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Ashley Elston

Ashley Elston

Ashley Elston is a Louisiana author of young-adult mysteries and adult thrillers. Her suspense fiction uses shifting identities, concealed family histories, and tightly controlled timelines, from The Lying Woods to the bestselling First Lie Wins and Anatomy of an Alibi.

Photo: Photo: © Jesse Dittmar · Source: Ashley Elston — Penguin Random House ↗

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Years covered2018

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Cover of The Lying Woods

The Lying Woods

2018 · Contemporary

2 editions: Print · 2018 | eBook · 2018

About this work & edition details

A riveting, atmospheric, multi-generational, high-stakes mystery by Ashley Elston, New York Times bestselling author of First Lie Wins! Owen Foster has never wanted for anything. Then his mother shows up at his elite New Orleans boarding school cradling a bombshell: his privileged life has been funded by stolen money. After using the family business, the single largest employer in his small Louisiana town, to embezzle millions and drain the employees' retirement accounts, Owen's father vanished without a trace, leaving Owen and his mother to deal with the fallout. Owen returns to Lake Cane to finish his senior year, where people he hardly remembers despise him for his father's crimes. It's bad enough dealing with muttered insults and glares, but when Owen and his mother receive increasingly frightening threats from someone out for revenge, he knows he must get to the bottom of what really happened at Louisiana Frac...and the cryptic note his father sent him at his boarding school days before disappearing. Owen's only refuge is the sprawling, isolated pecan orchard he works at after school, owned by a man named Gus who has his own secrets—and in some ways seems to know Owen better than he knows himself. As Owen uncovers a terrible injustice that looms over the same Preacher Woods he's claimed as his own, he must face a shocking truth about his past—and write a better future.

Print · Little, Brown Books for Young Readers · 2018 · English

eBook · Little, Brown Books for Young Readers · 2018 · English

Podcasts & Discussion (8)

More About Ashley Elston

Ashley Elston earned a liberal arts degree from Louisiana State University in Shreveport and worked for years as a wedding photographer before turning to fiction. She lives in Louisiana with her husband and three sons. By 2022, her work had been translated into 23 languages.

Elston published six young-adult novels before moving into adult suspense with First Lie Wins, a number-one New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club selection. Her catalog moves between teen mysteries, family secrets, romantic comedy, and adult thrillers built around unstable identities and carefully managed information.

Her interviews show an emphasis on revision and narrative engineering. Discussing Anatomy of an Alibi in 2026, Elston described three rewrites that changed structure, timeline, and point of view. A separate recorded event about First Lie Wins focuses on the creative process behind its deception plot and the book's path toward screen development.

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Links

Sources

  1. Ashley Elston — Penguin Random House ↗
  2. The Lying Woods — Kirkus Reviews ↗
  3. Ashley Elston — Kirkus Reviews ↗
  4. 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominees — YALSA The Hub ↗
  5. Ashley Elston: Anatomy of an Alibi — Bookreporter Talks To ↗
  6. First Lie Wins with Ashley Elston — Fane ↗
  7. Sterling Lord Literistic Fall 2022 Rights Guide ↗
  8. Anatomy of an Alibi, By Ashley Elston ↗
  9. Pick of the Week: Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston ↗
  10. Episode 61: [BOOK CLUB] What We Learned From Reading "First Lie Wins" by Ashley Elston ↗
  11. Elle Cosimano discusses Finlay Donovan Knocks'Em Dead with Megan Miranda & Ashley Elston ↗
  12. Anatomy of an Alibi - Ashley Elston (Book Club Discussion) ↗
  13. First Lie Wins - Ashley Elston ↗
  14. Long Story Short: Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston ↗
  15. Ashley Elston - FIRST LIE WINS ↗