Name of Book: If You Tell a Lie
Author: Lucinda Berry
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Pub Date: July 23, 2024
My Rating: 4.3 Stars
Pages: 271

Story is told in the two timelines of now and then by the four friends as well as Regina Cosby the wife of the coach who was murdered.

Blakely, Grace, Meg and Thera became best friends when they were preteens attended a summer program as ‘Camp Pendleton – for gifted and privileged students. The girls were roommates in Cabin Naomi and returned every year until the summer before college.
Their last year at camp Mr. Cosby the handsome counselor/tennis coach is brutally murdered.
Our four friends vowed secrecy especially about the prank they played.

They were able to keep the secret it in their past, now twenty-six years later they each receive a note. ~
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
THAT SUMMER AND I’M
GOING TO MAKE YOU PAY.
True this note was like the 1997 slasher movie “I Know What You Did Last Summer”
(Here is a link to the movie trailer in case you don’t remember
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEnCEM48QaY

As the story progresses we discover that these girls were so nasty they took “Mean Girls’ to the highest level of meanness.

The story definitely kept me curious – I could not put it down.
I love this author and wondered why the reviews were all over the place.
When I finished I said ~
Yes this was a story that I loved- hating!

About the Author – ‘
Dr. Lucinda Berry is a former clinical psychologist and leading researcher in childhood trauma. Now, she spends her days writing full-time where she uses her clinical experience to blur the line between fiction and nonfiction. She enjoys taking her readers on a journey through the dark recesses of the human psyche.

This is my fifth Lucinda Berry novel. My first was " The Best of Friends" which I loved and became a Lucinda Berry fan!
Of the four I have read all but one was GREAT.

Want to thank NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for July 23, 2024.

Another great book by Lucinda Berry! If you tell a lie is about a group of four girls who meet at summer camp. Their time at summer camp is like an escape from their real lives because they are considered outcasts or unpopular at their regular schools. Each of the friends has issues that they deal with but when they are together, they don’t feel the weight of their issues. On their last summer together, everything changes and not for the better.
What started off as a lie/prank unraveled into a tragedy and it is something that the friends must carry with them for the rest of their lives.
This book goes back and forth between past and present time in each of the friends POV. I really was engaged to the story from the beginning. It was very fast paced for me, and I couldn’t put it down!
The ending had a good twist too which I had somewhat predicted about halfway through, but it was really good! I really recommend this book for anyone who likes good fast paced thriller!
Thank you Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer . All opinions are my own.

Sometimes I just have a feeling about a character, something I can’t quite put my finger on. That was the case here, and I was right! Hot dang! 😆 However, Ms. Berry still got me with a few twists that I never saw coming. She’s sneakily good!

Teenage girls are enigmas. At a six week long summer camp where everyone is an outcast the rest of the year, what would you do to finally fit in? Even if you and others knew it was wrong? You might let yourself get carried away…

This isn’t an easy read. There’s some heavy stuff in here. Sexual abuse, loss, graphic depictions of eating disorders, etc. The story isn’t sexually explicit, but it isn’t entirely clean, either. I would want to know that before reading, so that’s why I mention it.

In IF YOU TELL A LIE this book creeped me out in true LUCINDA BERRY fashion. It was phenomenal! It lived up to the hype that the blurb made me feel. This group of friends reminded me of pretty little liars. Reading this you will be afraid of a group of girls you see together.

What harm is one lie? Well apparently a lot. These girls were ruthless and reckless and my eyes were about to pop out of my head while I read this book.

Lucinda Berry does a flawless job writing compelling stories with very well-developed characters whose psyche you feel like you’re able to see into.

🤯🤯

LB does it again!
The plot is so engaging! The characters keep you at the edge of your seat! Lucinda Berry should be on everyones auto buy list.

A horrible incident involving friends at summer camp spirals out of control. They promise to keep the secret. Years later they are brought together because of this secret. Secrets never stay hidden and things come to light. How well do they know each other? How much can they trust each other? This author has a knack for getting you invested in the characters. I would recommend this book.

the influence of manipulative teenage girls is real
truly mostly warped characters
some hidden gems
did not enjoy the ending at all, because whyyyy!!!!
i guess a happy wrapped up ending would have been boring but i would have liked it more!!!!
blakely is all bad, it’s scary how easy it is so be manipulated by one individual.

Four best friends reunited after 26 years because of a mysterious note. Blakley, Thera, Meg, and Grace have been best friends since day one at Camp Pendleton. On the last day at the camp, they swore to keep a secret.

Told in five POVs—four girls plus Regina—and alternating timelines, I liked that. The different POVs showed characters with different personalities and how they felt in that particular situation.

The plot was gripping and intriguing, leaving me guessing what would happen next. All the characters were messed up and unlikeable but not annoying, and none of them were reliable narrators. The pacing was medium. Some of the parts in the book were difficult to read. I liked the plot twist, but the ending was rushed.

I loved this book so much! Lucinda Berry never disappoints! If you love thrillers you need to read this one! The spooky camp vibes were perfect. I didn't guess the twist at all!

This was my first Lucinda Berry book. I'm thankful for the opportunity to review this book from the ARC that was provided to me by netgalley.

Four awkward girls come together in a friendship during camp and the memories follow them through adulthood.

I definitely did not see the ending coming and could not stop reading at the end. My only disappointment was the ending I'm like nooooo wayyyyy!!!!! I won't give any spoilers so you will need to read it and see if you feel the same way. :)

My first ever Lucinda Berry read! I found this a bit disappointing but it does not dissuade me from reading her backlist. The ending was very abrupt. I just finished reading Shari LePena’s Everyone Here Is Lying and this book’s ending was just as sharp and unsatisfying as that was. You also have to suspend disbelief for a lot of this story. If you don’t like doing that when reading thrillers, I would not recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley & Thomas & Mercer for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this book, especially because I flew through it in one sitting. I wanted to find out what was going to happen so bad! I enjoy mysteries, so the premise intrigued me from the beginning. Unfortunately, this book was a bit of a letdown.

I enjoyed the past timeline much more than the present timeline. Learning about each friend and the secrets they had even as young people was interesting and helped make each main character feel unique. Seeing how things played out in that timeline was also interesting and it set up the present chapters well.

While the present timeline started out interestingly, it fell apart for me in the second half. It became a little too unrealistic for my liking; and while I understand that it’s a work of fiction, it all felt too unbelievable to accept. This was especially true in the last chapter. Not only that but there were way too many questions left unanswered when I finished the book. The ending was abrupt and not satisfying, which bothers me a lot. It also doesn’t help that I was able to figure out one of the twists before it came out, which is a pet peeve of mine. I prefer to be surprised, so figuring out a twist bothers me a bit.

This book was an easy read that’s paced well for a thriller, but it was still a miss for me. That said, I definitely want to read more from Lucinda Berry in the future, as I love her writing style. Here’s hoping I enjoy her other books more!

This was a well-paced thriller with some surprising twists along the way. Told from multiple POVs, this book tells the story of a group of childhood camp friends who left a dark secret in their past. Many years later, their secrets come back to haunt them.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read with some good plot development! I wasn’t 100% invested in the characters, but I was still very intrigued to keep reading and find out how the story would end. 3.5⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an advanced copy of this ebook!

Absolutely amazing. Lucinda Berry has done it again! This book reminded me of watching an 80s scary movie. The flashback scenes made you feel like you were one of the girls experiencing what was going on. And the twist at the end had my jaw on the floor! Definitely pick up this book and read it! You won’t regret it.

In the beginning, I found it a little difficult to follow the storyline with so many characters telling their POV and simultaneously having the dual timeline. However, once I got the characters down the story started going. It was twisted and at times a bit disturbing (if you have triggers, definitely check the warnings first), but all in all an entertaining and quick read!

Thank you, #NetGalley and #Thomas&Mercer, for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Lies have a rippling effect, and the consequences are dire.

Four girls have struck an unlikely friendship at Camp Pendleton. Each has flaws, but they become better versions of themselves as soon as they are all together at camp. When one lie the girls committed during their last summer resulted in a murder, the girls swore they had to keep the truth from coming out. But time, indeed, is the ultimate truth teller, and whatever secrets the girls were hiding finally caught up to them when they all received a note revealing someone knew what they did.

If you’ve seen the 1998 film, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” you’ll have an idea about this book. But any similarities begin and end with something that happened last summer and a letter revealing that someone was in on it. “If You Tell A Lie” deals more with the psychological repercussions of peer pressure and repressed memories.

Characterized by a gradual build, it might feel laborious for those who prefer the quick pace of an adrenaline-fueled thriller. Its core lies in the characters’ chapters structured in a multi-narrative approach in alternating timelines, allowing the readers to dissect every character’s level of suspicion and how significant they are to the plot’s tension.

I went through all sorts of emotions while reading this book. At one point, I got bored wondering how the story would unfold. It didn’t help that none of the characters were likable for having displayed utter naivety and stupidity. Certain characters’ points of view of their childhood experiences deeply resonated with me. It had less of a mystery element and leaned more towards resembling a self-help book authored by a former psychologist. It delved deeply into the individual backstories of various characters, providing insight akin to psychological analysis.

It is challenging to comprehend how certain characters react to a particular situation, seeming nonchalant about severe matters while overreacting to trivial ones. The reactions would be quite different if these events happened in real life. As the story unfolds, the characters who initially displayed reactions that seemed disconnected from real-life scenarios undergo a sudden shift in character. It’s funny that I even had to create a table list to match every character from their past and present behavior.

Aside from a few loopholes, like how inmates can simply stalk someone on social media (are inmates even allowed to do that? Forgive me for being ignorant about these things), another misgiving was a few repetitive scenes, such as rephrased dialogues conveying the same message. As I approached the end of the book, I wanted to get it done and over with. Thankfully, the satisfying conclusion managed to compensate for its laborious plot. But after much thought, I realized that the ending occupied a disproportionately tiny section of the book compared to the extensive backstories of all the characters combined, yet still managed to keep me hanging.

In conclusion, I had moments of sincere affection for this book. There is much to take away from the narrative, such as how individuals behave differently concerning peer pressure, guilt, and childhood trauma. I suppose my lack of interest stemmed from the off-putting characters. After all, a book should provide pleasure; instead, I had to force myself to reach its conclusion.

US pub date: 7/23/24
Genre: thriller
Quick summary: Blakely, Grace, Meg, and Thera's summer at camp ended in disaster when their tennis coach was found dead. 20 years later, Blakely calls the group together after an anonymous letter for someone who knows the truth...

I love a "I know what you did last summer" or in this case, twenty summers ago, trope, and Lucinda Berry knows how to write a bonkers novel. So if you also enjoy teens keeping secrets (and growing up to become adults keeping secrets), this is a fun, under 300 page, read in one sitting thriller. It seems some reviewers didn't love the ending, but I thought it was really satisfying.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

While a little difficult to remember who was who with the multiple POV, this is another great thriller from Lucinda Berry! I was super invested in the characters. My only wish is that it wrapped up better at the end- I’d like to know what happened to Grace and Thera too.

4 ⭐️
Lucinda Berry is easily one of my favorite thriller authors! In this book she creates some dark & twisted characters. This is a gripping fast paced story about a group of friends who attended summer camp together!

As always check TW her books are dark, and they may not be for everyone. This book didn’t make me all cozy but it sure made me think over and over again

*Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Thank you to #netgalley for granting me an ARC for an honest review.
While I do enjoy Lucinda Berry as an author and a few of her previous novels, this one didn't cut it for me. I struggled with the story line, I didn't like the characters and what they were after. I finished it but I probably won't recommend it to my friends.