Such Charming Liars

By: Karen M. McManus

Narrated by: Skyler Gallun, Victoria Villarreal

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The newest mystery from the author One of Us Is Lying, the Queen of thrillers, Karen M. McManus! When mother-daughter grifters set out on their final job, the heist gets deadly and dangerously personal.

For all of Kat’s life, it’s just been her and her mother, Jamie—except for the forty-eight hours when Jamie was married and Kat had a stepbrother, Liam. That all ended in an epic divorce, and Kat and Liam haven’t spoken since.

Now Jamie is a jewel thief trying to go straight, but she has one last job—at billionaire Ross Sutherland’s birthday party. And Kat has figured out a way to tag along. What Kat doesn’t know, though, is that there are two surprise guests at the dazzling Sutherland compound that weekend. The last two people she wants to run into. Liam and his father—a serial scammer who has his sights set on Ross Sutherland’s youngest daughter.

Kat and Liam are on a collision course to disaster, and when a Sutherland dies, they realize they might actually be in the killer’s crosshairs themselves. Somehow Kat and Liam are the new targets, and they can’t trust anyone—except each other.

Or can they? Because if there’s one thing both Kat and Liam know, it’s how to lie. They learned from the best.©2024 Karen M. McManus (P)2024 Listening Library

Critic reviews

"The narrative slips into high gear, executing hairpin twists and exploding bombshells that catapult the tale to an electrifying close."—Publishers Weekly

"An unputdownable, deliciously twisty mystery."—Kirkus Reviews

Different but AWESOME!!

I was a little apprehensive at first since this plot deviates from what McManus usually puts out (new setting and new dynamics). I’m a big fan so I decided to listen anyways and boy am i glad I did! The character relationships were so well written and I could see the world in my mind really well. It was so refreshing to have a main character who wasn’t focused on boy problems in this genre of media. I liked how the love interest was just a subplot and not the most important thing in the main characters’ relationships! Another great hit from Karen M McManus!!!!!!!

Karen always keeps me entertained!

Another great story. Even though I was a little iffy on Jaimie being asleep for so much of it I get why it needed to happen. Great voice acting as well (although cats voice actor wasn’t great at doing Augustus voice) I hope I don’t have to wait too long for another McManus book

It’s like if Agatha Christie wrote “The Parent Trap”

Karen M McManus delivers yet another banger story of mystery and thrills, something familiar but fresh with her own unique perspective.

It’s another murder mystery with a McGuffin involved: a shiny ruby necklace that is the center of a heist. Shortly after I received this book, I was very lucky to see the author in person and hear her talk a little bit about the book and its inspirations, especially for some of the characters and setting. I was very pleased to know that she got this idea from watching “The Parent Trap” (1997 version), because it’s exactly what this story reminded me of: Two siblings from separate parents who’ve unexpected reunited.

The two siblings and question are Kat and Liam. The book is narrated from both their perspectives; a formula I love already, but what’s interesting and fresh about this take is that the two are siblings in a way. Usually, the two characters whose perspectives are dual in the book are love interests, but not here. Liam and Kat both have a single parent that was married to each other for a brief moment; they divorced after the dad left the two kids as very young children alone to wander the streets of Las Vegas. Neither Liam or Kat have seen or spoken to each other since then, and it’s not until a faithful encounter en route to a fancy birthday party for the head of the wealthy Sutherland clan do the two halves of this broken family reunite. However, it’s within Liam’s first chapter that he establishes that he is gay. This is the authors way of letting us know that the boy and girl, whose perspectives we will be reading from, will not be getting together, as they are essentially rebuilding their relationship as brother and sister. I honestly love that. To see a male and female character come together as siblings instead of romantic partners, especially in a young adult novel, it’s so rare and so fresh to see.

Another thing I found interesting was that both Liam and Kat refer to their respective single parent by their first names, but for different reasons. Kat calls her mom “Jamie” because Jamie has been more of an older sister to her, and Liam calls his dad “Luke” because Lucas has always been a distant scumbag of a father to him, and thus he feels no connection. Of course, I found out rather quickly that the author made this choice so that we as the readers/listeners can I identify the parents as individual characters rather than just “the mom and the dad”.

Even though it technically is a young adult novel, it really is a story for all ages. Of course, keep in mind that the main characters had to have been born in the late 2000’s, so their perspectives can remind us millennials of how old we are today with some passing comments (especially by Kat, who refers to a Phineas and Ferb sweatshirt as “ancient”), the book is so mature and it’s writing and themes, You may even be damned to think of the target audience being 12 and 13 year olds.

This book is definitely different from Karen M. McManus’s first big thriller, “One of Us is Lying”. When I met Ms. McManus shortly after this book’s launch, she said that she took some notes from the production of “One of Us is Lying”’s TV show adaptation, with how much faster the story moved in that medium, and she wanted this story to move at that sort of pace. I can definitely see it with this book. It certainly does move a lot faster, although there were times I do wish it could’ve moved even quicker than it did, I have to say that every time I thought things were slowing down too much quickly found ways to pick up the interest again.

I will say that there may have been a little too many characters, and while I think there was potentially to set any one of them up as culprits for the murder and theft in question, very little suspicion was applied to any of them. There was room for more red herrings, if that makes sense. I also felt like the story, characters, and mystery elements were a little bit all over the place, in fact there were a couple of questions I have about how this or that connected. The book also ended a little abruptly, not all the resolution I would’ve hoped for, but overall I was very pleased with the latest entry to McManus’s bibliography.

I definitely found it engaging and always wondering what happens next. The book delivers what it promises, and true to the author spirit, it always has you asking questions.

I have to admit, I’m usually hesitant to read another book from an author who’s written a book I like (I read “One of Us is Lying” in 2020 and absolutely adored it), because I tend to be under the impression that it’s specifically that story and characters that engage me, and that the other works just aren’t going to be the same. However, reading this book I know that it’s not just the one story. While I don’t think this book is AS good as One of Us is Lying, The book has definitely showed me that it is indeed the author herself who has me hooked. So you can bet that I will definitely be looking into her other published titles and eagerly awaiting for her next.

Pitch perfect

4.5 STARS

Karen McManus is a young adult thriller powerhouse. I don’t think she’s ever written a book I didn’t like.

In SUCH CHARMING LIARS, Kat’s mother, Jamie is a con artist. She wants out the life and agrees to do one last job. Unbeknownst to her, Kat tags along to the job, working a birthday celebration in order to replace an expensive necklace with a forgery. At the compound where the party is to be held, the pair run into Luke, the man Jamie was married to for 48 hours in Vegas and his son Liam. Kat and Liam remember a six hour odyssey in Vegas where the then four and five year olds were lost in town. It turns out Luke is also a grifter with Liam attempting to thwart his every attempt.

At first I thought, Liam and Kat would get together, because this is YA, but McManus threw me a curve ball making Liam gay. I like reading opposite sex friendships that don’t turn into romance (this isn’t a spoiler).

I truly despised Jamie. Being a once-abused woman doesn’t justify how horribly she raised Kat. One example is upon encountering Luke, Kat tells him off. While I realize teenagers aren’t always polite, I’ve never met a teenager whose parent would condone telling off an adult, even if he was an asshole. For Kat to believe this was okay, Jamie had to have no standards for behavior. Other than this pet peeve, I loved how McManus developed the characters with unique personalities and attributes.

SUCH CHARMING LIARS will definitely be a reread for me.

Another awesome book

I enjoyed this new book! Great story line with a lot of strong characters. A must read.

Great story

Great plot, love the different voices, it made the story easy to follow. The story had a lot of nail biting situations for characters to figure out how to escape.

I liked it a ton

Good book for me I liked it a lot I like it because of the genree

Loved the twists

Needed a bit more of Liam’s POV. Very good performances from the voice actors. Liked the story plot a lot.

Possibly over hyped

This book should in my option fall under fiction and young adult.
The story is told between two teenage step siblings. Their choices are questionable as an adult reader.
I think this book would do better if categorized differently.

I don't know why I keep trying

I think I read one good book by this author, Maybe Two.
i don't know what it is ( Mayne the book covers make the story look so good) but as usual I mean o. chapter 12 and still boring as hell.
we should be able to exchange a title if we are monthly subscribers.
this has been a waste.
having such a hard time getting into this story as usual bu anything From thus author.
again I don't know why I try