There a lot of bang for your buck in this book. Family secrets, a cult, mother and daughter relationship and oh did I mention a sect? The mother Nina has left diaries of her past and this is whatSophia reads as she discovers her past.

Sophia’s mother was an interesting character and it was her story that I felt was the main thread in the book and the most interesting. Sophia it turns out, knows nothing of who or what she is. The time period of her mother’s story is far and distant but not that much when you think about it. A very unique and disquieting story.

Utterly gripping .. new and refreshing talent in the genre ..wow . I could not put it down .. READ IT!! she's great; I cared about characters enough to really want to know how and why things were happening . In fact, I read ending and then went back to see how we got there .. and it was solid, very original and adept.

Brilliant read, an engrossing suspense thriller about Sophia’s past and dark secrets unveiled when she goes back to her parents’ house, a book with twists, a dark psychological thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and highly recommended. Clever writing and very engaging.

I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
I very much enjoyed Dear Amy and was very excited to read this latest novel from Helen Callaghan.
The book tells the story of Sophia as she returns to her parents' house after receiving a call from her mother.
On arrival Sophia finds her mother dead and her father dying. It appears to be a murder suicide but as she is unable to accept that her mother would be capable of this, Sophia looks to her mother's diary for answers. What she uncovers is a shocking history which may provide the clues to what happened to her parents.
I loved this book. I became totally invested in story of her mother's past, perhaps even more so than the present. Very interesting characters and a twisty, exciting storyline.

This book wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the chopping and changing, it felt difficult to keep up. I found myself, even before reading others review, drifting off at times which added to my confusion.
It was so descriptive, which sometimes can be too much - I like to feel I am present when reading a book, but everything is described constantly - which is why it’s so long I suppose! There were times when I wanted to stop reading, because I found it such hard work to read!

This was one very confusing story I spent so much time trying to work out what was going on and the more I tried the more the book did not flow.
I wanted to escape for a little while but this book was just too hard to work out what was going on.
There was not much description and I felt a big let down for this book.

Loved the premise of this book. Nothing is as it seems. Sophia, the main character, returns home to a tragedy that she must figure out what has happened.

Wow, I completely loved this book! At 400 pages it's quite long but I read it in just under two days as I couldn't put it down; I was hooked from the very beginning.
I very much enjoyed Helen Callaghan's book Dear Amy but in my opinion Everything is Lies is even better.
Sophia returns home after a fraught telephone call from her mother. When she gets home the house is weirdly quiet and she finds her mother hanging from a tree in the garden and her father wounded but alive next to her. Sophia can't quite believe what is happening, her parents Nina and Jared are quiet, unassuming people who run a small cafe and nursery business. They would not be involved in a murder-suicide pact as the police are suggesting. With Jared in hospital and unable to speak, Sophia must seek the truth. She is led to some notebooks of her mother's but she is in no way
prepared for the contents. Her mother writes of a cult that she was part of in the 80's, an enigmatic leader called Aaron Kessler and a murder. Nina was convinced these people wanted to silence her; is Sophia's mother completely mad and making all these events up or has all of Sophia's past been a lie?
Helen Callaghan has written a tense, psychological thriller. The book flits between Sophia's present situation and her mother's life in 1989 where it seems she became caught up in a cult led by Aaron Kessler who she met at university. I was so intrigued by Kessler- I could totally see how Nina was taken in by him. The chapters taken from Nina's notebooks were my favourite, it was so interesting to see how Nina was drawn into this group of people she barely knew.
Everything is Lies was a fascinating read, the pace and plotting were both excellent and I think it is a book that will get many people talking.

Having read and enjoyed Dear Amy, Helen Callaghan’s first book, I was excited to receive this review copy via NetGalley.
It is the story of twenty something architect Sophia who is living and working in London. Her parents live in the country running their family garden centre: Sophia’s Mother Nina really misses her and is always ringing and asking her to come home. One evening she calls and Sophia fobs her off as usual although she thinks her mother sounds a bit odd. When Sophia drives back home the next day she finds out something terrible has happened. With both her parents in no fit state to explain Sophia resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery and find out why her parents have suffered such awful injuries, refusing to accept the police explanation.
She finds two notebooks her mother has been writing as a prelude to an autobiography and these serve to tell Nina’s story as the reader and Sophia are transported back to Nina’s teenage years and her membership of a strange cult which Sophia knew absolutely nothing about.
There are many revelations as the book progresses both in the present and in the old notebooks and Sophia learns more about her family and what has led to the tragic incident. There are quite a few twists and turns as the story moves along which serve to keep the reader guessing. Nobody is as they seem and many lies have been told.
The author has obviously done a lot of research into cults and how people become drawn in which I found interesting to read about.
This is an enjoyable psychological thriller which kept my interest and a good follow up novel to Dear Amy.

Overall this book is a good read. There was enough shocks and surprises in it to make it gripping and make me read to the end. It is however long and drawn out and not totally believable in places.

I loved this really interesting read.
There were many twists and turns to Sophias journey and although some of them were predictable they were brilliantly executed. Great book

Read this over the Christmas break--one of many and this was one of my favs. Kept me guessing and full of delicious twists. This was awesome.

I didn't know where this book was going, the narrative jumped from past to present through the journals and kept you guessing as to what happened and how it was going to effect the present.

A great page turner. Would read more by this author.

I loved the first half of this as Callaghan creates an enticing scenario of suspicious deaths and a grieving daughter who finds her mother’s memoirs. The first volume of the latter keep the momentum going as naïve, insecure Nina finds herself drawn from a Cambridge college into a weird cult fronted by a charismatic ex-rock star. With shades of Emma Cline’s The Girls and something older that I’ve read (Barbara Vine?) this is a heady portrait of innocence and emotional neediness caught in a web of depravity.

Sadly, the second half of the book starts to unravel and becomes a more conventional domestic thriller with double identities and twists laid on for shock value rather than emotional verisimilitude. Nevertheless, Callaghan proves herself to be a step up on many other writers in this genre: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Sophia arrives home one day to find her mother dead and her father lying in a pool of blood. The police are convinced it’s a clear case of attempted murder-suicide, and Sophia is the only one who can prove her mother’s innocence. As she delves into her mother’s past, she uncovers tales of a secret cult, and learns more about her family, and herself, than she could ever have imagined. A tense psychological thriller with plenty of twists and turns to keep you reading until late into the night.

Thoroughly engaging book. Sophia’s world is turned upside down when she discovers her mother’s death. How much does she really know about her parents lives and are they really who they seem. This book draws you into the world of a cult and how easy it is to be drawn in when someone show you the right attention. Very well written with an engaging plot. Something a little different for the reading shelf

Two time periods and a twisty plot keeps Helen Callaghan's Everything Is Lies moving back and forth as a daughter discovers her mother's memoir after Nina MacKenzie's apparent suicide.

After a call from her mother insisting she come home, Sophia reluctantly returns home the next day to find her father in serious condition and her mother dead. The police assume that Nina attempted to kill her husband and then committed suicide, but Sophia does not believe it possible that her mother could have harmed Sophia's father or killed herself.

Upon learning that Nina had finally written her memoir, and that the manuscript is missing, Sophia is determined to find and read it.

When she locates her mother's notebooks, she is immersed in a story of Nina's youth and association with a charismatic personality and a house called Morningstar.

Dark and full of secrets that Sophia could never have imagined about the parents she thought she knew, and yet...there is a final reckoning that is almost too much for Sophia to accept.

Read in November; blog review scheduled for Feb. 5, 2018.

NetGalley/Penguin UK

Mystery/Suspense. February 22, 2018.

This is a complicated murder mystery, with two time lines, the present day with a focus on Sophia and the past with a focus on her mother, Nina. In the present, Nina is the possible victim of the crime and in the past there is another victim altogether. The present time line explores Sophia dawning understanding of her younger mother while the past tells Nina's story from her own point of view.

This is a clever and well managed device, using a first person narrative from Sophia and the written memoirs of Nina, written as if speaking to Sophia and explaining her young self from the perspective of maturity, interwoven to allow the reader to gradually understand the incidents of both the historical and current timelines.

In addition there is the interesting exploration of the impact of a cult movement upon it's members, the impact of one intensely charismatic individual on a number of people, the way in which participants in this cult go on to develop their lives following their involvement.

All in all, a believable and enjoyable murder mystery with a lot of twist and unexpected links along the way.

This is a tale of two halves. The mix of the present with the past is not a comfortable one. As the reader you do not know who to trust. It is an engaging read that I would recommend. As others have said, the references to the cult may trigger unpleasant memories for some people

This is a riveting thriller illustrating how easy it is for a vulnerable young person to be caught up a situation which initially excites, but ultimately destroys. The story weaves effectively between mother and daughter as Sophia struggles to unravel the mystery of Nina's death. You begin to wonder if any of the characters are as they seem. One that you cannot put down!