After a night out with work colleagues Sophia heads to her parents to pay them a visit following an odd phone call from her mother. What follows will shock her world and make her question everything she has ever been told about her past – is everything lies?

Everything is Lies certainly works better if you go in not knowing what to expect, I had read the blurb but the actual subject matter remained a mystery to me and was therefore a nice surprise. The story itself is full of twists and turns and is a slow burner but I won’t give away much more. I must admit I had guessed the main twist correctly about 60% of the way through the book but that didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the overall story. I liked the reminder that manipulation comes in many different forms and from many different places and so many things were portrayed as potentially creepy moments which could have been entirely innocent in different circumstances.

The narrative is told in the present day through Sophia and in flash-back diary-style entries by her mother Nina and I found both stories to be equally engaging and interesting. The plots wind together in a nice way and comes to its conclusion at a nice pace. I did feel the over-use of foreshadowing hints (‘if only I knew…’ etc) in Nina’s section were a little overused in places though.

Everything is Lies is a book to dive into without reading much more information on it, it’s twisting, turning plot is well-written and keeps you guessing. It’s also very easy to get hooked into – I found myself finishing it in 2 days! Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin UK – Michael Joseph for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was sent a copy of Everything is Lies by Helen Callaghan to read and review by NetGalley.
A very readable book, delving into the insidious world of the Cult. The novel moves between the present day and Sophia’s story and her mother Nina’s tale from before she was born. After a family tragedy Sophia is driven to find out about her mother’s past, about which Nina had apparently been writing a memoir. The story takes many twists and turns and reveals in some way the power and magnetism that belonging to a cult can hold over susceptible individuals.
Everything is Lies is an interesting and as I say readable novel (I read it in a couple of days) it is not, however, sensationalist regarding the cult, it is more of a steady whodunnit and why type of book. Definitely worthy of a four-star rating.

Sophia has her normal life shattered when her mother dies and her father is seriously injured. Her journey to discover the truth of how their lives reached this tragedy involves Sophia uncovering long buried secrets that shake her to the core and questions everything she has always believed to be true. By total coincidence, this is the second book in a row I have read about a cult. Not my genre of choice but this was totally different to the previous story (The Marriage Pact - Michelle Richmond) and it was good to make comparisons. For a start, in Everything is Lies the vast majority is much more believable, in that in the 1980's people were more gullible than they are today. The writing captured the different eras very well as it switched from one decade to another. I understood the naivety of Nina as she was seduced by the handsome rock star and understood the despair of her daughter at her mother's stupidity. The story flowed well, was never boring and the main characters were believable and well created. A definite page turner that had me hooked and was neatly finished with most questions answered. I had previously read Dear Amy by the same author and thought this even better..

I received a free ecopy of this book in return for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley and and the publisher for the opportunity.

This book promises, “Everything is lies, and nobody is who they seem.” so you are immediately suspicious of every character. We begin with Sophia at a works night out, blowing off her mother for an almost fling. Next day she heads to her childhood home to a graphically distressful scene of her mother hanging and dad stabbed but alive, in an apparent murder suicide. Sophia discovers mum was writing a book and subsequently finds the first two, hand-written parts. We then jump back two and a half decades to follow mum, Nina, through starting university and falling for an enigmatic rock star. Nina joins the rockstar and his groupies in a cult-like lifestyle of drink, drugs, meditation and sex. The story then jumps back and forth until each timeline reaches a violent conclusion.

“Nobody is who they seem” is a bit of an oversell as some characters are exactly who they seem, but it does put you in the mindset of suspecting that the characters have something to hide, which is part of the fun. The book takes quite an interesting look at how people can be drawn into cults in small steps so that by the time the alarm bells ring, it’s way too late. There is also a discussion late on as to how many organisations have cult-like properties, forcing people to do things that are against their better judgement. I would have liked to have seen that developed further, but perhaps there is another book in there.

Character-wise I found I connected more with Nina than Sophia. Sophia suffers corporate bullying during the book, a personal trigger for me, which doesn’t help as it made me feel anxious and didn’t really add much to the plot. I was sad that Nina never really threw off the chains of her emotionally abusive family. She moves from one abuser to the next and we know from the start how she is going to end up.

Overall I enjoyed the book. It hooked me early on and didn’t let go, no matter how sad or painful the subject matter. I have not read anything by Helen Callaghan before but will be looking to read more of her books in the future.

I have plodded on with this novel until 47% but I really have to give up. Whilst realising it is an arc, there are various issues making it hard to read, and I intensely dislike the storyline.
I'm very disappointed, especially as I really enjoyed Dear Amy.
As I haven't completed the book, I shall not offer my review elsewhere.

I have just finished reading this book. I was given a copy of this book to read by the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

The book starts of with Sophia getting a call from her mum to come home but can't as she's in London out with friends and has been drinking. She drives home the following day to find her mum hanging from a tree and her dad seriously injured beside her. The police think it is a suicide but Sophia believes her mum would never kill herself. As she tries to find out more about her parents she finds her mum's notebooks and soon disvovers things about her mum she never realised.

This book gripped me from the start and I could not put it down wanting to find out what happens. It's got enough twists and suspense to keep you hooked. I have never read books by this author before but will definitely be looking out for her in the future. This is in my top 10 books of 2018. If you enjoy a good mystery I would highly recommend this book.

We are introduced to Sophia as she is finding her way in the exciting world of independence in a new job in London after an over protective childhood in rural England. Her mum Nina rings her regularly, guilt-tripping her into going back to the family home into the clutches of her parents. This night is no different, however this time Sophia gets the feeling that something is a bit "off" with her mum's phone call. Despite this, she stands her ground and stalls her mum saying that she will pay her a visit the following day. She will forever wish she had gone straight to her parents' home that evening as she finds a scene of horror when she gets there the following morning; her mum hanging from a tree and her father barely clinging to life near her mum's lifeless body. Sophia has always known her parents to be quiet, private people with few friends; her mum, in particular, a needy person. Her view of them both is constantly changing once the investigation into her mum's death gets under way and the facts of the case gradually get uncovered.
It would appear her mum had a very different life in her younger years. The discovery that her mum was about to publish a memoir of her youth shocks Sophia - particularly when she reads the first two thirds of the memoir and finds out exactly what she became involved in when she mixed with rock star Aaron Kessler and his cronies during her short university career - Sophia was totally unaware her mum had even been to uni! The final third of the memoir proves to be elusive and Sophia comes to believe that the missing third notebook holds all the answers to what happened to her parents that night.
The story switches between Sophia's point of view and Nina's narration of events back in her youth, which works really well in drip feeding the information the reader needs to complete the picture and see how that information affects present day events. The author cleverly demonstrates how people often create respectable personas for themselves in later life which expertly hide what has gone before - but that veneer can easily be destroyed when ghosts from the past rear their heads. The lengths some people will go to in order to keep the skeletons hidden in their closets can be deadly.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and couldn't wait to pick it up to discover the next revelation the author had in store for me. I certainly didn't find it predictable in any way, and would definitely recommend it.
This review will appear on my blog at sandiesbookshelves.blogspot.co.uk

I always like to read the blurb again after I finish a book and while there is plenty of information in it, trust me when I say there’s a lot more to this story than it reveals. I’m not sure I really liked Sophia but that didn’t stop me feeling sorry for her as it’s a horrible thought that you have been lied to repeatedly by those closest to you. I thought I had worked out the big reveal and while my guess was right there was bigger and better to come.

This psychological thriller keeps you gripped. It is a cleverly written plot with well thoughtout characters who have an array of personalities.
How the story melds together, intertwining the past and present and unfolding an interesting and different book is amazing.
This is currently the top of my 2018 reads.

Thank you netgalley, Helen Callaghan and Penguin for allowing me to read review this book.

I found ‘Everything is Lies’ an interesting and different read. The narrative is from the present day is looking at the view of Sophia who has a ‘high flying’ job in an architects company in London. After an exceptionally weird telephone call from her mother, while out on a Friday night with work colleagues, she heads to her parents garden centre and café the following morning.

Here she finds her mother dead and her father fighting for his life. The police believe it is an attempted murder followed by a suicide but Sophia does not agree. She discovers that her mother, Nina, was about to get a book published and sets about reading the notebooks on which the book would be based.

The notebooks, written by Nina, show a totally different character and background from anything Sophia knew about her mother. It highlights how a young, impressionable person can easily become involved with groups, cults and gangs especially if brought up without too much love and understanding.

An excellent read and highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin UK, Michael Joseph Penguin and Helen Callaghan for this ARC in return for my honest review.

When you can't even trust your parents to tell you the truth, you really are at your lowest. Psychological thriller that spans 30 years that literally has you hooked from the beginning. The "very" surprising twists and turns that leads us from the cult years of the 70's to present day. Don't miss this!!

An enjoyable twisty-turny read. The plot shifts between Sophia in the present day and her mother Nina in the past, as Sophia attempts to understand what has led to her mother's death - apparently suicide - and her father being left for dead.

Some well written characters, and a thoughtful plot about control, manipulation and ultimately, abusive relationships. I did guess the ultimate twist but hey, I've read a lot of books in this genre and it didn't spoil the book for me.

I'd definitely read another book by this author.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for my honest review.

This book is one that you don’t want to go into with too much knowledge, I had read the blurb but when I got around to reading I couldn’t quite remember entirely what it was and that made for a more intense and mysterious reading experience.

The story is told in two narratives, through Sophia as she discovers her mother dead and father badly injured and then through Nina, Sophia’s mother, when Sophia discovers notebooks that unveil her past. I really enjoyed how the story switched from one to another, Nina’s story was told in three parts and with each revelation, I could feel the suspense building.

At first, I have to admit I found delving into Nina’s story more interesting, it’s what really hooked me into the story. However, as I got further into the book and Sophia starts to experience the consequences of what she has found out I couldn’t tear my eyes away because I was desperate to find out what had happened to Nina and what was going to happen to Sophia.

The characters were brilliant, very realistic, and I could feel the pull from them off the page. There is a large cast of them and I won’t go into detail here but their development and the clash of personalities was spot on, you can help but feel emotionally invested in them.

This book is pegged as a psychological thriller and whilst I had guessed at one of the revelations that turned out to be right, it didn’t detract from the story because for me even though there were plenty of twists in the story it didn’t feel like that was the focal point. There was a balance between the twists and how I felt about the characters, so even though I had figured out one of the strands of the story the reveal for me was more how this affected the characters, not the shock factor and I think that made it more profound.

I’m not going to say much more, except that this book did take me by surprise and I felt everything from elation, to being indignant, to feeling heartbroken, and that kind of fear where you know something bad is going to happen but you can’t take your eyes off of what is going on. The writing is realistic and the story is complex and gripping and I think readers will have a hard time putting it down.

Brilliantly Unpredictable

Exquisitely written this is one heck of a psychological thriller. Its intricate plot consistently left my theories in tatters as a fog of mistrust settled and enveloped many of the characters.

Like the letters in Dear Amy, Callaghan uses the embedded narrative (this time in the form of notebooks) to heighten the tension, breathing life into Nina as she tells her unnerving story. I immediately felt attached to Sophia, her voice leaping off the page desperate to be heard as she struggles to unpick the past and the secrets that lie within it. As I frantically turned page after page the twist hit me unexpectedly sending shivers down my spine!

Thank you so much to the Publisher and to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I will be recommending this book to everyone I know and urging them to read it immediately so we can discuss it at length!

This was pretty near a perfect thriller. Maybe I am jaded a bit but many of the twists and surprises were a bit expected. Thankfully not all of them and it made for a very enjoyable read! Once again, Ms. Callaghan has given us a book full of imperfect characters that all make for a story that feels like it really could have taken place. In this one, Sophia gets a call to find out her mother is dead and her father is near death. Going home, she finds some notebooks her mother has written detailing her youth. Many of us don't know much about our parents when they were younger, but what Sophia starts to unravel is more than basic youthful indiscretions. While I found the pulls on Sophia by her job a bit of an annoying distraction, it didn't take away from the main story as Sophia uncovers her mother's past, as well as her own.

I Really enjoyed this book about an independent woman returning home to visit her parents only to find something terrible has happened.
All is not what it seems and there are twists aplenty to keep you on your toes, I was dying to find out what happened next, couldn’t stop reading and the back and forth between then and now was a good trick to keep me immersed in the intriguing plot.
The characters were realistic and honest, the pace fast and unforgiving, I will definitely read more from this author.

This book is scary but a compulsive read. A final twist in the last pages which I did not expect made me take a sharp intake of breath and race to the end. Well written and worrying but in a good way.

Everything Is Lies is an intriguing read that took me by surprise - the synopsis doesn't really give much away, and so I didn't have any expectations about what was to come (and therefore, in this review, I'm going to avoid giving anything away that can't be worked out from the back cover. Keeps it interesting!).

There are two main narratives in play here - one set in the present day and told through the eyes of Sophia, who heads to her parents' house one day to find her mother has seemingly hung herself - but not before stabbing her father. Distraught, Sophia starts to uncover things she never knew about her mother which means all might not be as it seems... We then go back in time to the 80's, and into the journals that her mother Nina has written. Through these we see what exactly happened all those years ago as it all intriguingly unfolds right in front of our (and Sophia's) eyes...

Although this is, ultimately, a mystery/ thriller, I found that I could imagine a lot of it actually happening, particularly the storyline set in the past. I don't want to give much away but Helen Callaghan writes in a way that makes you realise how easy it actually could be to find yourself in a situation like Sophia's mother Nina, especially if you're young, impressionable and have grown up without too much love and attention from your parents. This makes it all the more chilling, really, and I think I enjoyed this storyline more than the present day one, as it was just so engaging and gripping; it's like a car crash - you know it's all going to go wrong for Nina somehow, but all you can do is buckle in and watch everything unfold... I liked the way Sophia pieced everything together in the present-day storyline, though, and how it all came together.

Everything Is Lies is a well-written, gripping peek into a different world - of depravity, control and influence - which kept me turning page after page.

This book is a riveting read, that heads off in some quite unexpected directions. It starts with an office party gone wrong. Sophia is hungover before the night comes to an end, and in no condition to drive home to calm her mother’s perpetually fractured nerves. By the time the morning comes, it is too late. Sophia gets to her parent’s garden centre/café to find no-one there, except ….
The police are called, but Sophie cannot believe what they try to tell her. Her mother, Nina, – the mother that Sophie knew – was not capable of such violence. Nina had wanted to tell Sophie something very important last night, but what? Her father, Jared, is in no state to be able to answer her questions. Sophie discovers that her mother had finally written a book, one that a number of people are interested in. All her life Sophie’s mother had claimed she would do this one day – no one really believed her. Now, with part of the manuscript in her hands, Sophie tries make sense of Nina’s life, and what is happening to hers.
The book is written in the first person – the present, narrated by Sophie – and the past by Nina. The writing of Sophie’s tale is very good, and captures her internal torment and confusion perfectly. Nina’s is different, much more jagged, tentative. Paragraphs stop mid-sentence, and the time-line is not always consistent – as befits the first draft of a first book. Nina’s tale begins with the title of this book: “Everything is Lies”. Sophie’s world is blown away as she reads further and further into Nina’s story, and as everything that she knew was true becomes dubious. The only anchor point in her life now is her best friend, Rowan.
In part the story follows predictable lines, and you get a feeling of where it is heading. That makes it all the more interesting when the story suddenly lurches in new directions. Who is telling the truth? Is Nina’s story really an autobiography, or that of an older woman reverting to a dark teenage fantasy?
There are suspicious characters everywhere – many turn out to be benign – but your mind works overtime trying to keep things straight. I found the book invading my dreams, and when I woke, I’d have to read back a bit to ensure that it wasn’t my imagination writing the plot instead of the proper author.
I can highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a good thriller, and particularly to anyone who has ever thought that their parents were a bit boring.

Was excited to read this book from description, but story was overlong and just didn't hold any surprises in the plot.
Would try another book by this author though, has potential.