The Lying Club
Book Summary
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…
About the Author
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.
Author Links
Twitter: @_annie_ward
Facebook: @anniewardbooks
My Thoughts
The Lying Club by Annie Ward has two
murders occurring at the elite Falcon Academy where reputation is
everything. Rich parents send their
entitled children to this prestigious school which will set them up to get into
an elite college. Lies abound in this
story. The Lying Club is told from
several points-of-view. It did take me awhile
to adjust the changing viewpoints. The
key is to try and figure out which are lies and which are truths. Who could have committed such heinous
crimes? The beginning of The Lying Club is
a little slow as the story (the characters, the setting, and the plot) is laid
out. The author provides plenty of
detail which allows readers to visualize the characters and the scenes. We get to meet the various characters (rich
parents, bratty teenagers, staff tired of dealing with both parents and the students). The pacing picks up in the second half where there
is more action and a twist or two. It is
a disturbing story that delves into dark areas. Annie Ward combines dysfunctional characters
with drama, revenge, lies, deceit, secrets, and murder into one twisty tale
called The Lying Club.
Excerpt
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.”
Are you ready to read The Lying Club? The Lying Club is available from Amazon*, Harlequin, BookShop.org, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Powell’s. You can find Annie Ward's other novels here. A couple of other novels that were published today are: Curfew by Jayne Cowie, Burning Hope by Wendy Roberts, and French Braid by Anne Tyler. Tonya Kappes has just released Barista Bump Off which is the eleventh A Killer Coffee Mystery. Thank you for visiting today. I will be back tomorrow with Curfew by Jayne Cowie. I hope that you have a joyful day. Take care, stay safe, and Happy Reading!
Kris
The
Avid Reader
*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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