This may just be the start of an auto-buy relationship. I read and loved The Last Flight so I had to snag this one when it came up on NetGalley. I needed a good "I am woman, hear me roar" story and man was this ever it.

This has it all, and would make a fun movie too. We have women wronged, plans in motion for revenge, men that must pay, lies ALL over the place, and at the core - evil with good intentions. Meg is the perfect morally gray character in this one.

This is a quick read too, even though it's not really all that fast-paced. With good writing and the "I need to know what's next" incentive, I breezed right through this one. Definitely snag this if you want a refreshing and fun revenge with a sort of happily ever after.

I sincerely appreciate the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy. All opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone.

This is a story of 2 women, one a con artist, the other her victim. I had some trouble getting into this book, which is the reason for the 3*. The action didn’t pick up until about the last third of the book. I had a hard time connecting with the characters until the later part of the book. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

I loved this story - I'm such a sucker for stories about conmen/women and Meg Williams sure fits that description ~ or does she?? Told by Meg and Kat Roberts, a woman who was deeply affected by one of Meg's cons and who would dearly love to expose Meg and all her games. But as Kat gets closer to Meg, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her, This is a thriller that keeps you second-guessing every move! Thank you to Julie, the publisher, and Net Galley for my copy of this terrific story.

Similar to the author’s 2020 novel, THE LAST FLIGHT, which I LOVED, we are presented with two female POVs, Meg and Kat, living different yet connected lives. The majority of the book also features alternating storylines. All of which is enjoyable. The development of these complex characters is exquisitely executed by the author. ⁣
⁣
Meg Williams has lived a hard scrabble life. She attributes the primary cause to a man who took advantage of her mother just before Meg’s senior year of high school. After this incident, Meg and her mother were forced to live in their minivan. Her mother died a year later. ⁣
⁣
Meg becomes a vigilante con artist who follows a code. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘊𝘰𝘥𝘦, that is. She seeks justice against men who have wronged women, be it herself or others. Her ultimate target is the man who took advantage of her mother. After 10 years of perfecting her craft across the country, she returns to Los Angeles to exact justice on him.⁣
⁣
Ten years ago, Kat Roberts was a budding investigative journalist on the fast track with the LA Times. Now, she is a freelance writer, researcher, and copy editor, barely scraping by. The person she blames for derailing her life is. . . . Meg Williams. Kat has been obsessing over getting her revenge for far too long. Thanks to her Google Alert, she learns that Meg is in LA, and her time has finally come. ⁣
⁣
The more we learn about Meg, however, the less likely it seems that she intentionally set out to cause any harm to befell Kat. In fact, I started to think that Kat was a bit neurotic, even bordering on annoying, for failing to see that her rage was misdirected. ⁣
⁣
The cat-and-mouse dynamic between Meg and Kat is such fun. I could not turn the pages fast enough! The dramatic detours were fantastic. ⁣
⁣
Like THE LAST FLIGHT, this storyline is propulsive, and at times, has you 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘵. I think that you will be surprised by how it all ends. I know that I was. 😉🤫⁣
⁣
Now you really want to pick up a copy of THE LIES I TELL when it goes on sale 6/21/22, am I right? 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♂️⁣
⁣
I give it an emphatic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️! ⁣
⁣
Enjoy, my friends! And please let me know what you think about it after you read it. ⁣

Thank you, Sourcebooks Landmark for the free e-galley via NetGalley

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Meg Williams is a con artist. She is skillful and savvy. When a reporter befriends her to try and obtain a break in an old case, she learns that Meg has a lot of secrets. Things are not at all what they seem.

I love the ending.

Julie Clark has become one of my favorite authors. I loved her first book, The Last Flight, and The Lies I Tell is even better! She pulls you in from the first page and never lets you go. What a ride! The story is brilliant, suspenseful, and engrossing. The characters were so well-developed that I felt like I knew them personally. I didn’t want to stop reading, and I hated to see it end…although the ending was quite shocking and satisfying. A sequel would be fantastic! Looking forward to Julie’s next thrilling novel! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC! Can’t wait to buy it and recommend it to my family and friends when it comes out!

Wow! Julie Clark has done it again. This book grabbed me from page 1. Kat Roberts is a journalist hoping for her big story, and she believes she has it in Meg Williams, the woman she has been tracking for 10 years. Meg has now returned to California, and Kat sees her opportunity. Meg is posing as a realtor, and Kat befriends her, pretending to be a prospective buyer. Kat blames Meg for something that happened to Kat a decade ago at the hands of a man Meg knew..
Scott, Kat's fiance, is a white collar crime detective investigating fraud. He is also a gambler, and is in recovery. Scott warns Kat not to get too close to Meg, as con artists gain your trust before they turn on you.
As things start to go wrong for Kat, she doesn't know whether it is Scott or Meg who is causing the difficulties. She struggles with her loyalties. But what she doesn't know is the entire back story, and when she does discover it, her entire life changes.
This book is well plotted and well written. I couldn't wait to find out what the end game was, and the ending was the perfect touch.
Thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Julie Clark is well-known for THE LAST FLIGHT, her debut that I am eager to read! THE LIES I TELL is a cat-mouse story that centers around Meg Williams, a glamorous grifter/con artist and the no good men she has left in her wake. Journalist Kat Roberts is determined to expose Meg as retribution for a harmful encounter in her past.

Admittedly, I was expecting a more sinister story with an abundance of twists and turns. THE LIES I TELL simply isn’t that type of book despite it's label as a "domestic thriller". Instead, the story is essentially a fascinating character study/mystery that explores justice, manipulation, and murky motives. I believe the suspense could have been dialed up a bit more had the stakes been higher.

Overall, I enjoyed the cat-mouse dynamic between the female leads and a revenge plot always makes for an entertaining story!

RATING: 3.5/5 (it was fairly good)
PUB DATE: June 21, 2022

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review. Review will be posted to www.instagram.com/kellyhook.readsbooks in advance of publication date.

I am in awe of Julie Clark right now. The way she can write opposing female characters is truly a gift. In The Lies I Tell Meg is a con-woman who traverses the US becoming whoever she needs to be to bring down her target, but before she left California the first time she had an unexpected (and unknown) victim in Kat. Kat is a down on her luck reporter that bit off more than she could chew when investigating Meg and her victim 10 years ago. Now Meg is back in California and has a new victim in her sites and Kat will stop at nothing to make Meg pay for what happened a decade ago, at least that is the plan before Kat figures out just what Meg is up to when she selects her targets. With twists and turns you don't see coming and amazing character development, The Lies I Tell will take you on a wild ride. You'll start out feeling sorry for Kat and wondering what in the world Meg is thinking and you'll end up cheering for the villain.

Kat and Meg meet again, and this story is told in chapters by each woman. Kat wants to expose Meg for the con woman that she is, and Meg has a totally different agenda. As they meet personally, though, Kat realizes that Meg is not exactly the person she portrays. Both women have an axe to grind, and both target Ron..
I did find that this story did not hold my attention the way I hoped, and it did have a conclusion, but not much of a mystery, thriller; more of a good fiction.
I do thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved Last Flight! I wasn’t expecting that dear Julie Clark may write something even better! But she did! She literally rocked my world! I couldn’t put this book down. My eyes hurt. My stomach grumbles after seven hours nonstop wild ride ( don’t ask me how to handle my bladder issues) I loved it, loved it and lovveeeeed it!

Julie Clark does it again!! She maneuvers two women on opposite sides of an issue and makes us like both of them by the end (and them like each other!) She writes these women so well, with believable motivations and back story with a natural feeling progression of the relationship throughout the plot.

I do wish we would have spent more time in the “aftermath” of Meg’s actions just to really get a feel for how she impacted those around her, but I’m happy with where we ended up.

I will continue to read anything Julie Clark writes!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

So, Julie Clark is a must-read author for me now. I really enjoyed The Last Flight and I really enjoyed this. It started of a tad bit slow for me, but then it picked up and I couldn't put it down. Like with The Last Flight, I found myself rooting for both women. But the problem with rooting for both here, is that there is potential for one to cancel the other out. That's a twisty problem, but Clark works it out well and provides a satisfying ending.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to read, enjoy and review.

This slow burn thriller follows a character named Meg, who is like a female Dexter BUT instead of killing the bad guys, she cons them out of money and then disappears, leaving karma and an empty bank account to sort them out.

The thing I liked, is that Meg doesn’t take advantage of anyone who doesn’t deserve it. The men she targets are horrible, and she often pulls a Robin Hood type of scam that helps the people who have been wronged. It’s great.

Also, I loved that the women in this book have each other’s back instead of trying to maliciously hurt one another like in typical thrillers. It was a refreshing revenge story for this genre.

It underlines the concept that circumstances and people are often not what meets the eye, and you need to dig deeper to find out the full truth of it all. Context brings clarity and I found it interesting how the most moral person in the book was a con artist.

Overall, this was well written with great female leads. I enjoyed it even more than the author’s previous novel, The Last Flight, which was also good and worth a read if you haven’t already.

💥 Get this if you like thrillers that are NOT about murder and drunks, and want to read a story about hitting the bad guys where it hurts: their wallets and reputations.

4.5/5 stars rounded up to 5 for this review

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book! It takes a lot of time and energy to be a con artist and Meg or whoever she decides to be does a good job at it.

It’s very seldom I give a book 5 stars. Even books I throughly enjoyed and loved usually still get 4. This one gets 5 because it gripped me in a way where I read 30% of it before bed and then the next day the entire other 70% with only small breaks.

The story of a con artist, or is she, Meg who grips you with her life told from her view as well as an unlikely addition to her life, Kat. Both women end up having more in common than you would think and their relationship only adds another layer to the entire story.

It’s a mystery, it is suspenseful, but it’s a whole twist and turn that you have to read to truly believe. This is honestly by far one of the best books of the genre I have read in awhile!!!

Wow. ‘The Lies I Tell’, is my first Julie Clark novel. I thoroughly enjoyed this story about a female con artist. The characters are extremely well developed and the story and the ending are unexpected. I highly recommend this book, and will be picking up another Julie Clark book in the future.

This was fantastic - 4.5 stars, rounding down because 5 stars are saved for those life-altering experiences. This one just altered my weekend - meaning, I didn't get anything done other than reading! This was so twisty and bendy and complexly layered (is that even a thing????) Meg is such a fascinating character, and the dynamics between Meg and Kat were truly what captivating reading is all about!!

THE LIES I TELL is the first Julie Clark novel I have read, but it certainly won't be the last! I love Julie's writing style and the way she works the story line. This novel is intriguing, suspenseful and fun! The central character lives a tangled life that allows her to fit into situations easily. She is calculating, driven and works to right the injustices she sees along the way. A wonderful page turner for those long hot summer days! A special thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advanced readers copy.

✨Book Review✨
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
.
While I took my time with this one, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a lot of build up, and I never quite knew who to believe, but for some reason it didn't get old. I loved Meg's character and the way she progresses, but I loved Kat's story arc even more. Hearing from both of their perspectives made this book feel perfectly balanced. I also loved the underlying theme that was shown through their values.
.
Rarely am I ever so satisfied with the ending of a book. Definitely would recommend this one if you like a good low action psychological thriller.