Please Don't Lie

A Thriller (Crystal River, Book 1)

By: Christina Baker Kline, Anne Burt

Narrated by: Ardenn Stolz

In this stylish, twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline and award-winning author Anne Burt, a young woman heads to the Adirondacks with her new husband for a fresh start—but the past won’t let her go.

Two years ago, Hayley Stone lost everything. First, her parents died in a devastating fire. Then, her sister overdosed, leaving Hayley alone and hounded by a media circus that turned her family’s tragedy into tabloid fodder. When her new husband suggests a fresh start in the Adirondacks, the promise of anonymity in an isolated mountain town feels like salvation.

But the mountains hold darker secrets than she ever imagined.

Her once-loving husband grows distant and volatile. The widow down the road keeps spewing vague accusations. Not even their new friends—a free-spirited couple living on the property—can help Hayley shake the creeping sense that something is off.

As winter edges closer, Hayley discovers that her sanctuary is anything but safe. Trapped and isolated, she faces a terrifying truth: in trying to escape her past, she may have run straight into something far more dangerous.

©2025 by Christina Baker Kline & Anne Burt. (P)2025 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“A palpable sense of fear, terrible secrets, and a horrific confrontation shatter Hayley’s already fragile world in this taut psychological thriller about grief, trauma, and survival.” —Booklist

“An original and masterfully crafted psychological thriller of a read from start to finish…” —Midwest Book Review

“Getting away from it all has never looked more sinister or ill-advised than in this deliciously dark version of the small-town idyll.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Suite 11

Narration

Oh wow. The narrator has this interesting cadence that I found distracting and was unable to finish the story.

Twisty turny tension

I think it did a great job at building tension. Great plot twist I didn’t see coming.

Fairly predictable

There weren't any real big surprises because the story was fairly predictable. The narrator? She fell short in many ways. Her soft spoken voice made passages soporific to the point I had to rewind and relisten to catch what the storyline was. The way she pronounced the main character's name as Hilly or Helly, it took me almost three chapters to figure out she was saying Haley. And who hires a narrator who cannot pronounce the 't' sound in the middle of a word? What a distraction throughout the entire story. Made my teeth itch.

It was ok

Boring in some parts but the ending was great. That’s all I want to say, keep it short, seriously

Terrible performance and boring

Not captivating and the performing doing the narration speaks in an odd cadence like a 12 year old overacting in a school play. I kept trying to get past it but the book was not captivating at all and quite slow.