The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

The Lying Game

by Ruth Ware

'To read [The Lying Game] is to have your nerves slowly but inexorably shredded as, over and again, the tension builds and then evaporates until the final, unexpected denouement' Metro

'A gripping, unpredictable narrative that shifts like sand underfoot, and a plot that turns like the tide.' ERIN KELLY bestselling author of HE SAID SHE SAID

'Thank goodness for Ruth Ware...[The Lying Game is] gripping enough to be devoured in a single sitting' Independent

Four friends. One promise. But someone isn't telling the truth. The twisting new mystery from bestselling phenomenon Ruth Ware.


The text message arrives in the small hours of the night. It's just three words: I need you.
Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her.

At school Isa and her three best friends used to play the Lying Game. They competed to convince people of the most outrageous stories. Now, after seventeen years of secrets, something terrible has been found on the beach. Something which will force Isa to confront her past, together with the three women she hasn't seen for years, but has never forgotten.

Theirs is no cosy reunion: Salten isn't a safe place for them, not after what they did. It's time for the women to get their story straight...

Reviewed by Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews on

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I was surprised at myself for picking up The Lying Game as I did not care for In a Dark, Dark Wood, but I thought I would give Ruth Ware a second chance as I had been impressed with her way of creating suspense.  I found that to be true in The Lying Game as well.  She keeps your attention with just a twist of a word and kept me guessing the entire time.

While I prefered Ware's writing I did listen to part of this on audio read by Imogen Church. It did take me a while to get use to her tone but overall I found her to be a very engaging narrator.

The characters were all creepy in their own way and had a way of jumping back with importance to the story. However, Isa's baby Freya annoyed the heck out of me. It left a large part of the novel to discussing prams and breastfeeding that really didn't do anything to the overall story. I would have prefered that she was left out all together. My other issue was that I didn't feel that the author did a good enough job conveying why these three women would drop everything for a friend they hadn't seen in almost twenty years as Kate seemed like a pain in the butt.

The pacing, twist ending and even some of the characters in The Lying Game reminded me of Tana French's The Likeness. However, it was done in a way that it did not feel like a "been there done that" for this reader. The plot was still fresh enough that it kept me on my toes and I disregarded everything I had planned to do that day.

Overall, The Lying Game by Ruth Ware was not an edge-of-you-seat mystery but it kept you invested until the very end.

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This review was originally posted on First Impressions Reviews

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 19 October, 2018: Finished reading
  • 19 October, 2018: Reviewed