Good Little Liars by Sarrah Clutton

An upcoming 25th year class reunion for the women who graduated from Denham House School, an exclusive all-girls boarding academy, brings back memories of a classmate whose untimely death just days before graduation has haunted some of them. Tessa Terrano's death was deemed an accident, but was it really?

The book is set in Hobart, Tasmania, and is told from several viewpoints that give alternate perspectives on what happened to Tessa. Emma Parsons, married to Phillip, has a 13-year-old daughter named Rosie, and works as staff at Denham House School. She's the one who's quite fixated on the Tessa question and feels that she has kept a secret about her death for far too long. Emma's best friend is Marlee Maples, an architect, has recently moved back to Hobart to take a new job. She knows a bit about what happened on the day Tessa died. Clementine Andrews is a famous artist and a classmate of theirs. She's the daughter of Harriet Andrews, a brilliant attorney. Harriet's brother, Dr. Jonathan Brownley is the head of school at Denham House. Whew! These are the main characters who are embroiled in the Tessa debacle. Emma, Marlee and Clementine were classmates back in 1993 when events took place. Fast forward 25 years when thoughts of their class reunion bring Tessa back to mind. What will happen if someone wants the truth to come out now? NO SPOILERS.

I'm sure I've muddled this review as it is so complicated with all the drama going on with this large cast of characters, but I really enjoyed the book. It was fast-paced and easy to keep them all straight once they'd been introduced. The author skillfully weaves the narrative pulling in all the strands to make an interesting tale. I found that I was able to relate to all of the characters even while not always liking how they behaved or how they were thinking. In fact, Tessa's death really isn't the main focus of the story as it's more a personality study with all the dysfunctional family situations that run amok. At times quite funny and at others very disturbing. I believe that the point of the novel must surely have to do with the strength of women. With friendship. With possibility.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review. It definitely pushes all the buttons.

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.
Genre - drama, mystery, boarding school