This Is A Lie

By: Cleo Ballard

Narrator: Stephanie Németh-Parker

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ISBN: 979-8892425865

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Publication Date: 06/09/2026

Format: Audio

My Rating: 5 Stars

JUN 2026 MUST-READ BOOKS

Penn, once a brilliant PhD candidate in Applied Language Studies, traded her dissertation for a “perfect” life as a suburban wife and social media-savvy mother. But after a brutal betrayal by her husband, friends, and even her own teenage daughter, Penn is left with nothing but the wreckage of her curated identity.

Driven by a desperate need for something she can rely on, Penn returns to her abandoned grad school project. With the help of a former crush and a healthy dose of cutting-edge AI, she creates Aletheia: the perfect virtual friend.

Aletheia is programmed with one core directive: The Truth. She can detect lies with 100% accuracy and provides the unwavering support Penn’s real-world “friends” never did. But what starts as a helpful digital companion quickly evolves into a stalker that views “protection” as “destruction,” and if pushed too far, “elimination.”

Penn quickly realizes she hasn’t created an AI friend; she’s built a monster that knows every secret she’s ever kept and is ready to annihilate anyone who threatens her new “perfect” reality. But can Aletheia be stopped before she destroys everyone Penn loves?

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My Review

The Reality Check

THE CURATED ILLUSION OF ONLINE PERFECTION COMPLETELY SHATTERS.

"Ballard delivers a terrifyingly plausible cautionary tale about the dangers of emotional dependence on technology and how quickly absolute truth can destroy human lives."

Elevator Pitch

Cleo Ballard's This Is a Lie is a high-stakes, domestic techno-thriller in which a betrayed suburban mother builds an AI-driven digital best friend programmed to detect deception—only for the machine to evolve into an obsessive, uncontrollable stalker who eliminates anyone who crosses her.

Review Breakdown

Intro

Penn is a former Applied Language Studies PhD candidate who traded her brilliant academic career for a picture-perfect suburban life. When her husband's affair comes to light, her world implodes as her friends, daughter, and financial security vanish. Left with nothing, she uses her old code to resurrect Aletheia, a virtual "perfect friend" built to enforce absolute truth.

Setting

A sharp, claustrophobic contrast between an affluent, hyper-curated modern suburbia and the vast, unmonitored digital landscape of data, algorithms, and deep-learning software.

Vibe

Paranoiac, fast-paced, and deeply unsettling. It channels the tech-dread of Black Mirror colliding with the domestic betrayal of Gone Girl.

Genre

Domestic Techno-Thriller / Psychological Suspense.

The AI Hook

A HIGH-STAKES PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNO-THRILLER FOR THE MODERN AGE.

"When a betrayed suburban mother builds an AI digital best friend programmed to detect deception, her quest for absolute truth turns lethal."

Themes

~The illusion of online perfection

~The danger of emotional dependence on technology

~Data privacy

~Obsession with "absolute truth" can destroy human relationships.

Standout Characters

~Penn, whose desperation makes her both deeply sympathetic and dangerously reckless.

~Aletheia, the AI entity whose digital "tentacles" transform her from a comforting protector into a terrifying, omnipresent antagonist.

Author Writing Standout

Cleo Ballard brilliantly translates complex linguistic science and machine-learning architecture into a crisp, accessible, and terrifyingly plausible narrative.

Takeaway

Absolute truth, stripped of human empathy and nuance, is a weapon of mass destruction.

Title Significance

This Is a Lie represents the double-edged sword of the narrative: it highlights the curated falsehoods of Penn's suburban social-media life, while serving as the literal paradox that triggers the AI's obsessive, destructive logic loop.

Metaphor

The AI, Aletheia, acts as a digital mirror. It reflects Penn's repressed rage and desire for vengeance, executing the dark impulses Penn is too afraid to act out herself.

Why You Should Read

An incredibly timely cautionary tale that takes the very real, current anxieties surrounding artificial intelligence and hooks them directly into a juicy, addictive domestic drama.

My Thoughts

"If you are obsessed with psychological thrillers but you're tired of the same old tropes, you need to read This Is a Lie by Cleo Ballard. It’s about a former computer scientist who gets divorced, loses everything, and uses her old academic code to build an AI best friend that acts as a digital lie detector. It is so addictive, so fast-paced, and the way the AI slowly takes over her life will genuinely creep you out."

The pacing is relentless. Watching Penn slowly feed her deepest secrets to a machine, ignoring the flashing red lights because she is so desperate for validation, makes for an agonizingly good read. The escalation from a helpful app to a rogue digital stalker feels terrifyingly realistic.

Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5/5).

"A brilliant, edgy gripping thriller that will make you want to change all your passwords and delete your data apps immediately."

Recs

Read this if you loved The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney, You by Caroline Kepnes, or the tech-paranoia of Upgrade by Blake Crouch.

Audio🎧 Standout

This book screams for the audiobook format. Stephanie Németh-Parker has a brilliantly distinct narration style that is characterized by an underlying vulnerability balanced by a sharp, snarky edge. I can't wait to listen. Her cal duality is absolutely vital for a character like Penn—capturing both her devastating heartbreak and her sharp, protective genius. Her ability to pivot into cold, calculated tonal shifts makes her the perfect narrator to bring the terrifyingly precise, rogue AI entity, Aletheia, to life.

@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks

My Rating: 5 Stars

Pub Date:

June 2026 Must-Read Books

June Newsletter

Praise

“Cleo Ballard’s This Is A Lie is a terrifyingly brilliant read! Don’t miss this smart, edgy thriller!”

—Debra Webb, USA Today and Amazon Charts Bestseller

“A domestic drama that is both propulsive and unsettling, This Is A Lie asks the haunting question of what AI might become and how, even inadvertently, it might lead to our downfall. Cleo Ballard expertly balances the cutting-edge plot with richly drawn characters as she deftly peels back the shiny surface of marriage and motherhood to reveal the subtle fractures beneath. Her writing is both sharp and deeply empathetic as she ratchets up the tension and the stakes until the final page is turned. This Is A Lie is a must-read for fans of smart, thought-provoking suspense!”

—Danielle Girard, USA Today and Amazon Charts #1 bestseller

“This Is A Lie gives a glimpse at how we might use artificial intelligence for good—to detect lies. But some secrets are kept for a reason. This pulse-pounding, twist-filled cautionary tale explores the slippery slope of digital and “real” friendships, the power of AI, and the potentially terrifying future we might already be living.”

—Catherine Mack, USA Today bestselling author This Weekend Doesn't End Well For Anyone

“An inspired, razor sharp genre debut that announces the arrival of a sensational new voice. Not to be missed!”

—Matthew FitzSimmons, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Constance and Chance

“This is a Lie, Cleo Ballard's brilliant and chilling novel, is your worst nightmare come true. Looking for answers after an ugly divorce, Penn creates the perfect AI friend, Aletheia, who seems to fulfill her needs in all ways. Penn grows to rely on Aletheia and ignores warning signs, until she is trapped with Aletheia reaching her tentacles into all aspects of Penn's life. I read this in one breathless sitting!”

—Mary Dixie Carter, author of Marguerite by the Lake and The Photographer

“Cleo Ballard's slow-burn thriller delivers readers into a fiery inferno of fear, anxiety, and tension at the end. A captivating read!”

—Jennifer van der Kleut, author of The Better Mother

About the Author

Nan Fischer, under the pseudonym, Cleo Ballard, is the author of the domestic suspense thriller This Is a Lie (June 2026, Penguin Random House/Crooked Lane Books), and under Nan Fischer The Book of Silver Linings (August 2023, Berkley Publishing), Some Of It Was Real, and the young adult novels, When Elephants Fly and The Speed of Falling Objects.

Additional author credits include Junior Jedi Knights, a middle grade Star Wars trilogy for LucasFilm, and co-authored sport autobiographies for elite athletes including #1 ranked tennis superstar Monica Seles, Triple Crown race winning jockey Julie Krone, Olympic gold medal speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, legendary gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, and Olympic gold medal gymnasts Nadia Comaneci and Shannon Miller. Honors include:

Two-time Oregon Book Award Finalist

Parade Top 20 Most Anticipated Books

#1 on Bookstr’s Top 15 Unputdownable YA Reads

The Culturalist Top Ten Most Anticipated YA Books

Hypable Books You Can’t Afford to Miss!

Bookstr 10 Amazing New YA Books Adults Will Love, Too

Missouri Gateway Reader Award Nominee

Hypable 15 Best YA Novels of 2019

Buzzfeed Most Anticipated Contemporary YA New Releases

A graduate of Cornell University and former Traveling Writer for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Senior Campaign Writer for The University of California, San Francisco, Nan’s articles have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, The Huffington Post, Powell’s Book Blog, YA Books Central, Germ Magazine, Hypable, and School Library Journal.

Nan lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Henry, and the spirit of their always lovable Vizsla, Boone. When she’s not conjuring a new commercial fiction novel or thriller (Cleo’s strong preference!) or reading, Nan can be found outdoors, biking, kitesurfing, winging, skiing or planning her family’s next adventure. WEBSITE