Tell Me Your Lies

Author: D.K. 

Publisher: Bookoture 

Genre: Physological Thriller 

Year of release: 2026

 Release date: 21/08/26

Rating ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis

She’s writing your story. She knows your secrets. She’ll kill to keep them.

Alani Fairchild just landed her dream job. Isabelle Croft wants Alani to write her memoir, revealing all about her star-studded life as an actress and spilling the secrets that bind her picture-perfect family. And she will pay Alani whatever it takes to make her say yes.

Gravel crunching beneath her sneakers, Alani pretends not to see Isabelle watching her from an upstairs window of her beachfront home. Something tells her she’s made a terrible mistake. But it’s too late now as she’s welcomed inside by perfectly manicured hands and cold Gray eyes.

Perched on a silk sofa, Alani begins to write as Isabelle opens up about her marriage and struggles with fame. But when talk turns to the night of the birth of Isabelle’s first child, Alani feels the room spin. The hospital. The storm raging outside. All the same sketchy details Alani’s parents described about the night she was born… Everything in Alani’s body tells her to run. But she knows she needs to stay if she wants answers.

When Alani wakes on the floor days later, with a knife in her hand and blood on her clothes, nothing will prepare you for the twists in Isabelle and Alani’s deadly story…

Review

Alani Fairchild is a highly sought-after ghostwriter who has just landed her dream job. Actress Isabelle Croft wants Alani to write her memoir, a tell-all about her star-studded life and the secrets binding her picture-perfect family. Isabelle is willing to pay handsomely, as long as Alani says yes.

When Alani accepts, she moves into the Croft household and the interview process begins. Isabelle starts opening up to the young writer, going into detail about the night her first child was born. But things become just as turbulent for Alani, emotionally and physically, as the storm Isabelle is describing. The room begins to spin, and the details the starlet is sharing are the same details Alani’s parents have told her about the night she was born. Everything inside Alani is screaming at her to run, but she knows the only way to get the answers she is searching for is to stay.

Over the next couple of days, communication with Isabelle becomes increasingly difficult. She seems unwilling to share the details that could get this book onto the bestseller list, preferring instead to tell Alani about her troubled marriage and struggles with fame. Yet after spending time with Isabelle’s husband, Alani struggles to understand her negative view of him. She’s simply not convinced Isabelle is talking about the same man she has met.

A few days have passed, and Alani Fairchild is no closer to the answers she’s searching for. Then one morning, she wakes up with a knife in her hand and blood on her clothes. Even this talented ghostwriter couldn’t have written a twist this good.

I was on the lookout for a psychological thriller, so when the opportunity to read Tell Me Your Lies came along, I knew I might have found a winner. Then I read the words: Isabelle Croft wants Alani to write her memoir, revealing the secrets behind her star-studded life and picture-perfect family. That was all it took. I knew this was the thriller I had been looking for — and, oh boy, did it deliver.

Alani Fairchild isn’t what this reader would consider a warm character. She isn’t completely unlikeable, but it took me quite some time to connect with her personality. I found her to be a relatively static character throughout the book, but that didn’t make her any less interesting. Once Alani begins searching for answers, she becomes someone I could support and even started to warm to. She’s a young woman who knows what she wants, and seeing that determination gave me something to connect with.

Isabelle Croft is exactly the kind of psychological thriller character who gets right under your skin and stays there long after the book is over. As much as I wanted to like her, she is rotten to the core. In the end, I couldn’t like her; instead, I found myself loathing her and constantly wondering what she might do next. I felt as though I needed to keep an eye on her, because I never trusted her intentions.

The author does a brilliant job of exposing Isabelle Croft layer by layer. By the time her true character was fully revealed, I felt as though I had watched an evil villain come to life.

Linc Boswell was the character I connected with the most while reading these pages. The author allows the reader to indulge in the lavish lifestyle of Linc and his family, whilst also giving him a relatable personality. The author has done well to avoid the usual rock-star attitude, and I particularly appreciated that Linc Boswell wasn’t a misogynist. It was a refreshing take on a character trope we’ve seen many times before.

Sam and Willow play a much smaller role in this book than I was originally anticipating. Having now finished reading the story, I can’t help but feel that Willow may have had a little more potential within the plot. There were moments where I wondered whether her character could have been given a little more room to develop or play a greater role in the storyline. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book, but I did find myself wondering what might have been had her character been explored further.

The moment I finished the first page, I knew this was going to be a fast read. From the early chapters, there is an uneasy feeling that hangs thick in the air, and that tension only intensifies as the book moves towards its rising action.

The pacing worked particularly well for this story. There is always another question waiting to be answered and another piece of information that makes you reconsider what you think you know.

The most interesting aspect of Tell Me Your Lies for me was the feeling that the truth was always just out of reach. You never quite know who to believe or who is playing whom, and that uncertainty kept me turning the pages.

This isn’t an uncommon element within the psychological thriller genre, but I’m always keen to see how each author approaches it. D.K. Hood keeps that uncertainty alive throughout the story, making it difficult to settle comfortably on one theory before something else comes along to make you question it.

D.K. Hood has a writing style that makes it incredibly easy to keep turning the pages. There is a strong sense of tension and atmosphere throughout the story, with information carefully revealed rather than handed to the reader too easily.

I found there was always another detail to uncover, and nothing was given away unless it was absolutely necessary. I was particularly impressed that this remained the case even during the closing chapters, when it would have been easy for the story to start explaining everything too quickly.

The short chapters also helped build the tense atmosphere and kept me engaged from start to finish. D.K. Hood has a genuine talent for creating tension and atmosphere, and I’m pleased to say that, in Tell Me Your Lies, it feels like a genuine strength of the storytelling rather than simply a tagline designed to sell the book.

Absolutely. Tell Me Your Lies was one of my most enjoyable thriller reads of the year. The combination of short chapters, unanswered questions, secrets and an increasingly tense atmosphere made this a book I wanted to keep reading.

There was always another detail to uncover, another reason to question what I thought I knew and another reason to turn the page.

A fast-paced psychological thriller packed with secrets, lies, manipulation and twists that will have you questioning everyone around Alani. Just when you think you know who you can trust, D.K. Hood shifts the ground beneath your feet again. It’s the kind of suspenseful read that makes you want to keep turning the pages because putting the book down means leaving the answers just out of reach.

Subplots and tropes

• Everyone is a suspect
• Fame and fortune
• Found family
• Gaslighting
• Information tampering
• Isolation
• Jealous wife
• Lies
• Light-bulb moment
• Manipulation
• Missing person
• Multiple murders
• Police involvement
• Secrets
• Stalking
• The big reveal
• The cover-up crime
• Toxic family
• Trapped/have to escape
• Estranged sibling

I really enjoyed the ending, but I can’t help wondering whether the plot could have benefited from an epilogue. I needed a little more closure and wasn’t quite ready to walk away from this universe or these characters.

I felt as though a door had been shut in my face and I was simply expected to guess how everyone ended up. It was a little too abrupt for my liking, hence my high four-star rating. That said, the ending certainly left an impression, and I suspect it will give readers plenty to think about once they turn the final page.

If you enjoy reading authors such as Daniel Hurst, K.L. Slater, B.A. Paris or Gillian Flynn, D.K. Hood is an author you should add to your reading list.

I recommend this book to mature readers who are fans of psychological thrillers. Fans of the genre will no doubt already have their eyes on D.K. Hood and Tell Me Your Lies, but if you’re looking to try a psychological thriller and want a story filled with secrets, suspicion, tension and twists, this is a good book to see whether the genre is for you.

With continued thanks to Bookoture, author D.K. Hood, and NetGalley for approving a copy of this eBook to read and review in exchange for my honest opinion.