We were liars / E. Lockhart.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Don't miss the #1 New York Times bestselling prequel, Family of Liars.

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends--the Liars--whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

"Thrilling, beautiful, and blisteringly smart, We Were Liars is utterly unforgettable." --John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

1 Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family. No one is a criminal. No one is an addict. No one is a failure. The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome. We are old-money Democrats. Our smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive. It doesn't matter if divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle. It doesn't matter if trust-fund money is running out; if credit card bills go unpaid on the kitchen counter. It doesn't matter if there's a cluster of pill bottles on the bedside table. It doesn't matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love. So much in love that equally desperate measures must be taken. We are Sinclairs. No one is needy. No one is wrong. We live, at least in the summertime, on a private island off the coast of Massachusetts. Perhaps that is all you need to know. 2 My full name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman. I live in Burlington, Vermont, with Mummy and three dogs. I am nearly eighteen. I own a well-used library card and not much else, though it is true I live in a grand house full of expensive, useless objects. I used to be blond, but now my hair is black. I used to be strong, but now I am weak. I used to be pretty, but now I look sick. It is true I suffer migraines since my accident. It is true I do not suffer fools. I like a twist of meaning. You see? Suffer migraines. Do not suffer fools. The word means almost the same as it did in the previous sentence, but not quite. Suffer. You could say it means endure, but that's not exactly right. My story starts before the accident. June of the summer I was fifteen, my father ran off with some woman he loved more than us. Dad was a middling-successful professor of military history. Back then I adored him. He wore tweed jackets. He was gaunt. He drank milky tea. He was fond of board games and let me win, fond of boats and taught me to kayak, fond of bicycles, books, and art museums. He was never fond of dogs, and it was a sign of how much he loved my mother that he let our golden retrievers sleep on the sofas and walked them three miles every morning. He was never fond of my grandparents, either, and it was a sign of how much he loved both me and Mummy that he spent every summer in Windemere House on Beechwood Island, writing articles on wars fought long ago and putting on a smile for the relatives at every meal. That June, summer fifteen, Dad announced he was leaving and departed two days later. He told my mother he wasn't a Sinclair, and couldn't try to be one, any longer. He couldn't smile, couldn't lie, couldn't be part of that beautiful family in those beautiful houses. Couldn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. He had hired moving vans already. He'd rented a house, too. My father put a last suitcase into the backseat of the Mercedes (he was leaving Mummy with only the Saab), and started the engine. Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound, then from my eyes, my ears, my mouth. It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps to the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout. Mummy snapped. She said to get hold of myself. Be normal, now, she said. Right now, she said. Because you are. Because you can be. Don't cause a scene, she told me. Breathe and sit up. I did what she asked. She was all I had left. Mummy and I tilted our square chins high as Dad drove down the hill. Then we went indoors and trashed the gifts he'd given us: jewelry, clothes, books, anything. In the days that followed, we got rid of the couch and armchairs my parents had bought together. Tossed the wedding china, the silver, the photographs. We purchased new furniture. Hired a decorator. Placed an order for Tiffany silverware. Spent a day walking through art galleries and bought paintings to cover the empty spaces on our walls. We asked Granddad's lawyers to secure Mummy's assets. Then we packed our bags and went to Beechwood Island. 3 Penny, Carrie, and Bess are the daughters of Tipper and Harris Sinclair. Harris came into his money at twenty-one after Harvard and grew the fortune doing business I never bothered to understand. He inherited houses and land. He made intelligent decisions about the stock market. He married Tipper and kept her in the kitchen and the garden. He put her on display in pearls and on sailboats. She seemed to enjoy it. Granddad's only failure was that he never had a son, but no matter. The Sinclair daughters were sunburnt and blessed. Tall, merry, and rich, those girls were like princesses in a fairy tale. They were known throughout Boston, Harvard Yard, and Martha's Vineyard for their cashmere cardigans and grand parties. They were made for legends. Made for princes and Ivy League schools, ivory statues and majestic houses. Granddad and Tipper loved the girls so, they couldn't say whom they loved best. First Carrie, then Penny, then Bess, then Carrie again. There were splashy weddings with salmon and harpists, then bright blond grandchildren and funny blond dogs. No one could ever have been prouder of their beautiful American girls than Tipper and Harris were, back then. They built three new houses on their craggy private island and gave them each a name: Windemere for Penny, Red Gate for Carrie, and Cuddledown for Bess. I am the eldest Sinclair grandchild. Heiress to the island, the fortune, and the expectations. Well, probably. 4 Me, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat. Gat, Mirren, Johnny, and me. The family calls us four the Liars, and probably we deserve it. We are all nearly the same age, and we all have birthdays in the fall. Most years on the island, we've been trouble. Gat started coming to Beechwood the year we were eight. Summer eight, we called it. Before that, Mirren, Johnny, and I weren't Liars. We were nothing but cousins, and Johnny was a pain because he didn't like playing with girls. Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Back then he would hang our Barbies by the necks or shoot us with guns made of Lego. Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain. Back then she spent long afternoons with Taft and the twins, splashing at the big beach, while I drew pictures on graph paper and read in the hammock on the Clairmont house porch. Then Gat came to spend the summers with us. Aunt Carrie's husband left her when she was pregnant with Johnny's brother, Will. I don't know what happened. The family never speaks of it. By summer eight, Will was a baby and Carrie had taken up with Ed already. This Ed, he was an art dealer and he adored the kids. That was all we'd heard about him when Carrie announced she was bringing him to Beechwood, along with Johnny and the baby. They were the last to arrive that summer, and most of us were on the dock waiting for the boat to pull in. Granddad lifted me up so I could wave at Johnny, who was wearing an orange life vest and shouting over the prow. Granny Tipper stood next to us. She turned away from the boat for a moment, reached in her pocket, and brought out a white peppermint. Unwrapped it and tucked it into my mouth. As she looked back at the boat, Gran's face changed. I squinted to see what she saw. Carrie stepped off with Will on her hip. He was in a baby's yellow life vest, and was really no more than a shock of white-blond hair sticking up over it. A cheer went up at the sight of him. That vest, which we had all worn as babies. The hair. How wonderful that this little boy we didn't know yet was so obviously a Sinclair. Johnny leapt off the boat and threw his own vest on the dock. First thing, he ran up to Mirren and kicked her. Then he kicked me. Kicked the twins. Walked over to our grandparents and stood up straight. "Good to see you, Granny and Granddad. I look forward to a happy summer." Tipper hugged him. "Your mother told you to say that, didn't she?" "Yes," said Johnny. "And I'm to say, nice to see you again." "Good boy." "Can I go now?" Tipper kissed his freckled cheek. "Go on, then." Ed followed Johnny, having stopped to help the staff unload the luggage from the motorboat. He was tall and slim. His skin was very dark: Indian heritage, we'd later learn. He wore black-framed glasses and was dressed in dapper city clothes: a linen suit and striped shirt. The pants were wrinkled from traveling. Granddad set me down. Granny Tipper's mouth made a straight line. Then she showed all her teeth and went forward. "You must be Ed. What a lovely surprise." He shook hands. "Didn't Carrie tell you we were coming?" "Of course she did." Ed looked around at our white, white family. Turned to Carrie. "Where's Gat?" They called for him, and he climbed from the inside of the boat, taking off his life vest, looking down to undo the buckles. "Mother, Dad," said Carrie, "we brought Ed's nephew to play with Johnny. This is Gat Patil." Granddad reached out and patted Gat's head. "Hello, young man." "Hello." "His father passed on, just this year," explained Carrie. "He and Johnny are the best of friends. It's a big help to Ed's sister if we take him for a few weeks. And, Gat? You'll get to have cookouts and go swimming like we talked about. Okay?" But Gat didn't answer. He was looking at me. His nose was dramatic, his mouth sweet. Skin deep brown, hair black and waving. Body wired with energy. Gat seemed spring-loaded. Like he was searching for something. He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever. Our eyes locked. I turned and ran away. Gat followed. I could hear his feet behind me on the wooden walkways that cross the island. I kept running. He kept following. Johnny chased Gat. And Mirren chased Johnny. The adults remained talking on the dock, circling politely around Ed, cooing over baby Will. The littles did whatever littles do. We four stopped running at the tiny beach down by Cuddledown House. It's a small stretch of sand with high rocks on either side. No one used it much, back then. The big beach had softer sand and less seaweed. Mirren took off her shoes and the rest of us followed. We tossed stones into the water. We just existed. I wrote our names in the sand. Cadence, Mirren, Johnny, and Gat. Gat, Johnny, Mirren, and Cadence. That was the beginning of us. Johnny begged to have Gat stay longer. He got what he wanted. The next year he begged to have him come for the entire summer. Gat came. Johnny was the first grandson. My grandparents almost never said no to Johnny. 5 Summer fourteen, Gat and I took out the small motorboat alone. It was just after breakfast. Bess made Mirren play tennis with the twins and Taft. Johnny had started running that year and was doing loops around the perimeter path. Gat found me in the Clairmont kitchen and asked, did I want to take the boat out? "Not really." I wanted to go back to bed with a book. "Please?" Gat almost never said please. "Take it out yourself." "I can't borrow it," he said. "I don't feel right." "Of course you can borrow it." "Not without one of you." He was being ridiculous. "Where do you want to go?" I asked. "I just want to get off-island. Sometimes I can't stand it here." I couldn't imagine, then, what it was he couldn't stand, but I said all right. We motored out to sea in wind jackets and bathing suits. After a bit, Gat cut the engine. We sat eating pistachios and breathing salt air. The sunlight shone on the water. "Let's go in," I said. Gat jumped and I followed, but the water was so much colder than off the beach, it snatched our breath. The sun went behind a cloud. We laughed panicky laughs and shouted that it was the stupidest idea to get in the water. What had we been thinking? There were sharks off the coast, everybody knew that. Don't talk about sharks, God! We scrambled and pushed each other, struggling to be the first one up the ladder at the back of the boat. After a minute, Gat leaned back and let me go first. "Not because you're a girl but because I'm a good person," he told me. "Thanks." I stuck out my tongue. "But when a shark bites my legs off, promise to write a speech about how awesome I was." "Done," I said. "Gatwick Matthew Patil made a delicious meal." It seemed hysterically funny to be so cold. We didn't have towels. We huddled together under a fleece blanket we found under the seats, our bare shoulders touching each other. Cold feet, on top of one another. "This is only so we don't get hypothermia," said Gat. "Don't think I find you pretty or anything." "I know you don't." "You're hogging the blanket." "Sorry." A pause. Gat said, "I do find you pretty, Cady. I didn't mean that the way it came out. In fact, when did you get so pretty? It's distracting." "I look the same as always." "You changed over the school year. It's putting me off my game." "You have a game?" He nodded solemnly. "That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. What is your game?" "Nothing penetrates my armor. Hadn't you noticed?" That made me laugh. "No." "Damn. I thought it was working." We changed the subject. Talked about bringing the littles to Edgartown to see a movie in the afternoon, about sharks and whether they really ate people, about Plants Versus Zombies. Then we drove back to the island. Not long after that, Gat started lending me his books and finding me at the tiny beach in the early evenings. He'd search me out when I was lying on the Windemere lawn with the goldens. We started walking together on the path that circles the island, Gat in front and me behind. We'd talk about books or invent imaginary worlds. Sometimes we'd end up walking several times around the edge before we got hungry or bored. Excerpted from We Were Liars by E. Lockhart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this noir YA drama, three privileged cousins and a friend meet each summer on a private island, where they confront first love and staggering losses. Reader Meyers does an excellent job with the main character, Cadence, whose dialogue requires the full range of emotions. At the beginning of the story, Cadence seems like a typical sullen teenager trying to find her place in the world and wondering why her boyfriend doesn't write back to her. As the story continues and grows darker, however, she pieces together her spotty memories of an on-island accident that wrecked her health and distanced her from the family, a whole cast of characters that Meyers also voices. These characters include Cadence's snobby mother and her two shrill, money-grubbing sisters, who spend the bulk of their summers trying to wheedle themselves into their father's good graces and substantial inheritance. Where the narration falls short is with the grandfather, who gets a voice that is stereotypically gruff and shaggy, even in his rare tender moments. Ages 12-up. A Delacorte hardcover. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-Cadence Sinclair Easton has spent all of her summers on her family's private island, Beechwood, with three generations of family, including her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and a family friend, Gat, an Indian boy. The novel begins during what Cadence and her peers label "summer 15." They refer to themselves as "the liars" and enjoy the typical teen activities, according to Cadence, who narrates. But during summer 15, two important events occur at Beechwood. Cadence and Gat fall in love and Cadence suffers an accident that causes her severe migraine headaches and loss of memory. This accident eventually causes Cadence to stay away from Beechwood and her cousins for a year while she recuperates. It becomes clear as Cadence tells her story that she is emotionally fragile and unreliable, and that she has moments where she remembers secrets and lies. Ariadne Meyers performs here and does an excellent job of portraying the troubled teen. Listeners will definitely be able to absorb the essence of Cadence's mental anguish as well as the emotions of each of the various characters in this multigenerational family drama. Fans of Gillian Flynn will probably want to add this to their list of must-reads. The story saves its biggest punch for the end, and listeners will not see the twist coming.-Sheila Acosta, San Antonio Public Library, TX (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Cadence Sinclair Eastman is the oldest grandchild of a preeminent family. The Sinclairs have the height, the blondness, and the money to distinguish them, as well as a private island off the coast of Massachusetts called Beechwood. Harris, the family patriarch, has three daughters: Bess, Carrie, and Penny, who is Cadence's mother. And then there is the next generation, the Liars : Cadence; Johnny, the first grandson; Mirren, sweet and curious; and outsider Gat, an Indian boy and the nephew of Carrie's boyfriend. Cadence, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat are a unit, especially during summer 15, the phrase they use to mark their fifteenth year on Beechwood the summer that Cady and Gat fall in love. When Lockhart's mysterious, haunting novel opens, readers learn that Cady, during this summer, has been involved in a mysterious accident, in which she sustained a blow to the head, and now suffers from debilitating migraines and memory loss. She doesn't return to Beechwood until summer 17, when she recovers snippets of memory, and secrets and lies as well as issues of guilt and blame, love and truth all come into play. Throughout the narrative, Lockhart weaves in additional fairy tales, mostly about three beautiful daughters, a king, and misfortune. Surprising, thrilling, and beautifully executed in spare, precise, and lyrical prose, Lockhart spins a tragic family drama, the roots of which go back generations. And the ending? Shhhh. Not telling. (But it's a doozy). HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lockhart's latest is unlike anything she's done before. With a Printz Honor to back her, plus a major marketing campaign and a promotional quote from John Green this is poised to be big.--Kelley, Ann Copyright 2010 Booklist

Horn Book Review

After a two-year absence due to an accident she can't remember, seventeen-year-old Cady Sinclair Eastman returns to the private island where the beautiful, entitled Sinclair clan spends its summers. Relationships (particularly among Cady, her same-age cousins Johnny and Mirren, and family friend Gat; and among her mother and aunts) feel oddly strained, and no one will tell Cady what happened the summer of the accident. The pieces of her fragmented memory slowly come together to reveal a truth more devastating than Cady (or the listener) could have imagined. Meyers gives the first-person narrative a vulnerability perfectly suited to damaged, self-deluded Cady while also, in flashbacks, evoking the carefree days of previous summers. This novel's shocking denouement hits hard -- and even more so when related with Meyers's disbelieving, heartbroken delivery. katie bircher (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.