From the Publisher
Praise for Liar's Beach:
"Sumptuous, clever, and dripping with danger, Liar's Beach is the mystery read of the summer! I couldn't put it down."—Jennifer Lynn Alvarez, author of Friends Like These
"A sun-drenched mystery full of scandalous secrets that kept me turning pages all night long."—Amy Christine Parker, author of Flight 171
★ "Compelling equally as a detective story, a character study, and series launch...has the razor-sharp feminist perspective that [Cotugno's] fans know and love."—Booklist, starred review
"This scorching glimpse of life (and death) among the moneyed classes hits its marks."—Kirkus Reviews
"Pulse-pounding."—PW
Kirkus Reviews
2023-03-14
A summertime stay on Martha’s Vineyard confirms everything Linden thinks about rich people.
Best known for emotional YA romances, Cotugno tries her hand at an emotional whodunit—and readers who can roll with the weird attraction her protagonist seems to exert on the two main young women here may find themselves caught up in an engrossing whirl of, as the title promises, lies, secrets, and louche living. Hardly has he arrived for a two-week stay at palatial August House than Michael Linden and his host and boarding school roommate Jasper’s twin sister, Eliza, are bedroom-bound; his ghosted former platonic friend Holiday turns up; and Greg, despised boyfriend of another houseguest, winds up in a coma after an apparent accident. Dragged along by Holiday, who, along with inexplicably letting bygones be bygones, turns out to be an enthusiastic amateur sleuth, scholarship student Linden finds plenty of fuel for his (supposedly) secret resentment of the privileged classes and the way they can get away with anything. Though not, as it turns out after a comfortably conventional denouement complete with surprise confession, murder. Also, as a tease at the end suggests, for all that he comes clean about several secrets of his own, Linden leads the pack in the “things to hide” department. Aside from one prominent supporting character—a brown-skinned lacrosse champion—the central cast reads White.
This scorching glimpse of life (and death) among the moneyed classes hits its marks, if a bit mechanically. (Mystery. 14-18)
