I was given an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and independent review.
Rachel is in a relationship with Jack and pregnant but they have not known each other when an email comes in to his iPad whilst he is asleep and then he does not tell her the truth, all her senses bristle. What secrets is he hiding? Is he who he seems to be?
This debut novel for Gillian McAllister was very well written and constructed, drawing me in from the very first page, with some excellent characters and a great pace. This book left me with questions about the moral dilemmas involved. A recommended read.
4.5****

This is compelling read.that twists and turns .The relationship with Rachel and Jack is a new one and then something happens which makes Rachel question everything even though she has not told Jack about something in her past .Can there be trust again ?Will love really conquer all ?Such a brilliant read ,leaving me thinking what would I do in the same circumstances !!!

This book gripped me from an early stage and I did enjoy it. After a while, I found Rach quite hard to like as a leading lady as I was rooting for Jack more. Their stories felt a little overplayed at times and the ending did not - for me - quite fit with how the book had built. An easy read though.

A good 3.5 stars from me. I didn't guess what the twist was and enjoyed the way the backstory was drip fed throughout the book.. Would definitely recommend this book to others.

Rachel and Jack have been in a relationship for 7 months. She is already pregnant. As Rachel discovers more about Jack, she becomes distinctively uneasy as she realises that she knows very little about him. She begins to doubt his honesty and can find out very little of his past. Should she leave him for her and the baby's safety? Read on.

How much can we trust someone? What lies do we tell to hide our past? Rachel knows that her boyfriend Jack is keeping secrets and telling lies but she also has secrets of her own. How far would you go to find out the truth and will you be able to cope with what you find? This beautifully written story deals with all these issues in a captivating way.

A brilliant first novel, beautifully written and telling a compelling and plausible story of secrets and lies. I didn't want to put it down!

I have heard a lot of great things on social media about this book, and all of them are true. Everything but the Truth is a fascinating and compelling story of what happens when Rachel and Jack meet, quickly fall in love, only for secrets about Jack's past to emerge which makes Rachel question EVERYTHING. It really made me question what I would do in her situation, which, for me, is always a sign of a great read.

The characters are so well drawn in this novel I felt like I was living the whole experience with them. The way Gillian reveals the secrets slowly-slowly is brilliant and kept me gripped to the very last word. And as for the boat scene depicted on the cover of the book - oh my!

This is a must read for readers of slow-burn thrillers and dark women's fiction. I already can't wait to read Gillian's next book!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book.

For a first book, I found this very well written and kept my interest. Being Scottish, I like that it was partially set in Oban where I've been several times so know some of the geo references. I could also relate to the main male character's accent and the "not proven" verdict (which was fairly crucial to the story and therefore maybe also why it was partially set in Scotland).. That said, the story was only slightly thrilling. The plot became fairly obvious I thought, (maybe I read too many mystery/thrillers). I don't like to discuss plots in my review for fear of spoilers. I really liked the main characters. They do have flaws as we find out but they're romance is very sweetly written. I got a little bored when it took so long to get to the bottom of the male character's "mystery". It was very obvious something bad was being very covered up. Given the evidence and the doubt, I agreed with the Scottish verdict. Given the final confession, my verdict would have been totally different and that's the bit that sits uncomfortably with me about acceptance and the male character's "character.". Is there an aspect of double indemnity? The female character was obviously intelligent and her mystery was slightly less terrible and not so deliberately covered up - just much sooner and not quite ready to talk about. But yes, they were both guilty of keeping secrets from each other. Just another little niggle .. was the female character actually unemployed or was she working as a secretary? I only mention it because if I was unemployed, pregnant and just gone through two back to back break ups, the latest from my obviously wealthy baby daddy, I would have definitely have had a reaction to the £312 bill that accompanied the court records!! Where would she get the money to pay for that. But that could just be my Scottish canniness!! Overall, I liked the book but would have felt better if the male character actually did fully do the right thing, regardless of all the alleged mitigating circumstances. And yes, I would read another book by this author.

There has been a tendency, since Gone Girl, to make a big fuss of 'stunning twists' in novels, as they hope to make an association between themselves and a hugely popular book famous for its twist. However, it seems many publishers/reviewers are conflating 'twists' with the natural surprises unfolding in a narrative.
Everything But The Truth is contemporary fiction, where one character finds out something about another over time - it's not a twist, where we are led to believe one thing and this is later subverted. It's like 'hmm, something is going on with my boyfriend...oh, I was right, something is indeed going on with my boyfriend'.
If it hadn't been sold to me on its 'stunning twists and turns' though, I would have been less underwhelmed. It's actually a perfectly decent story about morality and love and how we balance our ethics and our judgment etc. It's not a Hitchcockian thriller or Gothic suspense; its a love story. The characters are relateable, the emotional highpoints worked well for me and overall it was well-written and interesting.
Only in the guise of a Girl On The Train-esque shocker did it disappoint!

I am reviewing this through NetGalley. It is a mystery but one with a fresh storyline. If you start reading it, you will find it hard to take a break. The story is embedded in a thoughtful commentary on guilt,responsibility and human vulnerability which adds to the book's appeal. It is well written without distracting description and entirely believable characters.

A really good debut mystery/thriller with lots of twists. Jack receives an email referring to his past. His partner Rachel reads it and needs to know what it means but Jack is not keen to share it with her. Rachel sets out to find out what Jack is keeping from her, and to discover the truth about his past.
Would definitely recommend.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I didn't know what to expect with this to be honest, it was very well written great storyline, the characters played their parts well. It's a must read for definite.

Intriguing and compelling, I could not put this book download Rachel was a very likeable character. My one worry was that I would be disappointed by the reveal after all the build up. However I remained glued to my Kindle to follow through jack's story. Fantastic read!

It was too lengthy and drawn out for me, too lengthy description of him for example. I only got to the email title I did not get to what the email said. It needs to be not so drawn out. Yes you are having a baby no need to keep reminding. I lost interest at 4% and started to skim pages, how much do I have to wade through to see what the email said? Get to it.

I stayed up really late reading this book last night. I found it hard to put down. I've just finished it now, the day after I downloaded it. I'm so glad it had a happy ending! The characters were believable and you could almost feel like you knew them. The plot was very clever: I particularly liked how elements were gradually revealed - like the layers being peeled off an onion. The secondary characters' story fed into the main plot line very effectively - the betrayals and misunderstandings. I would heartily recommend this book and I look forward to reading more by this author.

To begin, a confession. I worked out the twist early on - about 20% in. I say this not to be clever (I'm not, it's just this twist came up at work last year - it was timing not cleverness) but because it changed the way I read the book.

Because I didn't have to worry about what Jack had or had not done, Rachel's story came to the forefront.....a slow drip, drip, drip of back story, of fear, anxiety, culpability. My favourite kind of story; women's fiction at its best.

I believe very strongly in the right to anonymity, the right to disappear. I believe that nobody ever really knows anyone else. And yet, as Rachel's narration asked me to question her perspective, it asked me also to question my own; my own beliefs, those things that make me culpable.

And it is this slow unravelling, not Jack's twist, that makes the story so good. The unravelling and the reknitting of the threads, which is, after all, what each of us do every day.

In short, readers, this is what I call a bloody good read. Just not for quite the reasons I imagined.

This book was a great read but also made me think about morals and dilemmas. The characters were drawn in detail, it felt like you got to know them. I desperately wanted a happy ending, but couldn't see how it was going to happen. I read the book in 3 sittings, it is a gripping story and I wanted to know what happened but at the same time didn't want to finish it. I will definitely buy the next book by this author.

An excellent and very compelling read - and not for the reasons I expected. For me, the intrigue and suspense was less about Jack's story and what he was hiding (which I figured out before the big reveal) but about the narrator Rachel's hidden past and how that was slowly drip fed to us as the present-day narrative unfolded and tripped her back into her past, filled with pain and errors of judgement that had terrible consequences, things she would rather forget, genuine mistakes that arose from her just trying to do the right thing. The parallels with Jack's situation are not lost, and indeed make the reader think about culpability, intention, motive and why we do what we do. It also makes you think about the difference between lies and the stories we tell to make our actions more justified in our own minds; the right to anonymity; the right to wipe the slate clean after a traumatic experience and start again....but how that doesn't always work in the real world. McAllister is a skilled, thoughtful and engaging writer and Everything But The Truth is a dark and different love story that will certainly make you think, as well as make you stay up until 1am turning the pages. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

This is an impressive debut and marks Gillian McAllister as an author to watch. The dark secrets and twisting plot kept me turning the pages, but it was the satisfying emotional core which swept me away ,