Little White Lies

October 1, 2018
Eighteen-year-old Sawyer—a car mechanic and daughter of a single mom in the South—is offered a deal she cannot refuse: her estranged maternal grandmother, Lillian, a wealthy socialite, will give Sawyer half a million dollars if she agrees to live with her for one year and become a debutante. Sawyer accepts in the hope of discovering her father’s identity within her grandmother’s social strata, and she is soon wooing attractive young men at society events and befriending her cousin, Lily. Lily has plenty of secrets of her own—secrets that help unspool the mystery at this novel’s center, having to do with a missing girl and a scandalous blogger. Time jumps between chapters and blog post interstitials may create confusion at the story’s start, but after the structure smooths out, the momentum picks up, as do the secrets. Though Barnes (The Fixer) paints Sawyer as an outsider, and the young woman constantly protests the moneyed world into which she is dropped, the ease of her assimilation saps tension—she seems born for this life. Full of gossiping, conniving, and back-stabbing, this breezy read is light on mystery and heavy on made-for-film debutante antics. Ages 12–up. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown.

Narrator Katherine Littrell brings Southern sass to this over-the-top drama. When Sawyer Taft's estranged grandmother offers her half-a-million dollars to join Magnolia County's high society as a debutante, Sawyer quickly finds herself involved in kidnapping, blackmail, and theft. Listeners will appreciate Littrell's range of Southern inflections. Sawyer's accent is a quick and faster-paced twang while those in her new wealthy and secretive community--which includes a handful of powerful men who could be her biological father--have softer, more elongated drawls. Littrell manages to embody the self-indulgence, extravagance, and secrets of the not-so-polite society that features in this mystery. J.E.C. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine