In this stylish, twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline and award-winning author Anne Burt, a young woman heads to the Adirondacks with her new husband for a fresh start—but the past won’t let her go.

Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Christina Baker Kline and Anne Burt’s Please Don’t Lie, which releases on September 1st 2025.

Two years ago, Hayley Stone lost everything. First, her parents died in a devastating fire. Then, her sister overdosed, leaving Hayley alone and hounded by a media circus that turned her family’s tragedy into tabloid fodder. When her new husband suggests a fresh start in the Adirondacks, the promise of anonymity in an isolated mountain town feels like salvation.

But the mountains hold darker secrets than she ever imagined.

Her once-loving husband grows distant and volatile. The widow down the road keeps spewing vague accusations. Not even their new friends—a free-spirited couple living on the property—can help Hayley shake the creeping sense that something is off.

As winter edges closer, Hayley discovers that her sanctuary is anything but safe. Trapped and isolated, she faces a terrifying truth: in trying to escape her past, she may have run straight into something far more dangerous.

Prologue

November 2023

The wind blows into Hayley’s face as she stumbles forward in the darkness, half blinded by snow. Heart racing, panicked and terrified, she can’t get her bearings. The familiar bluestone path between the main house and the guest cottage is completely obscured. Every direction looks the same: a swirling white chaos. Icy flakes sting her unprotected neck and shoulders.

A guttural shout, muffled by the wind, sends a wave of fear through her. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees a shape moving toward her through the shadowy gloom. She thought she was safe on this beautiful property, where she has lived for the past two months. Safe with the man who loved her.

The smokehouse comes into view, its outline barely visible. Hayley is determined to get there. As she runs faster, struggling to keep her balance, she slips and falls on a sheet of ice. A stab of pain shoots through her ankle. She scrambles to her feet, limps forward, falls to her knees. She pulls herself up and stumbles again. Don’t look back. She hobbles as quickly as she can, despite the sharp jab each time her right foot hits the ground. Hayley senses, rather than hears, footsteps in the snow behind her. She lunges for the handle of the smokehouse door and pulls the iron ring, then scrambles inside. A ladder against the wall is all she can find for a barricade. Desperately, she grabs hold of it. Her arms strain as she tips it over with a grunt, wedging it against the doorway. Her breath comes in ragged gasps as she stands in the dark.

As her eyes adjust, Hayley looks around the shed her husband built so meticulously earlier in the fall, with its hand-planed two-by-fours and wrought iron hooks to hang the wild game he’d hunted and cured for the long winter ahead.

A weapon. I need a weapon. She scans the shelves stocked with tools and spies a metal spade.

Gripping the wooden handle with both hands, she waits for the pounding on the door.

September

One

Two months earlier

“Could today be more perfect?” Hayley gazes out at the majestic peaks of the Adirondacks.

“Oh, this is nothing.” Brandon grins at Hayley from behind the wheel of their new cherry red Jeep. She loves his smile—it lights up his entire face. “Wait till a month from now, when it’s prime leaf season.”

With her hand over his, Hayley shifts her attention to the nearly empty upstate New York highway stretching ahead. The road twists and turns, flanked by towering pines, as they wind their way higher into the mountains. The sky is a brilliant blue, the air crisp and clear, with just a hint of chill. A hawk glides overhead on outstretched wings.

“Look at how this baby handles the road,” Brandon says as the Jeep hugs a curve. “Just what we’ll need up here in the snow.”

She nods. Autumn is one thing, but the thought of winter and the isolation it will bring worries her. They only started coming up here to Crystal River in June. For the past few months they’ve been renovating Brandon’s childhood home, commuting back and forth between his remote rural property and Hayley’s West Village apartment. Now that the renovation is nearly complete and her apartment has sold, they’ve pulled up stakes for good.

Hayley’s window is down, and her auburn ponytail flutters behind her. She looks at the ravine far below, a blur of dusky green with a few pops of yellow and orange. The air is thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. As the Jeep darts in and out of dappled shadows, she pushes away her doubts.

This, right now, she reminds herself, is the new start she’s been longing for.

She steals a glance at her new husband. Brandon is lean and muscular, with a tight dark beard and a glint of intensity in his blue eyes. His skin is burnished bronze in the afternoon light. She still can’t quite believe this man is now her husband.

Hayley had been in the depths of grief when her sister, Jenna, died two years ago back in Florida, where they grew up. After the funeral, Hayley spent the afternoon hiding out in the clubhouse kitchen at Platinum Shores Estates with the caterers to avoid perfunctory condolences from their distant relatives and Jenna’s so-called friends. Brandon Stone, who’d worked as a contractor for her parents, literally stumbled into her, spilling his IPA down the front of her black silk dress. His profuse apology, and his awkward attempt to pat her dress with a napkin without touching her inappropriately, made Hayley smile for the first time since Jenna’s death.

Now, as the Jeep rounds a corner, the grade steepens dramatically. Hayley grips her leather seat. These mountain roads are a far cry from the Manhattan grid she knows so well.

Brandon looks over at her. “Been on these mountains my whole life,” he says with a smile. “You’re safe with me.”

Hayley has been a thoroughly urban creature ever since she left Florida for NYU. With relief she’d traded away her parents’ vast McMansion for the close quarters of her Washington Square Park dorm, three to a room. She loved the vibrant chaos of life in the city—the wail of sirens and honking horns in the wee hours, the constant hiss of steam through the radiators, even the garbage piled high on the corner of East Ninth Street after a long weekend. She swore then and there, as a first-year college student, that New York City would be home forever. Her roommate, Emily, a born-and-bred Manhattanite, claimed that an hour in Central Park was as much nature as anyone needed. Hayley, laughing, agreed.

But that was before.

Before the photo went viral online of her mother and father, framed in the picture window of their bedroom suite, clinging to each other as flames licked the damask curtains around them.

Before the rumors that twenty-year-old Jenna, fueled by spite and opioids, set the fire that killed them.

As Brandon navigates the increasingly steep road, Hayley is only half-present, plunged back into those dark days. The night of the fire, Jenna had thrown a rager at their parents’ home to celebrate her engagement to an older guy she hardly knew. A loser, Brandon had told Hayley, like the rest of her sister’s crowd. Her parents had come home unexpectedly and infuriated Jenna by announcing in front of her friends that they’d disown her if she went through with the wedding.

Hours later, Tad and Matilda Pierce were dead.

If Hayley had stayed longer in Florida after their parents’ funeral, might things have been different? Could she have saved Jenna from spiraling deeper into addiction?

She turns her gaze back to the mountain view. The wind is picking up, rustling through the trees and sending dried leaves skittering across the rutted pavement. Only a moment ago, the scene appeared idyllic to her: lush green foliage dotted with gold and crimson. Now the whispering of the pines carries an air of menace. The hum of the car engine has shifted to a disconcerting whine.

The road they’re on narrows, becoming even more pocked and rough. They round a hairpin turn. “Is this a different route to the house?” Her own voice is at a slightly higher pitch than usual.

“This is the back way. I wanted to try the Jeep on some real terrain.”

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The faint pulse of an emerging headache throbs behind her eyes. Her seat belt, tight against her rib cage, digs into her skin. Despite the open windows, the car now seems confining, claustrophobic. She leans forward and opens the vent in front of her on the dashboard.

Looking up, she spots a dark object straight ahead.

“Brandon, watch out. There’s an animal in the road!”

“It’s just a shadow, Hayl.” He drives, unperturbed, right over the dip in the pavement.

Hayley digs her fingers into the leather seat. Handshake your fear.

“What’s that?” Brandon asks.

Hayley didn’t realize she’d spoken the words aloud. It’s a quote from one of her self-help books, The Road Unbound. Over the past two years, Hayley has found herself surprisingly reassured by advice from therapists, spiritual leaders, and ordinary people who’ve gone through hell and come back to write about it. In her private moments, she visualizes the authors of the books as a nurturing community of friends. “Oh—it’s just a mantra. Meaning . . . if you turn toward something you’re afraid of, you strip away its power.”

“Here we go,” Brandon says playfully. “The gurus in your head.”

“Yep.” She laughs, glancing at the tote bag at her feet and its proliferation of books.

Reaching down, she rummages through them, looking for The Road Unbound. The Miracle of Mindfulness, Whole Again, Healing the Soul of a Woman—ah, here it is. And . . . wait, how did this one end up in her bag? Savvy Women, Senseless Choices. A less-than-subtle gift from Emily after Hayley told her she planned to marry Brandon. She’ll donate it to the Crystal River Public Library next time she’s in town.

Emily has been skeptical of Brandon from the start. She’s peppered Hayley with her concerns: Don’t you think this is moving way too fast? You met him at your sister’s funeral, for god’s sake. Aren’t you too vulnerable to be making big decisions?

Reasonable questions, Hayley has to admit. A quote from another book, Follow Your Wild Heartsong, helped her frame an answer: What you gain from life is shaped by your willingness to embrace what lies ahead.

Maybe she wasn’t too vulnerable to know what she wanted. Maybe she was finally vulnerable enough to let true love in.

Emily ended up apologizing and was a gracious witness to their wedding. And she’s planning to visit for a few days next month. But Hayley knows her friend still has reservations. Some of it could be the inevitable change that comes with growth. Friendships evolve, after all. Hayley is married now, and Emily hasn’t had a serious girlfriend for more than a year. They’re in different places in their lives. With a pang, Hayley remembers all the good times she’s shared with Emily—the late-night confidences, the dreams they’ve spun together. But those memories are tinged with the pain of her friend’s recent judgment. Emily doesn’t seem to understand that when you’ve experienced as much turmoil as Hayley has, you seek peace. You crave solace. Even if you have to move to the top of a mountain to find it.

Spontaneously, Hayley reaches over to touch the side of her husband’s face. The warmth of his beard reassures her. “Love you, babe,” she says.

He smiles. “Love you too.”

Hayley settles back in her seat. The wind in her hair, the cloudless blue sky: this is the true beginning of their life together. Here in the Adirondacks, she’ll spend quiet mornings watching the fog lift from the pond on their property, lazy afternoons reading in the sun-drenched living room, evenings sipping cocktails with Brandon, recounting the events of the day. They’ll have to rely on each other. And it will be good for them—good for their relationship. Their courtship was a whirlwind, and the fallout from the tragedies in Hayley’s life has been all-consuming. This will be a space where they can grow together. Where what they build will be from scratch.