Synopsis:
Your school friends know who you were before the flattering haircut, the great career, the loving family. They know secrets you’ve kept…
It’s been twenty-five years since Emma graduated from the prestigious Denham House Girls’ School. She thinks she’s finally shaken the shadow of the awkward, neurotic girl she was at school. But as a class reunion approaches, Emma finds herself right back there, moving into the headmaster’s old staff cottage with her daughter while her marriage implodes. It’s here though that Emma finds a photograph that had been hidden away: an explicit image of her school-friend Tessa, staring boldly at the camera, dated the day before her death.
Between catching up with old friends Marlee and Clementine, home for the reunion, and the demands of single parenthood, Emma has enough to distract her. But she can’t shake the image of the photograph. And the thought that this is proof of something she has long suspected: Jon Brownley, the current headmaster, was involved with Tessa. Emma had seen them arguing in the school grounds back then, and always regretted not speaking up after the death was ruled an accident. Now she’s certain she let Tessa down.
Marlee and Clementine have their own complex feelings about returning to their hometown. And when Emma starts to question what really happened to Tessa, all women must deal with the consequences of decisions they made all those years ago. Because the more Emma digs into the past, the more she discovers that everyone remembers it differently, and that the innocent schoolgirls she thought she knew, might be hiding some very big secrets.
Review:
First, I would like to thank Netgalley and Bookouture for this ARC in return for my honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed Good Little Liars by Sarah Clutton. I went in expecting it to mostly be about the suspicious death of Tessa, but I was surprised with the amount of drama that came along with it. The book is centered around three women’s lives: Emma, Harriet, and Marlee. Although, Harriet is not the same age as Marlee and Emma she and her family are still relevant to the story because her brother is the new headmaster of the Denham House Girls’ School and her daughter is Clementine. The three women all have so much drama in their lives and are connected in more ways than they know. Marlee and Emma are best friends, but Harriet plays a part in their friendship later on. The more I read, the more interested I became to figure out how Marlee and Emma had were close to Harriet and was I in for a surprise.
Honestly, I did not expect the amount of drama that was included, but I loved it. Each woman is going through her own storm and struggling to keep everything together. Tessa’s death that happened twenty-five years ago adds an extra layer of depth to this story. There are so many layers to her death and of course what actually happened is not revealed until almost the end. I was a little disappointed in how the “killer” was revealed and what actually happened because I was expecting something super juicy. It was still a surprise, but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It definitely tied everything together as far as relationships between characters goes, but not the crazy ending I was expecting.
If you love psychological thrillers or just really good dramas, then I would definitely recommend this book. Good Little Liars will be available for purchase on October 2, 2019.
Caged Raven Reads 