This Is a Lie

A woman uses AI to create the perfect friend and finds herself trapped in a cat-and-mouse game in this ticking clock thriller, perfect for fans of Blake Crouch. 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?

Cleo Ballard, a graduate of Cornell University, is a former ghostwriter who lives in the Pacific Northwest. When she's not working on her next novel, she can be found biking, kitesurfing, winging, or planning her family's next adventure.