This is part of my Summer Reads series where I’ll be sharing book recommendations – a series of “not just cookbooks”.
This summer, I’m excited to join Book Sparks Summer Reading Challenge – “The Book Odyssey” and over the course of the summer I will be receiving and reviewing a few books selected by Book Sparks over on Instagram and some of which will find their way here too!
There’s a line in Hilary Davidson’s Every Lie I Told (Blackstone Publishing, June 16 2026) that says:
I would totally binge this drama on Netflix
and this is my accurate take on Davidson’s latest, publishing this week!
From the publisher:
How far would you go to protect a killer?
Jackie Swift does whatever it takes to succeed. At work, she spins lies to protect questionable clients at a shady public-relations firm. At home, she helps her younger sister, Madi, evade consequences for dangerous choices she’s made about friends and drugs. But Jackie’s professional and personal worlds collide one night when she gets a call from Madi telling her she overdosed. Rushing to the rescue, Jackie stumbles on an awful scene at an Upper East Side mansion. Madi is nowhere to be found, but she’s left behind a dead body.
Worse for Jackie, she knows the dead man all too well: He’s her former boss and mentor, and she’s been paid to cover up his crimes in the past.
Jackie is willing to do anything to protect her missing sister, even as the NYPD builds a case against Madi, who may be involved in the deaths of other sexually abusive men. As Jackie searches for her sister-and sets up plausible suspects to take Madi’s place in the eyes of the police-she’s haunted by the terrible things she’s done in service of her career. And she soon discovers there are people who’ve been waiting in the shadows for a chance to take her down.
This book has it all – people making awful decision after awful decision, PR firms quietly cleaning up messy situations, an ongoing mystery that becomes more complicated by the page and family drama where there’s more to it than you realise initially. There are a LOT of characters to keep track of and at times I felt I needed a chart to keep track of them all (and honestly some of them feel like deliberate red herrings as not all of them matter as much to the plot as you might think) but the chapters are short (told over the course of a week with a few chapters dedicated to each day) so it’s easy enough to read a day’s worth at a time (or, I mean, binge the whole book in a couple of sittings!).
This kept me on the edge of my seat as every time I thought I had figured out what was happening, more details were introduced to contradict what I thought I knew! The majority of the characters are pretty unlikable but that works with this plot – Jackie is an extremely unreliable narrator and with each chapter, more so. It’s hard to like a character whose job is to tell lies but my attitude softened towards her somewhat over the course of the story – you can tell the family bond between her and Madi is strong and despite everything she does care for her sister. She doesn’t stop asking herself over and over how far she would go to protect/ take care of her.
This was a roller coaster of a read – “like something our of Dynasty” as one character describes one of the final scenes. There were a lot of twists and turns that will keep you up turning the pages – a perfect beach, cozy couch or long-haul flight read!
Buy Every Lie I Told on Amazon (this affiliate link should bring you to the Amazon store in, or closest to, your country).
For free worldwide shipping, find Every Lie I Told on Blackwell’s.
Support your local Indie bookstore and purchase Every Lie I Told on Bookshop.org.
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Please note: This post contains affiliate links. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s and Bookshop.org. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!
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Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am not receiving any compensation for reviewing the book. Neither the author nor the publisher reviewed this post prior to publication. All opinions are my own.
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