfishly in her limelight. As the story plays out, the reader is taken back and forth between two disappearances - Lucy’s husband in present day, and that of her younger brother in their childhood. Lucy’s story telling ability evidently grew from this experience when she was torn between telling the truth about that night to her parents and the detectives, or listening to her imaginary friend.

This story began well with any number of possibilities for who caused each of the disappearances and why. This made for an interesting read however, many of those possibilities were not played out or fully explained. Especially disconcerting was that Lucy’s mental state in relation to the missing brother and her imaginary friend was never clarified so the reader wasn’t sure whether Lucy really had much substance or not. The ending was weak compared to the intrigue throughout the rest of the novel. It didn’t leave me wanting more, just feeling unsatisfied.

Thanks to Harper Collins Publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.To Tell You the Truth by Gilly Macmillan is a psychological thriller that I found to be a quick read. Famous author Lucy Harper has fame, fortune and fans, as well as a would-be-writer husband who appears to be living selfishly in her limelight. As the story plays out, the reader is taken back and forth between two disappearances - Lucy’s husband in present day, and that of her younger brother in their childhood. Lucy’s story telling ability evidently grew from this experience when she was torn between telling the truth about that night to her parents and the detectives, or listening to her imaginary friend.

This story began well with any number of possibilities for who caused each of the disappearances and why. This made for an interesting read however, many of those possibilities were not played out or fully explained. Especially disconcerting was that Lucy’s mental state in relation to the missing brother and her imaginary friend was never clarified so the reader wasn’t sure whether Lucy really had much substance or not. The ending was weak compared to the intrigue throughout the rest of the novel. It didn’t leave me wanting more, just feeling unsatisfied.

Thanks to Harper Collins Publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.
#ToTellYoutheTruth #NetGalley

The premise of this book intrigued me to read it. Famous author Lucy Harper's husband goes missing, and the case is tied to her little brother, Teddy's disappearance years before. Story alternated between the past and present narratives of the two cases. Good so far, but many unanswered questions. Lucy is retiring her familiar character of her novels, Eliza Grey. Her publishers, and her husband, who bought her a new home connected to her past , and works as her assistant because he is a failed writer does not want her to, and neither do her fans which are making thoughts known on blogs. Lucy has conversations with Eliza and physically sees her. Why? Does Lucy have a split personality? Borderline personality disorder? Trauma from her missing brother? I never got those answers? What really happened to her brother? I never got that either? We did find out what happened to her husband, but the reason just left me underwhelmed, as did this book.

Interesting read.
Rather predictable though, and could've had the same book with 50 less pages.
If you like thrillers, it's still worth a read.

I absolutely loved this book. I had previously read The Nanny by this author and enjoyed it, although found it slightly predictable. This book had me guessing all the way. I loved Lucy as the main character. All I had read about the book so far called her an unreliable narrator and that she was. I was a little sorry that we never got resolution to what happened to Teddy, but I loved Eliza's thoughts on what happened to him. The mix of neighbors and friends and different possibilities to what happened to Dan, along with the idea of the bunker, were intricate and it came together fabulously in the end. Definitely recommend this book!

I absolutely loved this book. Two mysteries in one. One of my favorites by this author.. the main character is fairly dark and brooding so sometimes you just want to shake her! But overall a really good read.