THE LYING GAME
Four friends. One promise.
But someone isn’t telling the truth.
The text message arrives in the small hours of the morning: I need you.
Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her.
Isa and her three best friends used to play the Lying Game, competing to convince people of outrageous stories. Now, after seventeen years of hiding the truth, something terrible has been found on the beach.
The friends’ darkest secret is about to come to light…
“Another heart-stopping belter of a thriller from an epic talent”
HEAT
“A brilliantly original and atmospheric book”
CLOSER
IT ISN’T A
GAME WHEN SOMEBODY DIES…
Four friends. One promise.
But someone isn’t telling the truth.
The text message arrives in the small hours of the morning: I need you.
Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her.
Isa and her three best friends used to play the Lying Game, competing to convince people of outrageous stories. Now, after seventeen years of hiding the truth, something terrible has been found on the beach.
The friends’ darkest secret is about to come to light…
“Another heart-stopping belter of a thriller from an epic talent”
HEAT
“A brilliantly original and atmospheric book”
CLOSER
LISTEN TO A SAMPLE OF THE AUDIOBOOK
Dark Academia
A closed community. Passionate friendships. The pressure-cooker stress of academic success… or failure. It’s no wonder that boarding schools and universities make some of the best settings for murder – in fact it’s surprising to me that there aren’t more whodunnits centred on colleges….
The Setting for The Lying Game
‘The Lying Game’ is the only one of my novels where the place came before the plot or the characters…
Inspired by Christie…
I can’t remember when I read my first Agatha Christie but I was not much older than twelve or thirteen, maybe even younger. I was immediately hooked…
REVIEWS
“I could not put this book down.”
REESE WETHERSPOON
“Atmospheric, mysterious, gripping.”
MARIAN KEYES
“Ruth Ware is one of the best suspense writers out there and The Lying Game is her strongest book yet. A gripping, unpredictable narrative that shifts like sand underfoot, and a plot that turns like the tide.”
ERIN KELLY
“Thank goodness for Ruth Ware, a contemporary crime writer who’s successfully extracted the integral elements of the genre’s classics… and repackaged them for the modern reader… Ware weaves a nicely knotty, and more importantly, plausible mystery that as well as delivering the expected twists, turns and tension readers will be looking for, also showcases the thorny tensions and loyalties at work in the friendships between her main characters… a book that’s gripping enough to be devoured in a single sitting.”
INDEPENDENT
“Ruth Ware has done it again! In this exceptional thriller, we are in marshland, where nothing is certain and the deadly secrets we kept with our best childhood friends may be about to resurface. Intriguing to the very last page, this is a superb exploration of friendship, family and a page-turning top-notch mystery that is guaranteed to keep you reading into the wee small hours. I loved it!”
LIZ NUGENT, bestselling author of LYING IN WAIT
REVIEWS
“I could not put this book down.”
REESE WETHERSPOON
“Atmospheric, mysterious, gripping.”
MARIAN KEYES
“Ruth Ware is one of the best suspense writers out there and The Lying Game is her strongest book yet. A gripping, unpredictable narrative that shifts like sand underfoot, and a plot that turns like the tide.”
ERIN KELLY
“Thank goodness for Ruth Ware, a contemporary crime writer who’s successfully extracted the integral elements of the genre’s classics… and repackaged them for the modern reader… Ware weaves a nicely knotty, and more importantly, plausible mystery that as well as delivering the expected twists, turns and tension readers will be looking for, also showcases the thorny tensions and loyalties at work in the friendships between her main characters… a book that’s gripping enough to be devoured in a single sitting.”
INDEPENDENT
“Ruth Ware has done it again! In this exceptional thriller, we are in marshland, where nothing is certain and the deadly secrets we kept with our best childhood friends may be about to resurface. Intriguing to the very last page, this is a superb exploration of friendship, family and a page-turning top-notch mystery that is guaranteed to keep you reading into the wee small hours. I loved it!”
LIZ NUGENT, bestselling author of LYING IN WAIT
FREE SHORT STORY FOR
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FREE SHORT STORY FOR
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When Lana and her three colleagues sign up for the "dark, complex and immersive" escape room game, The Masked Ball, they are expecting a fun day out of the office, full of team-building and camaraderie. But someone has other ideas, and as the group struggles to complete the room, it becomes apparent that there is a very twisted mind behind the puzzles and clues.
Can you solve the mystery of The Masked Ball?
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