Never Lie

Never Lie is a psychological thriller by Freida McFadden, published in 2022. Its premise is a house hunt that goes wrong: Tricia and Ethan, recently married, go to look at a remote manor that once belonged to Dr Adrienne Hale, a well-known psychiatrist.

Dr Hale vanished without trace four years before they arrive, and the house has been left exactly as it was. A violent winter storm closes in and traps the couple at the estate with no chance of leaving until it ends, which turns a viewing into an enforced stay inside somebody else's unfinished business. Tricia and Ethan are there to look at the house rather than to stay in it, and the storm takes that choice away from them.

Looking for something to read, Tricia finds a hidden room that holds audio transcripts of every patient interview the doctor ever conducted. As she plays the cassette tapes one after another, she begins to assemble the chain of events that led up to the disappearance, and the account she is building is not the only version of that story in the house.