By Tessa Pulyer Posted on

The Lying Club by Annie Ward #BookReview and #excerpt #PsychologicalThriller

Thank you to HTP Books for my spot on this blog tour.
THE LYING CLUB
Author: Annie Ward
ISBN: 9780778389408
Publication Date: March 22, 2022
Publisher: Park Row Books

From the acclaimed author of Beautiful Bad comes an explosive new novel of revenge, murder and shocking secrets—where the victims aren’t who you might think. Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Lucy Foley, and Liv Constantine.

Three women. Two bodies. One big lie…

A tangled web of lies draws together three women in this explosive thriller of revenge, murder and shocking secrets.

At an elite private school nestled in the Colorado mountains, Natalie, an office assistant, dreams of having a life like the school moms she deals with every day. Women like Brooke—a gorgeous heiress, ferociously loving mother and serial cheater—and Asha, an overprotective mom who suspects her husband of having an affair. Their fates are bound by the handsome assistant athletic director Nicholas, whom Natalie loves, Brooke wants and Asha needs.

But when two bodies are carried out of the school one morning, it seems the tension between mothers and daughters, rival lovers, and the haves and have-nots has shattered the surface of this isolated, affluent town—where people stop at nothing to get what they want.

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

What’s it about (in a nutshell):

The Lying Club by Annie Ward is a dark and twisty look at the world of high school athletics and all the adults involved.

What I Enjoyed:

I loved the last 30% of the novel, which is full of twists, turns, and deceptions. I enjoyed the story’s shocking direction and quickly forgot that the first 70% is more of a slow build of the events leading up to the opening scene dotted with the police’s interview of the main character in the current timeline. This police interview successfully kept the suspense level high as I  learned the details of the opening scene, which made the slow-build not feel so slow.

Most of the characters are so wealthy and entitled that it made the story occasionally annoying and deliciously dark at other times. The characters are flawed, and their flaws are in the spotlight. But,  other than that part of them, I didn’t learn any more about what makes them tick. There are four primary adults: Natalie, Asha, Nicholas, and Brooke, and the story fluctuates between focusing on those four, particularly the three females. With all of the many secrets they each hold, it would be challenging to develop them more without giving away too much, so I didn’t mind that at all.

The story stays very focused, which is another way that the pace never seems terribly slow, especially in the first half. I do enjoy a tightly constructed thriller, and this one delivers. The writing style is very fluid and gives away just enough to keep you on your toes the entire time. And the third-person narration with fluctuating focus is ideally suited for achieving this.

But there is not much else I can say about the story without telling you too much and risking spoilers.

What I Wish:

The slowness of the first 70% was not too bad, but if I had a wish to be granted, it would be less of the slow and more of the fast pace that only got 30% of the storytime.

Characters:

Natalie is a younger woman who works at the front desk of the local private school. She loves art and spends a lot of time helping her brother, who is in a wheelchair.

Brooke is a wealthy mother and is used to getting everything she wants. Her daughter is a freshman at the local private school and excels at soccer. Brooke is very competitive and does not take no for an answer.

Asha is a wealthy wife and mother who chooses to work as a real estate broker. She is married, and they have a daughter who is also a freshman at the local private school and a soccer star looking to play in college. Asha and Brooke are friendly but have not crossed the line into a true friendship. 

Reminds Me Of:

The Lying Club reminded me somewhat of The Night She Went Missing by Kristen Bird.

To Read or Not to Read:

If you love domestic or psychological thrillers, you will want to pick up this dark and twisty read that is most scary because you could see it happening in real life.

Annie Ward is the author of Beautiful Bad. She has a BA in English literature from UCLA and an MFA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute. Her first short screenplay, Strange Habit, starring Adam Scott, was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award winner at the Aspen Film Festival. She has received a Fulbright scholarship and an Escape to Create artist residency. She lives in Kansas with her family.

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Prologue

THE NECKTIE OF her ex was still clasped in her hand when Natalie woke. Her head was pounding, and her mouth tasted bad, like she’d fallen into bed without brushing her teeth. She had a horrible, cloudy feeling that she’d done something regrettable, but in that moment, she couldn’t remember what it was.

She wasn’t at home. Instead, she was upright, a seat belt crossing her chest. In front of her was the windshield of her own car, coated in a sheet of frost, and her I LOVE COLORADO! key chain was dangling from the ignition.

Natalie realized then that she’d blacked out. It had happened before, when she was much younger, and the memory of that awful awakening hit her with an electrifying jolt. After a frantic inspection, she concluded that all her clothes were on and nothing seemed torn or altered. She slipped the tie into her coat pocket.

Yanking the rearview mirror toward her face, she saw that her hazel eyes were huge, the pupils tiny pinpoints, and her mascara was smudged. A chapped crack ran down the bottom of her lower lip, but there were no other bruises or cuts. It didn’t appear that she’d crashed into a building or a tree. There were no sirens.

She rolled down her window, and a thin wall of ice collapsed into the car, dampening her plaid skirt. It was almost dark outside.

Work. She was at work. Across the snowy parking lot, she could see the back door to the east wing of the private school where she was an administrative assistant in the front office.

Pulling on her stocking cap and opening the car door, Natalie noticed footprints, slightly softened by snowfall, leading from her car to the rear exit of the school’s gym. Another set of identical prints returned from the door to the car, but not in a straight line. They zigzagged, and there was a large compression in the snow, just about the size of a small person like her. Gingerly, she lowered one boot into the first of the prints to make sure it was a match. It was. It seemed likely that the body-shaped spot in the snow was an indication that she’d fallen, and a quick pat down of her coat confirmed that it was wet.

Natalie stepped out of her car and squinted into the wind. Her legs felt weak, as if she’d just returned from one of her longer runs.

She retraced her own tracks, leading to the school. The sky was changing color from a grayish stormy dusk to night, and it struck Natalie, who loved art, that the swirling white flurries between her and the stars resembled a monochrome Van Gogh painting. Snow-capped peaks surrounded her on all sides. Down the mountain was the town center. Lights twinkled. Houses, vacation condos, and old-timey shops were piled like Christmas gifts on top of one another alongside a dark and twisting river.

The heavy back door was ajar. When she tugged on it, it groaned, scraped, and opened. Heart pounding, she went in.

During school hours, the sports pavilion would have been filled with the sound of bouncing basketballs, laughter, whistles, and sneakers squeaking on the gym floor. Now, there was distant, droning pop music playing up on the mezzanine, but no one was singing along or dropping weights to the floor with a crash.

Natalie walked with slow, hesitant steps over to the double doors that opened onto the basketball courts.

Normally those doors stood propped open by gray rubber wedges. Now they were closed, but each had a rectangular window. Natalie curled her hand and made a cup for her eyes.

It took a second to see anything at all. The court was dim, aglow only from the small green emergency lights situated over the doors and in the corners of the room. Her eyes were adjusting. Something was there.

She jumped away from the door as if the glass had burned her skin. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth. A scream almost escaped, but she stopped it in her throat with a choking noise.

Not far from the door was what looked like a crumpled pile of clothes and broken body parts, motionless in the middle of a spreading pool of blood.

What the hell did I do?

The security lights in the Falcon Academy parking lot flickered. It was early Monday morning and still dark. A beat-up Pathfinder left tracks in the snow as it swerved into a spot re-served for employees.

Harry Doyle climbed out and used his heel to squelch a cigarette into the ground. He grabbed a battered baseball cap from the dashboard and plopped it on his head, holding down what little was left of his hair. After slamming the driver’s door shut, he looked up at the sky, which was turning pink and orange to the east. An enormous blanket of fluffy white covered the parking lot. Last night had been the first big storm of the season, and some parents would call their kids in sick so they could hit the slopes with their friends.

The sixty-eight-year-old custodian shuffled towards the rear entrance of the sports pavilion. The automatic fluorescents in the back hallway glowed a sickly yellow. He hummed as he plodded down the hall to the boys’ changing room, where he put his lunch and jacket away in his locker before going to the storage closet. Harry grabbed the fiberglass handle of the deluxe wet mop and hauled it, and the bucket, out into the corridor toward the basketball courts. Pushing past the double doors, he activated all nine light switches with a swipe of his hand. The bulky, caged gymnasium overheads burst to life with a buzz.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed, dropping the mop.

The handle clattered against the maple wood planks. “Oh dear God.” The words came out strangled.

Harry scrambled for his phone in a zippered compartment of his slacks.

“Hello?” he managed to say, after dialing 911. He was having trouble breathing. “The Falcon Academy. Off Highway 70. Just west of Blackswift. Oh Jesus. Jesus Mary and Joseph. We need help. There’s a lot of blood.”

Excerpted from The Lying Club by Annie Ward, Copyright © 2022 by Annie Ward. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

28 Replies to “The Lying Club by Annie Ward #BookReview and #excerpt #PsychologicalThriller”

  1. Sheri Dye says:

    The first 70% being slow is kind throwing me off.. I’m a much bigger fan of the hard and fast hitting reads but I can definitely get behind “a dark and twisty read that is most scary because you could see it happening in real life.”
    Great review, Tessa!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      The book opens with two people on the floor in the gym-one in a pool of blood. And then the first half of the book back tracks to the events leading up to that and flash forwards to the police interviewing the person who you know was also in the gym in that opening scene. So, the mystery of who did what to who and why predominates the first 70% and then the dark thriller twistiness takes over for the the last 30%. I found that the mystery held my attention without problem. It is a good solid domestic/psychological thriller.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Sheri Dye says:

        Lol. You had me at ‘in a pool of blood.’ 😂
        Thank you for this, Tessa, I actually tend to enjoy storylines like this so I appreciate you taking the time to explain.💕

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      I don’t normally but the slow part is full of rich teens and adults behaving badly and you already know someone ends up on the floor on the gym in a pool of blood, so you go into mystery solving mood. It totally held my attention and then the dark twistiness of the last 30% gave me the satisfaction of a thriller with a creepy ending.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Zainab says:

    Omg this sounds really interesting – very much like an adult one of us is lying it sounds like?! I’ll see if I can read it!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      It’s start with someone on the floor in a pool of blood, so really the mystery of who, why, and who did it predominate the first 70%. Even though it’s a slow build to the dark twistiness, it’s still compelling in its own right.

      Like

  5. Mischenko says:

    This sounds pretty good other than the slow issue. The plot is interesting. I have to admit, I’d rather have it fast-paced. Excellent review, Tessa. 🧡

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      It’s a very compelling story. If you’ve ever known any parents who are bound and determined to get their teens into college via a sports scholarship and do sports year round- rich or not, you would totally be able to relate and feel the build of this one

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Mae Clair says:

    I’m a fan of domestic and psychological fiction, so this one appeals to me even with the slow build opening. Glad to hear it delivers on the dark and twisty side. Excellent review, Tessa!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      And a deliciously creepy ending. I don’t think the slow build would phase you in the least on this one.

      Like

  7. Staci Troilo says:

    I love a good psychological thriller. Kind of on the fence about the slow opening, though. Thanks for sharing such a thorough review, Tessa.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      The mystery pretty much is the predominate aspect of that slow-build. You start out knowing that someone is lying on the gym floor in a pool of blood then the story back tracks to the events leading up to that. So, it’s not too slow. But the dark twistiness of the last bit was great!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Staci Troilo says:

        Now I’m really tempted. (And sorry about the typo in the first comment. I guess my fingers were faster than my brain.)

        Like

  10. Jonetta | Blue Mood Café says:

    I’m listening to this now (it’s great on audio) and am already drawn in. You’ve excited me about the last 30% of the book so back to my headphones! Excellent review, Tessa💜

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Carla says:

    Nice review Tessa. Being a teacher for almost 35 years has me steering clear of books set in schools, although this does sound intriguing. Glad the ending was a powerful one for you.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lady Tessa says:

      I can totally understand that. Being a counselor in high school didn’t have that effect on me but it’s a much different role. If I had been a teacher for longer than a minute, I would have felt the same I’m sure.

      Liked by 1 person

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