All the Beautiful Liars

‘Straddling the line between memoir and fiction, All The Beautiful Liars is a stylistically daring, hurricane-paced and genuinely impressive feat of the imagination. Sylvia Petter not only displays a rare mastery of characterisation but tells a gripping story. On a sentence level alone, this book is a joy, but what elevates it to rarefied levels is the magnitude of its courage. The result is a novel full of heart that should earn its author a wide and enthusiastic readership’

-- Billy O'Callagan

‘A mosaic primarily made of a family memoir, with its mesh of relationships, past and present, the unravelling of decades-old secrets from a Europe that includes Nazi Germany, paced like a thriller, and an engaging evocation of the nuances of reaching adulthood. The melding of these diverse elements ensures a compelling read’

-- Meg Stewart
‘Sylvia Petter’s astonishing novel, twenty-five years in the making, is a profoundly meaningful investigation of the hinterland of one family’s complex and troubled history. All the Beautiful Liars will remain current so long as memory and truth conflict’ -- Yorkshire Times
‘An original, moving and deft read. Fast-paced and intriguing, delving into history and the allegiances and the knottiness of families. A novel that lingers and stirs’ -- Catherine McNamara

‘Explores truth and memory with a compelling subtlety’

 

-- Jason Goodwin

‘Sylvia Petter’s language is the star. The prose is stunning, rhythmic and visceral’

 

-- Ivy Ngeow

‘So compelling, moving and beautifully written’

 

-- Isabel Costello

‘Exquisite, from beginning to end, for both its artistry and intrigue’

 

-- Darcie Friesen Hossack

‘A fascinating read that combines a personal search for identity against historical events. Captures the feeling of Australia, Austria and Switzerland throughout the second half of the 20th century’

 

-- D-L Nelson

‘Sylvia Petter’s astonishing novel, twenty-five years in the making, is a profoundly meaningful investigation of the hinterland of one family’s complex and troubled history. All the Beautiful Liars will remain current so long as memory and truth conflict’

 

‘Petter’s polyphonic novel is filled with a plethora of engaging voices, some of whose unreliability serves to foster an appropriate sense of confusion and unpredictability. She is especially adept at conveying Katrina’s naive, almost virginal interactions with the Vienna of the late 1960s’

 

‘Petter has a talent for mystery writing, but it is in her descriptions of Australia filtered through Katrina Klain’s nostalgic recollections that her writing soars into another sphere’

 

-- Rachel Fenton, Booksie

‘I love the way Petter plays with the way we remember, blurring the line between reality and fiction. Don’t we all mix up reality and imagined reality in the way we play out our memories in the cinema of our minds?’

 

-- Talking About Books

‘A stunningly unusual novel, and the opening left me wondering, captivated, and desperate for more. A novel to check out’

 

-- Radzy Reviews

‘A well written, intriguing story that reads like an actual memoir which I thought very clever. I didn’t want to put it down’

 

-- Over the Rainbow

‘I absolutely loved this book. It reaches into the past in an indelible way, blending facts and fiction so skilfully that the reader becomes engrossed’

 

-- Lock and Load Brides of Christ

‘Fabulous – a book I highly recommend’

 

-- Nurse Bookie

‘A rollercoaster... so many twists and turns. I recommend it to everyone’

 

-- Jess Bookish Life

‘An absorbing, addictive ancestry... As each player in the life drama tells their side of the story, the atmosphere, characters and events of the time come to life’

 

-- Jane Hunt

'I flew through the pages. I started and finished the book in an afternoon’

 

-- Donna’s Book Blog

‘An introspective read about family, secrets and how sometimes digging up the past brings uncomfortable truths with it’

 

-- Cheryl M-M’s Book Blog

‘The mystery starts to unravel past the halfway mark, and since that point I couldn’t flip the pages fast enough. I am so glad I got to read this book’

 

-- Satabdi

‘This book was intense, emotional, and definitely had me along for the ride’

 

-- Sometimes Leelynn R