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Published Jan 2020
320 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
When a woman conceals her sister's death to claim their joint inheritance, her deception exposes a web of dangerous secrets in this addictive new thriller for fans of Megan Abbott, Gillian Flynn, and Paula Hawkins.
"Like most of the dead, I want to be remembered."
Robin Voigt is dead. If Leslie had arrived at her sister's cramped Las Vegas apartment just hours earlier, this would have been their first reunion in a decade. In the years since Robin ran away from home as a teenager, Leslie has stayed in New Mexico, taking care of their dying father even as she began building a family of her own. But when their father passed away, Leslie received a rude awakening: She and Robin would receive the inheritance he left them together—or not at all. Now her half of the money may be beyond her grasp. And unbeknownst to anyone, even her husband, Leslie needs it desperately.
When she meets a charismatic young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Robin—and has every reason to leave her past behind—the two make a reckless bargain: Mary will impersonate Robin for a week in exchange for Robin's half of the cash. But neither realizes how high the stakes will become when Mary takes a dead woman's name. Even as Mary begins to suspect Leslie is hiding something, and Leslie realizes the stranger living in her house, babysitting her newborn son, and charming her husband has secrets of her own, Robin's wild, troubled legacy threatens to eclipse them both.
An electric, twisted portrait of sisterhood and the ties that bind, The Better Liar is a stunning debut with a heart-stopping, twist-after-twist finale that will beg the question: How far would you go to get what's yours?
"Jones's debut novel is clever, absorbing, and full of red herrings...A stunning twist ending will leave readers waiting to see what Jones will give them next." - Booklist (starred review)
"A nicely noir, if not completely surprising, couple of twists round out this feverish thriller. A blistering debut from a promising new talent." - Kirkus Reviews
"[A] taut, twisty thriller...Though the novel falters at the finale when its big reveal comes across as less convincing than the characters' previous lies, readers won't feel cheated. Jones arrives with an undeniable splash." - Publishers Weekly
"Debut author Jones has created a taut psychological suspense with surprising developments and a shocking, jaw-dropping ending. Sure to be popular with fans of Ruth Ware and Gillian Flynn." - Library Journal
"Jones' sensational debut has the bones of a thriller but reads like literary fiction: lean, shrewd, and gratifyingly real." - Entertainment Weekly
"A masterclass in mystery and suspense." - Book Riot
"Jones has written a compulsively page-turning story. She cleverly drip-feeds nuggets of information, each more surprising than the last, until the final shocking revelation." - Claire Fuller, author of Bitter Orange and Swimming Lessons
"I can hardly believe The Better Liar is a debut novel—it has three unreliable narrators and a twisty plot, and it dives deep into complicated family relationships." - Jennifer Hillier, author of Jar of Hearts, ITW Thriller Award winner
"The Better Liar is a knockout—a stunner of a debut that left me in awe of this new writer's talent." - Karen Dionne, author of the international bestseller The Marsh King's Daughter
"Tanen Jones shifts effortlessly between narrators and story lines, and delivers one hell of a twist. I couldn't wait to finish but did not want it to end. This is the best kind of thriller!" - Wendy Walker, internationally bestselling author of The Night Before
This information about The Better Liar was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tanen Jones grew up in Texas and North Carolina. She has a degree in American history and spent several years editing law and criminal justice textbooks. A queer author, she writes about queer women in dark spaces. Tanen now lives in New York with her partner, where she writes to the sound of her neighbor's piano. The Better Liar is her debut novel.
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