Book Review: This Is How You Lie by CG Drews

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“They are perfect for each other, obsessed in a way that feels eternal, their sins roped like viscera about each other’s throats. To be loved like that is a beautiful kind of horror all in itself.”

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Wren Ott will do whatever it takes to escape her past. Homeless after a failed marriage, she jumps at a lifeline: a live-in nannying position at hulking, secluded, New England-situated Cresswell House. Upon arrival, she finds the lady of the manor, Cadence Cresswell, aimless, moody, and aloof, while her husband, Lucien, is merciless and frequently absent. But Wren is no fool: she needs this job, she sees right through Lucien, and she’s determined to protect Cadence and her infant charge before Lucien destroys them.

This Is How You Lie is a lush, grisly fairy tale: gruesome, dark, dirty, and steeped in horrific deeds and unremitting tension. Rich in macabre sensory detail and gothic to its decadent, rotten core, the relentless narrative weaves a mesmerizing chronicle of shocking truths, clashing perspectives, and covetous objectives brought to life by stunning prose: sumptuous and sharp as a blade, weaving a malevolent fever dream oozing darkness and decay.

The characters are layered — riddled with inherent faults, distinctive ambitions, insidious rumors, and nefarious obsessions — while shadows and mystery pervade every nook and crevice, drawing the reader into a suffocating, insanity-laced account of ravenous hunger and unfettered rage, stark loneliness and lavish waste, and violent obsession and calculated betrayal. An immersive, addictive, and appalling multi-level haunting and a feral, monstrous story of survival, desperation, guilt, and beauty cloaking rot. A nightmarish journey of blood and water, tooth and nail — wretched and twisted, visceral and disturbing, filled with greed, revenge, despair, and scars, along with dusty secrets and festering lies, gilded cages and traumatic memories, buried histories and vicious games. Another captivating and inimitable novel from CG Drews.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an eARC of this gothic thriller (scheduled for publication on March 16, 2027) for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

🖤Amanda

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