Family of Liars
E. Lockhart's Family of Liars is the prequel to her bestselling We Were Liars, returning readers to Beechwood Island twenty years before Cadence Sinclair's summer of forgetting. Carrie is the eldest of four sisters in the WASPy, fiercely image conscious Sinclair family, and the novel opens shortly after the youngest, Rosemary, has drowned. While Carrie's mother retreats into denial and her father insists the family appear unchanged, Carrie is haunted by visits from her dead sister and is medicated through her grief by her parents' careless prescriptions. Into this strained summer arrive three boys: handsome, charismatic Pfeff and his friends, who turn the cottages into a season of stolen liquor, midnight swims, and slowly escalating cruelty. Lockhart writes in the spare, fairy tale tinged voice that made her earlier book a phenomenon, layering teen romance, generational privilege, and a creeping sense that this golden family will once again pay for its secrets in blood.
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What you might want to know about Family of Liars
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
The summer of 1987 on the Sinclairs' private New England island. Older sister Carrie is grieving, her parents are at each other, and four boys arrive on a borrowed boat. A prequel to We Were Liars.
Family of Liars is a prequel to We Were Liars, set on the same Beechwood Island a generation earlier. Reading We Were Liars first is recommended for the emotional impact, but Family of Liars can stand alone.
E. Lockhart has published two main novels (We Were Liars and Family of Liars) plus a graphic novel adaptation. Additional projects in the Sinclair family world have been announced.
Family of Liars was written by E. Lockhart, published in 2022 by Cengage Gale.
Family of Liars is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Family of Liars takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Family of Liars is a standalone novel by E. Lockhart, not part of a series.
Family of Liars is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.