The Lying Game (Ruth Ware)

 

I really enjoyed this book. I'm going to keep this author in mind for when I need a book to sink into and basically get lost in. 

Characters:
Isa (rhymes with nicer) Wilde
Freys (Isa's child)
Owen (Isa's husband)
Fatima Quereshy) - doctor
Ali and Nadia (Farima's children)
Samir (Fatima's husband)
Kate Atagon - sent the text "I need you" and everyone immediately came. Has a white German Shepherd named Shadow
Thea - works at a casino
Luc - Katie's step-brother, from France
Mark Wren - sargeant
Mary Wren (Mark's mother)
Teachers: Miss Rourke, Miss Farqueharson, Miss Weatherby, Ambrose Atagon (Kate's father and the art teacher)
Other students: Connie, Letitia, Helen

p. 17...the tally sheet Kate kept above her bed, covered with cryptic marks for her elaborate scoring system. This much for a new victim. That much for a complete belief. the extras awarded for elaborate detail or managing to rehook someone who had almost called your bluff. I haven't thought of it for so many years, but in a way, I've been playing it all this time 

P. 46 Lie to everyone else - yes. But to each other - never. 

Rule #1 Tell a lie

Rule #2 Stick to your story

Rule #3 Don't get caught

Rule #4 Never lie to each other

Rule #5 Know when to stop lying

Goodreads says:

From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes Ruth Ware’s chilling new novel.

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister...

The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isabel—receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”

The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other—ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father).