Family of Liars

March 1, 2022
Grades 8-12 In a highly anticipated prequel, Lockhart revisits the Sinclair family one generation before We Were Liars (2014). Caroline Lennox Taft Sinclair, oldest daughter of Harris and Tipper, reluctantly tells the story of her seventeenth summer at the urging of her son, Johnny, who wants to know the absolute worst thing she ever did. Carrie spends the summer of 1987 in a haze of painkillers and sleeping pills after an excruciating jaw surgery. It's the year she sees her first ghost, and the summer three intriguing boys join the family on their private island. Jealousy leads to a shocking act of violence, foreshadowed in the bloody fairy tales Carrie tells to obscure her darkest truths. This novel was written explicitly for fans of the original; parallels and spoilers abound. Readers will appreciate the climactic reveal which, while not quite as shocking as the twist in We Were Liars, goes far to explain the Sinclair sisters' dynamics, and exposes a family of immense wealth and privilege crippled by greed, secrets, silence, and selfishness.High-Demand Backstory: The built-in audience for this is huge, thanks to the immense popularity of We Were Liars.

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Starred review from March 21, 2022
Lockhart returns for another look behind the privileged Sinclair family’s gleaming facade in this absorbing prequel to 2014’s We Were Liars. Centered on the original Liars’ mothers as teens in 1987, the story is narrated by Carrie, the eldest of the three surviving Sinclair sisters, in response to a request for details about “the absolute worst thing you ever did, back then.” The bulk of the action unfurls on and around Beechwood, the wealthy family’s private island off the Massachusetts coast. Though the rest of her family seems to have moved on, 17-year-old Carrie still grieves for her youngest sister, Rosemary, who drowned the previous summer at age 10. Numbing herself with prescription codeine and filched sleeping tablets, Carrie finds comfort in visits from Rosemary’s palpable, talkative ghost. When the siblings’ uncle and cousin show up with surprise guests—three charismatic teen boys—Carrie is swept into a romance with one of them, dishy but careless Lawrence “Pfeff” Pfefferman. In the weeks that follow, she learns several ugly family secrets as events stress-test the sisters’ bonds. Lush language and a setting full of breezy glamor provide an easy entry point into this layered, atmospherically tense exploration of jealousy, love, and family loyalty. Characters read as white. Ages 12–up. Agent: Elizabeth Kaplan, Elizabeth Kaplan Literary.

May 1, 2022

Gr 9 Up-Lockhart's prequel to the wildly popular We Were Liars reunites readers with the wealthy Sinclair family and another summer of ominous drama and haunting memories. The action takes place on the Sinclairs's private island off Cape Cod, 27 years before the events of We Were Liars. The youngest child of Harris and Tipper Sinclair, Rosemary, drowned on the island the previous year and Carrie, her oldest sister, is taking the loss especially hard. In addition to feeling like she is the only one truly mourning Rosemary, she constantly feels like an outsider among her sisters: never the prettiest nor the smartest. Also recovering from reconstructive jaw surgery, she attempts to cope by self-medicating to disconcerting effects, including nighttime visits from Rosemary's ghost. The summer seems like it might improve when her cousin's boyfriend arrives with two handsome friends in tow. Suddenly Carrie is taking part in family events with gusto in order to spend more time with the handsome yet flighty Lawrence Pfefferman, aka Pfeff. As the summer wears on, tension builds among the islands' teen inhabitants, ending with an unpredictable, multi-layered twist conclusion. Lockhart employs many of the tactics used in We Were Liars to build suspense; subtle hints at the novel's climax are interspersed with unreliable narration and red herrings to inevitably keep readers guessing. This can be read as a standalone but, as an author's note warns at the beginning, it will spoil the events of We Were Liars if read first. VERDICT This high-interest, suspenseful prequel will capture fans of We Were Liars and new readers alike; a must purchase for YA collections.-Mary Kamela

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May 1, 2022
This formidable prequel to We Were Liars (rev. 5/14), focusing on the wealthy Sinclair family a generation before that novel's events, opens with a harsh truth, and a spoiler. Johnny, one of the cousins of the first book's protagonist, appears as a ghost to his mother, narrator Carrie, on the family's private island. With the promise to tell him "the worst thing [she] ever did" as a framing device, Carrie flashes back to reveal many of the dark secrets and lies she had helped to perpetuate over the years. In 1987 on the island, seventeen-year-old Carrie is deeply saddened about the drowning death of her youngest sister (the first ghost to appear to her); recovering from the surgery on which her father has insisted to correct her jawline; and beginning a protracted dependence on painkillers and sedatives. Carrie is swept off her feet by Pfeff, a charming, impulsive cad who betrays her in what she feels is the worst possible way. The violent consequences entail a massive cover-up that requires full utilization of the Sinclairs' good standing, privilege, and cunning. The engrossing narration, full of fairy-tale references and family mottos ("Never complain, never explain"), is neither reliable nor neatly wrapped up, but the novel is uncomfortably thought-provoking. The story (understandable on its own but richer when read after We Were Liars) asks readers to consider hard questions and is impossible to put down. Luann Toth

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from March 1, 2022
This prequel to We Were Liars (2014) takes place in 1987 as 17-year-old Carrie Sinclair faces her first summer at the family's Massachusetts vacation property without her youngest sister, Rosemary. Ten-year-old Rosemary drowned the previous summer while swimming alone. Carrie's parents and remaining sisters, 16-year-old Penny and 14-year-old Bess, endure the loss with characteristic Sinclair stoicism, but Carrie finds it difficult to repress her sorrow, even with the aid of codeine pills to numb her pain. When Rosemary's ghost appears to her, she is bewildered by the specter but accepts her intermittent appearances and comfortably mundane requests. Even more unexpected are the arrivals on Beechwood Island of George, Major, and Pfeff, friends of Carrie's cousin Yardley. The boys' presence, a deviation from the Sinclair family's usual routine, sets into motion an unforeseen chain of events that ultimately entangles the three oldest Sinclair sisters. Lockhart's stark, evocative prose captures the emotions of a grieving teenage girl paralyzed by the weight of her parents' expectations and plagued by a perpetual sense of inadequacy. The novel is framed as a story that present-day Carrie tells the ghost of her deceased son, Johnny, who asks Carrie to reveal "the absolute worst thing you ever did, back then." Her response is a haunting confession about family allegiances; the arbitrary rules of powerful, moneyed White families; and the strength required to bear witness to terrible truths. Beautiful and devastating. (family tree, map, author's note) (Fiction. 13-18)

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January 1, 2022
This formidable prequel to We Were Liars (rev. 5/14), focusing on the wealthy Sinclair family a generation before that novel's events, opens with a harsh truth, and a spoiler. Johnny, one of the cousins of the first book's protagonist, appears as a ghost to his mother, narrator Carrie, on the family's private island. With the promise to tell him "the worst thing �she] ever did" as a framing device, Carrie flashes back to reveal many of the dark secrets and lies she had helped to perpetuate over the years. In 1987 on the island, seventeen-year-old Carrie is deeply saddened about the drowning death of her youngest sister (the first ghost to appear to her); recovering from the surgery on which her father has insisted to correct her jawline; and beginning a protracted dependence on painkillers and sedatives. Carrie is swept off her feet by Pfeff, a charming, impulsive cad who betrays her in what she feels is the worst possible way. The violent consequences entail a massive cover-up that requires full utilization of the Sinclairs' good standing, privilege, and cunning. The engrossing narration, full of fairy-tale references and family mottos ("Never complain, never explain"), is neither reliable nor neatly wrapped up, but the novel is uncomfortably thought-provoking. The story (understandable on its own but richer when read after We Were Liars) asks readers to consider hard questions and is impossible to put down.

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)