THE LIES YOU TOLD

Coming home to London to confront her past, Sadie Roper finds herself embroiled in several mysteries.

When Sadie left for New York with her husband and her daughter, her mother made it perfectly clear that she was a failure for choosing motherhood over her job and that she’d never be welcome in her childhood home again. But when her mother dies, she leaves Sadie the home in her will—with the stipulation that Sadie’s daughter, Robin, must attend Ashams, the prestigious private school where Sadie went. Her marriage already in tatters, Sadie flees back to London; she has little choice but to adhere to the terms of the will. Returning to a house of gloomy memories, bearing the weight of her daughter’s disappointment and homesickness, she struggles to find her footing. The school mothers are the worst, and the Queen Bee, Julia, has all the other women wrapped around her little finger. She makes Sadie's and Robin’s lives a living hell—until she finds out that Sadie is an Ashams "old girl." Connection and legacy go a long way, and Sadie and Robin are soon invited to parties and sleepovers, part of the inner circle. Meanwhile, Sadie, trained as a barrister but having left work when Robin was born, finds a job helping to organize materials for an upcoming trial in which a young woman has accused her teacher of sexual abuse. As she begins to wonder about the truth of that relationship, a tragedy strikes close to home, and then Robin goes missing. What is the rot at the heart of Ashams? And whom can Sadie trust to help her uncover the truth about the case? The characters are sharply drawn, but there’s not much depth to the plot.

Misdirection, shadows, and a lot of snarky meanness—but in the end, it’s all surface drama.