MAYBE YOU LIED
by Jennifer Sadera
September 7 - October 16, 2026 Virtual Book Tour
Synopsis:
Everything he knows about his life is. . . a lie.
Blindsided by the sudden death of his mother, 21-year-old Will Lockhart can no longer afford the rent or bear the haunting memories of their shared Massachusetts apartment. While packing up his mother's belongings, he discovers his long-dead father's deed to a house in upstate New York. With nowhere else to go, he settles there, intent on making a fresh start. But odd things happen as soon as Will moves in. He's unnerved by evidence of fire damage in the cottage, and alarmed by the seizure his elderly next-door neighbor suffers upon meeting him. Most shocking of all are the rumors of a long-ago murder in his house. Now, trapped in a town full of strangers, unsure of whether local murmurings are true or simply small-town gossip, he's determined to discover what really happened all those years ago, and how he's connected to the chaos. The truth will set him free. Or get him killed.
Praise for Maybe You Lied:
"Sadera has done it again! Maybe You Lied is an evocative and compelling tale of family trauma, betrayal, and the chilling truth that the most dangerous secrets are those buried by the people closest to us."
~ Lisa Malice, bestselling author of Lest She Forget, winner of the 2023 IBPA Best New Voice in Fiction Award
"MAYBE YOU LIED is a spectacular thriller that instantly grips you and refuses to let go. With great emotional depth, this novel plunges you inside Will Lockhart's mind, soul, and angst. He's a down on his luck, grief and guilt-ridden young man stuck in a hopeless rut. When he discovers a deed to a house he believes he's inherited, it seems like his luck just might change. Page by page, he uncovers hidden layers of a past he could never have imagined. But when nothing is as it seems and everything you knew about your family and your past is a lie, be careful of digging up the truth. It might set you free...unless it kills you first. This darkly suspenseful, romantic journey knits a cast of intriguing, deeply unreliable characters into a clever, twisty narrative. You won't want to put down this edgy story of loss, love, identity, and family truths as you hurtle towards its surprising end."
~ Zelly Ruskin, award-winning author of Not Yours to Keep and the forthcoming One of Us Must Die
"Maybe You Lied is a twisty, emotionally charged domestic suspense that ramps up to a jaw-dropping, visceral finale. Don't miss it!"
~ Bonnie Traymore, Author of The Rich Guy's Wife
"Family ties? Or family lies? Will Lockhart is coming home to a woodland cottage he never knew existed, his life in shreds and fragments. In a novel as intricately woven as a web, Jennifer Sadera explores sociopathy, nature versus nurture, and the one thing that can never die--a chance at love and redemption."
~ Jenny Milchman, Mary Higgins Clark award winning author of the Arles Shepherd thrillers
"A young man's attempt to piece together his family's dark history propels this gripping mystery, which moves with an electric speed through secrets twistier than the branches of a mangled family tree. Combining thrills, romance, and a moving exploration of grief, MAYBE YOU LIED is perfect for fans of sinister family dynamics who want to devour a thriller in one breathless go."
~ Ashley Winstead, national bestselling author of This Book Will Bury Me
MAYBE YOU LIED Trailer:
Book Details:
Genre: Psychological Suspense, Domestic Suspense
Published by: Creative James Media
Publication Date: September 22, 2026
Number of Pages: 344
ISBN: 9781965648919 (ISBN10: 1965648916)
Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
Landlords don’t rent apartments to zombies.
I scratched the four-day stubble on my jawline and parked my mom’s Camry behind the brown brick walk-up. Home-Not-So-Sweet Home.
As I stepped into the cramped apartment lobby Sergei was waiting.
“The rent,” he said, his guttural Russian accent turning his words into a nonsensical de-REN. I paused, reluctantly meeting the bushy brows lowered ominously over his steely slitted eyes. Easy to translate.
I nodded and darted my own eyes to the stairway. One of these days my landlord would surely raise a heavily muscled arm and crash his ham hock fist into my face. Emitting my zombie grunt, I pivoted to the stairwell and rushed up, expecting Sergei to follow. Relieved when he didn’t.
It would be a brief reprieve. When my mom lived here Sergei only showed up once a month, but in the three years since she died, he’d pounded his frustration with my spotty payments onto my apartment door with increasing frequency, not budging until I opened the creaky steel barrier. Saying nothing, he’d hold out a meaty palm that looked like it could strangle me all by itself.
Back when I still had cash, I’d offer a wad of fifties and hundreds that he’d snatch up like grabbing cash from an ATM. Only the Will Lockhart machine was now empty, and Sergei looked as though he wanted to kick it into compliance. Kick me. Face flushed with fury, he’d study me with those hard gray pebbles, taking in my disheveled hair and sagging clothes. A gaze that told me exactly what he thought about me—a twenty-one-year-old slacker who clearly cared about nothing. A deadbeat. A zombie. And this was mostly true except for the one thing I cared deeply about: those last seconds with Mom. I relived them daily, the guilt as fresh and dangerously addictive as a drunk’s bleary-eyed yearning for a Bloody Mary the morning after a bender.
I deserved the memories. If not for me, Mom would still be alive.
I closed my eyes against the inevitable scene rolling through my mind. The flash of headlights slicing through my Honda’s dusky interior like a white-hot comet, too fast to stop, too bright to blink away; a violent force whirling me into its vortex. My neck twisting painfully, head hitting something hard. The car’s interior exploding into a slow-motion kaleidoscope. How I’d instinctively thrust my arm out to protect my mom, instant pain bolting from fingers to shoulder; glass shattering and raining down upon us like the stinging embers of trailing fireworks.
And then, the stillness. The church-like quiet.
I’d blinked into the silence as the noises trickled in—the hissing of the steaming engine, and a tinny song coming through the radio from somewhere under the car’s hood. A far-off voice belted out a twangy country tune. “Put on the bacon and the eggs, darlin’ . . .”
Mom and her country music. Mom and her . . . Mom. Head throbbing, I’d scanned the smoke-choked twilight. She was right where she was supposed to be, still hooked in place by her seatbelt, staring straight ahead, like she was listening for something.
“Mom? Are you all right?”
Beyond the jagged glass edges of her blown-out window I saw the lines of the truck through the smoky haze, the words “Barclay’s Bread” written in fancy red letters on its wide, boxy side. Mom said nothing.
Painfully bolted into our twisted metal cage, waiting for the Jaws of Life to extract us, I’d reached out, trying to touch her with my other hand, the one that still worked. If I could just shake her out of her trance.
But in those final precious seconds our bodies existed in the same world, I knew. She was already gone.
I shook my head, forcing me back to the present, wishing my mind could be like the Etch-a-Sketch Mom bought me when I was six. One harsh shake in each direction and the contents of the screen disappeared. But my mind retained in painful detail the truck driver’s distinctive profile, the beak of a nose angled down, a squinted eye and bulbous cheekbone lit up by his cell-phone screen.
As a kid, the thought of Mom dying had set waves of terror rolling through me. Not just because I loved her, but because a part of me always dreaded the day she’d be taken from me. Convinced it would happen but unsure of when, I’d spent a good four years waking up each night and tiptoeing to her bedroom door, peeking through the crack between the edge of the flimsy wood and the wall to ensure she was still in bed, alive. Ridiculous as it seemed, even then, it was understandable, given our track record. I mean, not long before my dad left us, just after my fifth birthday, we’d been a family of four.
***
Excerpt from MAYBE YOU LIED by Jennifer Sadera. Copyright 2026 by Jennifer Sadera. Reproduced with permission from Jennifer Sadera. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Jennifer Sadera first worked in the publishing industry as a junior copywriter for NAL/Penguin. She has written and edited for newspapers and magazines as a freelancer and on the staffs of major women's publications, Woman's World and Redbook.
Catch Up With Jennifer Sadera:
JenniferSadera.com
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads
BookBub - @jennifersadera
Instagram - @jensaderaauthor
X - @jennifersadera
Facebook - @jennifer.sadera
LinkedIn
YouTube - @AuthorJenniferSadera
Review:
Mounting tension and long-held secrets kept me riveted to my seat!
Maybe You Lied, a new psychological thriller by
Jennifer Sadera, blends an engaging, vulnerable main character with a
mysterious setting and suspenseful plot to deliver a tale that kept me glued to
the page and reading long into the night. After the death of his mother, young
Will Lockhart falls on hard times, earning a dreaded and inevitable eviction
notice. But as he gathers important documents in preparation for the coming
changes, he discovers a deed, in his deceased father's name, for a house he
knew nothing about.
Feeling guilty for triggering the man's condition, Will doesn't correct the man's housekeeper, who soon arrives on the scene. Instead, he takes her to the hospital behind the ambulance and waits with her for the update from the doctors. Neither does he come clean when he meets the man's only daughter, Penelope, who believes the story that he just came across him, unconscious, in the wooded area around the vacant cabin. Will settles into his new home, and he and Penelope get closer. Her father's condition remains critical, and he continues to be unable to offer an alternative scenario. Will is living on borrowed time as he tries to uncover the story behind the house and the man's extreme reaction to his arrival.
The author drew me in from the very start with the shocking hints of what the very young Will may have seen of his older sister, Ange, and kept me rooted in place with her depiction of him at 21, suffering through survivor's guilt over the death of his mother in a car accident which occurred while he was driving. With his older sister's loss followed by his father's departure from the family when Will was only five, it had always been just him and his mother. The tension gradually builds as he is evicted from the apartment they shared after his long recovery from the injuries he himself sustained in the accident. Each twist in the plot heightens the suspense and shifts the story's trajectory, keeping me guessing and riveted for what's to come. I really felt for this character and was immediately invested in what he was experiencing, needing to know the answers to all the secrets he encountered as much as he did. I was absolutely not disappointed.
Sadera's writing style is clean, easy to read, and immersive, painting a vivid picture of what's unfolding around this vulnerable, sympathetic main character. Once I picked up the story, I was in for the duration and glued to the book well past any reasonable bedtime.
I recommend MAYBE YOU LIED to readers of psychological and
domestic thrillers.
Tour Participants:
Click through the other tour stops for can’t-miss reviews, insider interviews, exclusive guest posts, and more chances to win!Click here to view the Tour Schedule
Maybe You Lied... But This Giveaway Doesn’t
This giveaway is hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Jennifer Sadera. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited.
MAYBE YOU LIED by Jennifer Sadera | Gift CardCan't see the giveaway? Click Here!
