Switch to the present, and Isa is a 32 year old attorney living in London with her newborn daughter, Freya, and partner, Owen. They make a pact to never share what really happened, and keep the secret buried for 17 years. There are 5 rules to the game: TELL A LIE, STICK TO YOUR STORY, DON'T GET CAUGHT, NEVER LIE TO EACH OTHER, KNOW WHEN TO STOP LYING.Īfter a horrible event occurs leading to the expulsion of the liars, the game ends but the girls never stop lying.

The girls participate in a game, called “The Lying Game,” which isolates their classmates and causes local townies to hate them. When 15 year old Isa Wilde is sent to coastal boarding school, Salten, she quickly befriends Kate, Thea, and Fatima. The Lying Game is a slow burning psychological thriller about four friends who are bound together by lies. *Unpopular opinion alert*: This book didn't work for me.

But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father). Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other-ever. 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, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. The next morning, three women in and around London-Fatima, Thea, and Isabel-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.” 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.

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. From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes Ruth Ware’s chilling new novel.

Turn of the key ruth ware