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Overview
It all started with the yard sale . . .
Eight months pregnant and nervous about the future, Ivy Rose doesn't recognize the woman approaching her and husband David as they attempt to rid themselves of the decades-worth of junk cluttering up their suburban home. The woman says she's Melinda White—their former high school classmate, now pregnant also—and asks if she might revisit the old Victorian house she recalls playing in as a child. David takes her inside. But Melinda never comes out.
With her husband a suspect in the bizarre disappearance and probable murder of the near-stranger he claims not to remember, Ivy must now dive into a deadly whirlpool of deceit, betrayal, and terrifying alternate histories in pursuit of a shocking truth—a truth that could destroy everything . . .
Synopsis
It all started with the yard sale. Ivy was eight months and one week pregnant when she insisted that she and her husband, David, clean out the junk they'd inherited with the old Victorian house they'd bought three years before. Call it nesting, call it nerves-she just wanted it all gone: the old electrical fixtures, the boxes of National Geographics from the 1960s, the four black wool greatcoats.
Neither she nor David recognized the woman at first. But it turned out that the customer asking about the lime-green glass swan dish-the woman who looks just about as pregnant as Ivy-was none other than Melinda White, a former high school classmate of David and Ivy's. When Melinda was a child she used to play in their new house, she explained. It looked like they'd been doing some work. Would it be all right if she took a look around? David took Melinda inside. And she never came out.
Now David's under police suspicion, and Ivy finds herself digging deep into the past to clear his name. But David's history, she begins to discover, is not necessarily the history she remembers, and before long Ivy has uncovered a twisted web of deceit, betrayal, and lies, both the ones we tell those we love and the ones we tell ourselves. . . .
Relentlessly fast-paced and disturbingly creepy, Never Tell a Lie is a page-turning thrill ride about how well we know the people we love, and how far we are willing to go to protect the secrets of our past.
Publishers Weekly
An innocent yard sale jump-starts this stunning stand-alone thriller from Ephron, author of Amnesia and four other mysteries written with Donald Davidoff under the name G.H. Ephron (and one of the Ephron writing sisters), as well as two nonfiction books. Ivy and David Rose, happily married high school sweethearts, are trying to clear out the junk the previous owner left in their glorious Victorian in Brush Hills, Mass., before the birth of their first child. Among the bargain hunters is Melinda White, a high school classmate who's also pregnant. Considered an oddball in school, Melinda worries about "more bad luck" after nearly knocking over a large mirror. When Melinda disappears and no one can remember seeing her leave the sale, the evidence suggests the couple murdered her. Ephron doesn't miss a searing beat as she plunges the Roses into an abyss of suspicion. A surprise toward the end provides the perfect twist to this deliciously creepy tale of obsession. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
A Selection of Barnes & Noble RecommendsLike an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, this realistic novel begins in an everyday suburban situation and rapidly escalates into fast-breaking terror and uncharted suspense.
A yard sale at an old Victorian house, hosted by a young couple, the wife eight months pregnant with their first child. Among the eager bargain hunters is a barely recognized former classmate of these happily married high school sweethearts. This aggressive, nervous woman, also expecting, talks her way into the aging mansion. She is never seen again. Suspicion begins to slip around the necks of the young couple; when incriminating evidence is found, the husband is arrested for murder. The wife, left to investigate on her own, begins to realize that she scarcely knows the man she married. What she doesn't yet know is that the surprises have just begun….
Laura Lippman
"Hallie Ephron’s NEVER TELL A LIE is a great discovery, compelling and chilling and all too credible. Someone once coined the word unputdownable to describe a James M. Cain novel, and this is one of those rare books that actually meets that standard."Joseph Finder
"NEVER TELL A LIE takes us into a totally familiar, sharply drawn, ordinary suburban world — and then, like the best of Hitchcock, begins to turn the screws until the suspense becomes unbearable and you can’t stop reading until the last, ingenious twist."Hank Phillippi Ryan
"Chilling, complex, and insidiously creepy. Hallie Ephron’s skilled storytelling produces the perfect suburban couple, then relentlessly twists their lives into distrust, deception, and danger. This compelling thriller proves: when secrets and lies fester into obsession, there’s no statute of limitations on revenge."Anne Bernays
"Hallie Ephron keeps this exciting story whipping along while keeping the reader in delicious supense. Recommended to all lovers of suspense fiction."Claire Cook
"Hallie Ephron’s NEVER TELL A LIE is a gripping, chilling, fast-paced psychological thriller, engrossing enough to stay with you long after you turn the final page. Truth be told, I’m still sleeping with the lights on!"Jacquelyn Mitchard
"It’s impossible to combine ruthlessness, duplicity, a heinous crime and a heroic escape—if the protagonist is a 33-year-old woman nine months into a high-risk pregnancy. It’s impossible, unless you’re Hallie Ephron . . . You’ll hate to see this one end."Ann Hood
"NEVER TELL A LIE should come with a warning label: You will not play with your children, cook your dinner, or go to sleep once you start reading Hallie Ephron’s debut novel!"Boston Globe
"Suburban noir has rarely been done with such psychological insight or plot-twisting suspense."USA Today
"Lovers of classic mysteries will adore Hallie Ephron’s NEVER TELL A LIE . . . [A] richly atmospheric tale. You can imagine Hitchcock curling up with this one."Seattle Times
"[A] snaky, unsettling tale of psychological suspense."Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"Reminiscent of Single White Female and the best of gothic thrillers, NEVER TELL A LIE delivers a tale about obsession, relationships and forgiveness. Ephron quickly builds a foundation of psychological terror that doesn’t let up until the last surprise twist."Washington Times
"A slick little study in malevolence . . . wrenching . . . What makes the book memorable is its sharp characterization of a woman tormented by possibilities that she doesn’t want to consider."Sacramento Bee
"[A] page-turner with a Hitchcockian opener."Lansing State Journal
"[A] fast-paced, exceptional tale that’s likely to keep you quickly flipping pages until the wee hours of the morning."First Things
"The plot is as cleverly structured as one of Mary Higgins Clark’s, but Ephron’s writing is vastly better."Publishers Weekly
An innocent yard sale jump-starts this stunning stand-alone thriller from Ephron, author of Amnesia and four other mysteries written with Donald Davidoff under the name G.H. Ephron (and one of the Ephron writing sisters), as well as two nonfiction books. Ivy and David Rose, happily married high school sweethearts, are trying to clear out the junk the previous owner left in their glorious Victorian in Brush Hills, Mass., before the birth of their first child. Among the bargain hunters is Melinda White, a high school classmate who's also pregnant. Considered an oddball in school, Melinda worries about "more bad luck" after nearly knocking over a large mirror. When Melinda disappears and no one can remember seeing her leave the sale, the evidence suggests the couple murdered her. Ephron doesn't miss a searing beat as she plunges the Roses into an abyss of suspicion. A surprise toward the end provides the perfect twist to this deliciously creepy tale of obsession. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
High school sweethearts Ivy and David are expecting their first child after years of trying, they're renovating a Victorian house, and David's business has finally become successful. This debut by the mystery reviewer for the Boston Globe and author of Writing and Selling Your Mystery opens with Ivy and David having a yard sale to get rid of things the previous owner left behind. During the sale, a woman who went to school with them years ago arrives unexpectedly and begins acting rather strangely toward the couple. When this woman goes missing and her car is found nearby with the newspaper ad for their sale circled, the police begin to suspect that Ivy and David are somehow involved. As the evidence mounts and clues are uncovered, David is charged with murder, and Ivy must find the truth. Although fans of the suspense genre won't be surprised by the plot twists here, this is an entertaining read with a strong ending and a great lead character in Ivy. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ9/1/08.]
—Beth Lindsay
Kirkus Reviews
Ephron (1001 Books for Every Mood, 2008, etc.) returns with the story of a Massachusetts couple who become suspects when an acquaintance disappears after attending their yard sale.
In love since high school, Ivy and David Rose are now in their early 30s and expecting their first child. When they hold a yard sale, Melinda White, a former classmate Ivy does not recognize and barely remembers as an unpopular geek, shows up glamorously transformed and exactly as pregnant as Ivy. Melinda buys a green glass knickknack and talks incessantly to Ivy until David offers to give her a tour of the Roses' Victorian house in which Melinda says she played as a child. After the yard sale, Ivy cuts her foot on a shard of green glass in the upstairs hall. That night she notices a woman who looks like her, only in sunglasses, going through an old trunk left out on the street. Three days later Melinda is declared missing. Soon detectives question Ivy and David. The shirt Melinda was wearing at the yard sale turns up in the trunk, bloody. A knife with the same blood shows up in David's truck. And then there's David's message on Melinda's answering machine. With so much blatant evidence appearing but no body, it is obvious to Ivy and David, if not to the doltish detective, that someone is trying to frame them. Readers don't need to ask ‘But who?' since Ivy's friend Jody remembers Melinda's obsession with Ivy and David. The not terribly original twist is that Melinda really was treated badly in high school. Although Ivy was not an active participant in the meaner episodes, she never came to Melinda's defense. And as Melinda's deranged revenge plot plays out, Ivy faces uncomfortable questions aboutDavid's role in Melinda's unhappy adolescence.
Mild creepiness is overly scripted with workmanlike prose into a blend of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a humorless Monk.