I do love a good domestic thriller! That being said, I can't recall the last time I've enjoyed one this much. (Probably Liane Moriarty's early books.) This book does not disappoint. Finished it over the weekend because I could not put it down.

Beautiful setting ✔
Different families with secrets ✔
Plot twists that keep coming ✔

I will definitely be reading more from Annie Ward.

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in return for my honest review.

You know with a title like this one it is going to be a crazy read! Definitely was and I am so glad I was able to read it. The characters were out of this world and oh my goodness such a thrill. Must read!

Natalie is an office assistant at an affluent private school located in the Colorado mountains. Natalie can’t help but to be jealous of the soccer moms that she interacts with every day. Brooke and Asha are two examples of this who seem to both have eyes for the assistant athletic director, Nicholas. When a body is discovered at the school, this perfect community starts to show some cracks and things might just fall apart.

Annie Ward brings a new spin on a familiar theme. Nothing like a dead body to shake up an affluent suburban community that seemed perfect on the surface. Plenty of dysfunction, lies and deceit can be found here. The author did a nice job with the twists and turns as well.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Park Row Books for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

Well, this was a fun one!

I knew I had to read this one because I really liked Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward and The Lying Club was a solid read for me. I liked the Colorado elite school setting and the drama. I did not enjoy the unlikeable characters here. They can go either way for me. I either love them or hate them but barely ever anything in between. Unfortunately here, it was hate. However, I did like the twists and turns here. If you're a fan of the amnesia trope, unlikable characters and an unreliable narrator, this one is probably for you!

Overall the 3 from me.

The Lying Club by Annie Ward is a first time for this reader. At first know what to expect but found this story quite interesting and enjoyable. The story’s location is at a school in Colorado where the female students are giving every opportunity provided by their mothers to get them into excellent colleges…pretty much very competitive from my reading. It follows the lives of Asha and Brooke and their daughters. It also includes an office assistance named Natalie.

Are the characters likeable…at times they are and at times they are not. Competition and scandal bring out the personalities of the characters and what they would do to get one up on another and defend the ones they love. It is a slow build read that sometimes had me puzzled. The characters from my perspective are dysfunctional and somewhat flawed that I couldn’t piece their development into the plot at times. If you like twists, turns, lies, deceit and backstabbing, this may be a story for you but not quite what I was expecting.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing (Park Row) for this ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review. All opinions are my own. (note: 2.5 rounded to 3 Stars)

Do you ever read books that you love because the characters are SO unlikeable that you love it? That's what the Lying club was for me. I really enjoyed reading this book and I had a hard time putting it down. Would definitely recommend for thriller lovers!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for. Allowing me to read an ARC of The Lying Club by Annie Ward!!

This book takes place at an elite school in Colorado where parents will do anything to make sure that their daughters are getting ahead in life. The story starts off with Natalie, who is an office assistant, not remembering her night and a janitor at the school discovering two dead bodies at the school.

If you love twists and turns, unlikable characters and unreliable narrators than this is the book for you. It took me awhile to get into this book but once it got going it really took off.

*thank you to @netgalley, Annie Ward & @parkrowbooks for the e-arc of this book for an honest review*

Triggers: pedophilia, substance abuse (two biggies in the book)

Rich families, an elite school up in the mountains of Colorado, deep secrets & two bodies…. 🥴

THIS BOOK took me far too long to read and that was MY fault. I blew through the last 70% of it (the holidays had me exhausted). I love the writing style of Annie Ward & it gave me MAJOR ‘Big Little Lies’ vibes. I kind of figured it out, who the bad person was in all of this, early on but it was still a great book!! There were other secrets that came out and I didn’t see em coming!

☃️Natalie is an assistant at the front desk of a very elite school, she’s always wishing she could live a life that these powerful moms do.
Brooke- the cheater.
Asha- is suspicious of her husband and thinks he’s having an affair… but with who?

All three women have one thing in common- Nick. The assistant athletic director. Natalie loves him, Brooke wants him and Asha needs him.

The day two bodies are carried out of the school, everything changes… secrets are revealed & they are SHOCK👏🏼ING!

Be careful who you put your trust in 🥴

Unlikeable characters make or break a story for me. For this particular story, it made it. I enjoyed the story, centered around female students in a competitive school, whose mothers will do whatever it takes to get them into a good college. Enter Coach Nick, with his promises of elite college contacts and physical therapy and training that the best money could buy. However, my red flags were waving around because something about him seemed instantly off. He seemed sleazy, someone who flirted with the mothers, got too close to their daughters, yet as the story developed, I felt conflicted. My assumptions hadn’t come to the surface and I began to wonder if maybe I had him all wrong. An obvious unlikeable character from the get go is one thing, but an unreliable potentially unlikeable character is a completely different animal and one that added depth and continued mystery to the plot!

The Lying Club - Annie Ward
Natalie has stepped up to accept her sisterly duties and moved to Colorado to help her injured brother. She finds herself a job as an office assistant at a private school and as she takes in her surroundings and the people, Natalie begins to dream of having an easy life just like many of the wealthy mothers.
Asha and Brooke are two women who would be very unlikely to have anything in common with Natalie, however, Natalie finds herself as an ear for Asha to vent her marital concerns and finds herself and Brooke to have eyes for the same handsome athletic director, Nicholas.
When two bodies are removed from the gymnasium, Natalie becomes an instant person of interest, and the discovery of her journal, stolen drugs, a random tie adds to her looking guilty, and worst of all, Natalie can't remember what happened when she went into the gym that night. As Natalie struggles to put the pieces of that night together, she is unsure of who she can trust and what Asha and Brooke's role was. As truth comes to light, Natalie knows what to do to ensure the right people pay for what they did.
This was just wow. From beginning to end, I loved this book. The three points of view were well told and easily distinguishable. Natalie's downward spiral gave me the feeling of watching a trainwreck, but her growth was also remarkable. This book told more than the story of how the two bodies in gymnasium got there. It shed light on the twisted relationships between friends and spouses and how you really never know what's happening behind closed doors.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

I didn't know what to expect with this read but honestly I REALLY enjoyed it!

With just the right amount of twists and turns and unreliable characters everywhere, I didn't predict what was happening until the absolute last second. This book has one of those endings that is actually satisfying.

Without wanting to spoil anything here, I would highly recommend this to any mystery and thriller lover.

The Lying Club by Annie Ward starts off well, with a story about the elites in a small Colorado town. The setting is in an elite school and the story follows the lives of Brooke, Asha, their daughters Sloane and Mia, and a clerical worker in the school, Natalie. All of these characters are woven together with the coach at the school, an aging womanizer. If you enjoy themes of infidelity, the haves and have not, and women jumping for joy at a man's attention, this book is for you. Otherwise, it gets old quickly. Did not enjoy this one.

Such a good book about how the mothers of students in a high end prep school mix with the secretary. The secrets they hold between each other makes for a wonderful story.

This book is centered around a private school, scandal, and SO many lies. It begins with a death and chronicles the multiple stories that lead up to it.

A story of backstabbing, lies, and defending your loved ones to get them the future they deserve.
2 moms competing for the best life for their family, 2 daughters trying their best, a secretary with a secret, and an assistant athletic director that everyone has eyes for 😏

I could NOT put this book down until I found out who was dead and what led to it.

Thank you to @netgalley for the early release of this thrilling, captivating, and impossible to put down novel

Bring out chilled Chardonnays, popcorn, pecans, potato chips, whatever suits for you! Don’t make plans and leave open your weekend night to have quality time with this wild ride!

Even though the book seems a little longer, it never gets bumpy or loses its direction! The opening is promising. The slow burn mystery keeps you guessing about the identity of victim and the culprit! Three heroines are flawed, dealing with their own insecurities but they were not one dimensionally portrayed that helps you to resonate with them easily.

This opens at the crime scene at elite school’s gym located on Colorado Mountains where Natalie: 25 years old office assistant, was high and dry, finding someone lying in blood pool and then we see how her testimony goes on! It seems like she’s the person of interest! What the hell happened in the school!

Natalie: an artist,moving to Colorado for taking care of her brother who recently had an accident, extending her stay by getting recruited by elite school, working on her art and selling it on Etsy, trying to form a lifestyle but still suffering from abandonment issues ( thanks to her useless father), hoping to heal herself with edibles.

Her faith crosses with two mothers of the school. Their common interest is gym teacher Nicholas. At age 45, charming, sexy, getting along with all those trophy wives. She actually has a huge crush on him!

Asha raises her two children, lately having troubles with her husband Phill who lies about his whereabouts, probably having a secret affair. And now she’s pregnant again when her relationship is on the rocks. Nicholas seems like great mentor and coach her daughter who can help her get approval any college she’s dreamed of!

And Brooke might be the bitchiest and less likable one: interestingly I got invested in her more than the others. Yes, she’s cutthroat bitch! She says her way or highway all the time. She’s cheater! She’s liar! But she does her best to take care of her daughter Sloane who turns into small version of herself- mean girl who always does anything she wants to win the game! She already lost her husband to his half age trainer girlfriend. Everything seems falling apart. Even Nicholas she likes to flirt dating with that skinny, pale faced assistant Natalie. She’s middle aged, slowly losing her charm and control of her life.

Brooke and Ash already declared war because their daughters are both talented soccer player and they both aimed the same college. Poor Nick stays in the middle of the chaos, trying to help both of the girls.

But things aren’t as it seems. Mia and Sloane’s rivalry is not based on their college choices. There’s something deeper going on.

The mystery of the book was building so slowly but I enjoyed to read the characters’ dilemmas, their cat fights, misdemeanors, revenge plans, hypocrisies. So I didn’t care to reach to the end of it faster.

It was absolutely entertaining, smart, unique, fun read! Highly recommended for book clubs!
I’m looking forward to read more works of the author! This was great!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

DNF at about 20% - I don’t think Annie Ward is the right author for me. I found most of the characters annoying and not relatable, and nothing really happened in the entire time I was reading to keep me engaged or hook me. I know lots of people rave about Ward’s work, but this one wasn’t for me.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book. Maybe it was because it was reminding me of another popular lying themed book that I could not unsee.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ahh, I really loved this book, it hit all the checkmarks for me. Snooty pristine private school with rich irresponsible unsupervised student athletes under huge pressure to perform with their poor rich dynamic at home, this book got it all. I love how the story didn't wait, and started with a bang. I love the interlude of police interrogation scenes between the story.

I was also very intrigued by Natalie's relationship with the kids, the moms, the coach and everyone around her.

Now excuse me, I need to go and read Beautiful Bad.

The Lying Club is about a private school in the Colorado mountains. The book starts off with someone being found dead and then backtracks six months to the events leading up to the death. Natalie is the office assistant who has a problem with pills and starts dating Coach Nick. Brooke is an heiress who recently separated from her husband after she'd been caught one too many times with another man. Her daughter, Sloane, is one of the school's soccer stars and dating an older student. To help Sloane get into UCLA, Brooke's alma mater, she is doing private lessons with Coach Nick. Asha is a real estate agent with family money who suspects her husband of cheating. After Brooke tells her about Sloane's private lessons, she signs her daughter, Mia, up for them as well. This book is full of suspense and drama. There are several plot lines and at some point, I suspected every major character. I loved all the twists and turns, but don't want to give any spoilers because this book is definitely worth the read! I requested and received a temporary digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Lying Club is a puzzling book. Every character in the book is dysfunctional, flawed, and wounded, and there is nothing in the plot or character development to balance the defective characters. Some levity would have added to the plot which seems to be overwhelmingly toxic and full of drug use, taking advantage of teenage girls, familial strife, and eventually murder. The book is well written but a challenge to read in its darkness.