INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER! “So many questions…Until the very last page! Needless to say, I could not put this book down!” –Reese Witherspoon “Once again the author of The Woman in Cabin 10 delivers mega-chills.” –People “Missing Big Little Lies? Dig into this psychological thriller about whether you can really trust your nearest and dearest.” –… this psychological thriller about whether you can really trust your nearest and dearest.” —Cosmopolitan
From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes a chilling new novel of friendship, secrets, and the dangerous games teenaged girls play.
On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten, along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister.
The next morning, three women in and around London–Fatima, Thea, and Isa–receive the text they had always hoped would never come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”
The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second-rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty. But their little game had consequences, and as the four converge in present-day Salten, they realize their shared past was not as safely buried as they had once hoped.
Atmospheric, twisty, and with just the right amount of chill to keep you wrong-footed, The Lying Game is told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, lending itself to becoming another unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
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Really enjoyed Ware’s writing. She’s a natural and slips in all sorts of great details.
The Lying Game concerns a tragedy, one that a quartet of girls must contend with years later. Isa, Kate, Thea and Fatima meet at a boarding school in their teens and become known for the outrageous lies they tell. Tellingly, this comes back to bite them on the ass when they are forced to lie about a certain situation. Years later, the women all gather at the behest of Kate and the lie concerning this situation quickly unravels with dire consequences.
Ware did a great job of making me feel the slowly dying seaside town of Salton and its surrounds. I aligned with most of the characters save for Isa’s husband Owen. He came across as two dimensional and complaining with no redeeming qualities. Even just a few positive hints at what brought them together would have helped. I mean, they did have a child together, so there had to be something???
And speaking of children, the numerous references to Isa’s baby wailing or screaming or suckling felt like overkill. Perhaps because I’m not a mother? I couldn’t put my finger on it.
The plot was intriguing but not a rapid fire I-must-read-this-all-tonight way. Like many books with secrets and tragedies referred to at the start, Ware opted to drop several hints along the way, so much so I figured it out long before the ending. This stole a bit of thunder but otherwise a captivating read.
I found Ruth Ware this year and I’ve been making my way through her novels. I had gotten this one over the summer and was glad to hop into it before the end of the year. Four girls are brought together at a remote boarding school, board and mischievous as teens are, they invent the lying game. Points are scored for various lies, the way they are told, and the impact they have. All these years later, they are summoned back by Kate. They must confront the consequences of the biggest secret they’ve kept all these years.
So when we first got to the “lie” that was told, I didn’t think it should have had such a strong hold on the women after all this time. But as the lie started to slowly reveal itself, I was hit with a lot of “wow”, this is twisted. Both of the other Ware books that I have read this year were also 4-star reads. In The Woman in Cabin Ten, I despised the main character, Lo. As with The Turn of the Key, I also despised the main character. In this one, I didn’t love Kate, she was completely unreliable. She had built this little click, in which honesty amongst them was a must, and she was the worst. So in that, Ware is excellent at creating completely unlikable characters. But this one was my favorite of the three. I liked the alternating timelines and the school setting. I liked that once the secrets started to come out, that it was completely engaging. Overall, a really fun read.
Four girls meet in boarding school and become fast friends, the friendship anchored around a game that they play, the Lying Game. Points are scored if the lie sounds believable. One of their rules is that they must never lie to each other. At first, they only lie to snooty popular girls and teachers, but soon the lying becomes a habit, and the friends earn a reputation for deceit.
When suggestive drawings of the girls show up at the school and the eccentric art teacher, who is the father of one of the friends, disappears, the girls are expelled. For almost two decades the friends hold a secret, a secret that has helped to shape their lives and the women they become. A secret that haunts each woman and threatens to unravel the lives they have built for themselves.
The Lying Game is a story about relationships; tightknit female relationships that become clannish, inbred, and obsessive, relationships in families and within a town, and relationships that are ghosts of the past haunting the present. It is also a story about loyalty and perception.
I found this story okay. It was slow in the beginning, and at one point I wasn’t sure I’d continue reading. It wasn’t as slow as The Woman in Cabin 10, so I kept going. It picks up a little more than halfway in. The writing is beautiful, but this is also a thriller. I like thrillers to move at a clipped pace and be a little more plot-based and little less character-driven. Still, when it did pick up, I was hooked, so I will keep reading Ruth Ware.
This mystery shows the consequences of ones actions and how they can affect you years later when you least expect it. Even if you weren’t the one who was responsible. Cleverly written and brilliantly executed.
Well, this one was a let down. I couldn’t help but buy The Lying Game having read In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10, but I guess I should have saved my money on a different read.
The book is a story of four friends who meet in a boarding school when they were teenagers. As the title foreshadows, the group plays “the lying game,” where they have to create the most outlandish lies in order to get others to believe them. Their one rule is that they must tell the truth to one another.
Now in the present, the four friends haven’t seen each other in years. Isa is now a 32-year-old lawyer, with a partner and baby daughter, Freya, is a woman with everything to lose. They get a text from Kate saying that she needs them. Isa rushes to Kate, and they are joined by Thea and Fatima, they’re tense at the possibility that the secret that they have kept for seventeen years is about to emerge.
While their game seems amusing at the time, it create divisions and isolates others from their lives, including the locals. But, with their reputations preceding them, it is impossible to completely trust any of them. Are their secrets from the past now set to emerge?
“…years on, people round here still use your names as a kind of salacious cautionary tale…”
Although this book kept my heart thumping, it also kept my mind wandering. Some parts became predictable and others left me shocked. I was really whip-lashed with this book. I will, however, give credit to the setting, which is fantastic for this story – atmospheric and rigid. The decay and sinking of the Tide Mill was symbolic for the girls’ friendship.
While there was a bit of a slow-burn to this novel, it at times felt too slow. There was so much potential for this book, and I think I built it up too much after reading her two other books — but this one fell flat.
It’s not to say I didn’t like this book, I was on the fence. Ruth Ware’s writing is always so authentic. But this wasn’t one of her best, especially compared to In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10. Here’s hoping The Death of Mrs. Westaway is better than this one!
Read more of my review here: https://bit.ly/2X5nAkx
Did not like it as well as some of her other books.
This book was okay. I didn’t like the way it went back and forth between present day and 17 years ago in school. For me it didn’t flow so well. I understand that Isa is a new mom, but the way she handled her baby drove me crazy. Freya (the baby) was more of a main character. It seemed to take forever to get to the point of the story. What happened that night all those years ago? This wasn’t a horrible book, it just wasn’t great for me. I was bored through most of it.
The only thing I didn’t like was the ending.
Just enough twist to keep you off-balance!
From the title of the book to the last word in it, everything was clear to me in advance, and nothing could get me off my feet. Perhaps this is how a best-selling book created today. It didn’t thrill me. And yet, there is something in this book that made me read it to its end despite everything I have written so far.
This book was slow at first. I was half way through the book before I really got into it. I found it very predictable. It was ok but not my favorite.
If you like intrigue and stories with a twist, this is the book for you.
Ruth Ware has become a favorite of mine.
This books starts off slow, but picks up after 100 pages. A quick read, but not a Ruth Wares best.
The lying game by Ruth Wear I would say is my second favorite with Gil in Cabin 10 being my favorite. This book the group of girls are Kate, Thea and Fatima all attended the same seaside boarding school. The book is about a game where they earn points. I enjoyed this book for me it starts off slow other than that I enjoyed it.
Warning: this is LONG!
Books about boarding school have sucked me in before, so much so that they led me to attend one (I actually asked); we were living in Hong Kong at the time and I went to school in Sussex, just as in Ruth Ware’s ‘The Lying Game’.
I couldn’t resist making this one of my picks for the month in a book subscription box, and although it waited on my shelf for a few weeks ( I have massive TBR list, thanks to my recent rash of book-buying), as soon as I started Ware’s ‘Game’, I couldn’t put it down.
I was immediately transported back to England and my boarding school days. I felt all the nervousness and anxiety emanating off the pages right away, and you can feel it all the way through. The anxiety of trying to make peace with the past is what gave me short nights of sleep (I was staying up late reading), and it’s what keeps the characters up late too, their pasts coming back to haunt them. I have always envied friendships that last for decades, like the ones in this story but there are many secrets that are hidden within these tight bonds. These bonds may seem unrealistic to some readers, but when you spend your time literally LIVING with each other through your formative years, you form unbreakable bonds, much like family. Okay, maybe not to the point where you help cover up crimes (right?), but I’m talking about my school mates. I can see where this may not strike a chord with some readers though.
I really enjoyed Ware’s writing and never felt confused when she pulled the reader back to look at the girls’ past. I was also fully imagining the Sussex coast, the train going back and forth from London, even the windy staircases to the dormitories, the long walks when you just don’t have a car…frighteningly close to my own experience (a bit spooky, Ruth!). I kept coming back to the book for more.
I can possibly see how an American reader would maybe struggle with a imagining a long walk pushing a pram across marshy land at night. Being a Brit who walked a long way home from a train station every day, I didn’t. The old Mill was also a force to be reckoned with, within the story, and a character of its own, and I could ‘see’ it falling into the water gradually. And the fever dreams of a body being discovered? Who hasn’t had that nightmare, that dread? (Tell me have…right?) I felt it intensely.
Also an aside: since I had to leave my own boarding school in a hurry, not because of bad behavior (I promise) – my parents split – I never got to say goodbye to friends at my school either. I STILL haven’t been back for a Founder’s Day. Ware writing in a Salten School dinner was a clever touch to bring the past and present together. These sorts of reunions either have people filled with dread (like in this case, and for special reason), and then some ‘old girls’ can’t wait for them.
I loved this story so much, I really did, and while it won’t be sitting alongside jovial boarding school stories by Enid Blyton, being transported to the Sussex countryside for this mystery was all-absorbing. Having the past come back to bite you is something we ALL dread and this is a classic tale of that. I feel a little unsure of how I feel about the ending; sad, maybe it’s too convenient, but somehow so appropriate, but I liked the imagery – maybe I just didn’t want it to end, and for the mystery to be solved.
Absolutely phenomenal!
I’ll agree with some of the other reviews that this book is different than her first 2 books but I didn’t find it boring or uninteresting! I loved the friendship between the 4 girls and I loved the mystery of what really happened that night that would forever change their lives, and despite my best attempts I didn’t guess the ending! I love Ruth Ware! Can’t wait for the next book already!
Was so excited for the new title by Ruth Ware! I’m a big fan of her first, “The Woman in Cabin 10” and was somewhat disappointed by “In a Dark, Dark Wood.” This book has some glaring similarities to her second novel, but I think it’s better and more like her first. I wouldn’t call the ending “shocking” but that didn’t make it any less fun to read or any less well written. Ware does well fleshing out her main characters, something I really like about her work. Would recommend as a beach read!