First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston is a psychological thriller book published on January 2nd, 2024. This book was Elston’s debut adult novel, and has since become a New York Times bestseller as well as chosen as a Reese’s Book Club Pick. Elston has also written 6 young adult novels.

First Lie Wins is about a girl who works as a con artist. Her current alias is “Evie Porter.” She has what seems to be a perfect life, a perfect boyfriend, a white picket fence house, and a tight group of friends. The thing is, this life doesn’t exist. All Evie knows is that her boss, whom she only knows as Mister Smith, has given her a job (which she hasn’t been given all the details of yet), her alias, and her mark. The mark for this job is a man named Ryan Sumner. Issues start to arise as Evie starts to fall for the man she’s pretending to be in love with, as well as when her past threatens to resurface. Throughout the book, Evie has to balance keeping her identity hidden, digging up things about Ryan’s business, and staying ahead of the game after her last job blew up and Mr. Smith didn’t get the outcome he wanted.

I rated First Lie Wins 4/5 stars. I thought that it was a very good book, but there were things about it that I wasn’t expecting and didn’t really like. The expectations that I had going into the book were very different from the reality of it. I thought that there would be more secrecy about Evie, and maybe a darker reason to why she’s doing the jobs she’s doing. I definitely feel like this book is more geared towards adults and that some of the problems the main character faces would be more relatable to an adult rather than a teenager. The end plot of the book was also very different from where I thought it would go, but it was still a good ending. While this might not have been my favorite book, I definitely think that there are people and maybe even teenagers who will enjoy it a lot more than I did.

Overall, First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston is a good book that keeps the reader guessing about what’s coming next the entire time. There is suspension, mystery, deceit, and more secrets that I thought possible.