Liars, Inc. by Paula Stokes

Once you lie the first time, you have to keep lying to try to cover your tracks.  It never works, eventually you get caught.

HarperTeen and Edelweiss allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published March 24th, so you can find a copy then.

Max was an orphan.  He'd been homeless for a while.  When they found him, they put him in an orphanage.  He got adopted by parents with big hearts.  They adopted more children, even one with special needs.  They loved him and he guessed he loved them, but he wasn't able to say it.  He couldn't even call her Mom.  He sort of took them for granted...

He's finally made himself some good friends in school.  Preston is a boy from a rich family who gets everything he wants.  Parvati is beautiful and he might be in love with her.  As a scheme for more pocket money, they decide they'll develop a liars business.  Parvati can imitate voices, so she'll call in sick leave for kids who wanted to skip school.  Preston is smart, so he provides quiz answers.  Max can copy signatures, so he signs failing notices and requests for leave.  They're making some good money at it until things start to fall apart.

This was a very different book from what I thought I was going to read about.  Max learns a lot about life, love, and families before he's done with this adventure in his life.  He almost ends up dead.

Max tells the FBI one lie to cover Preston and his world falls apart.  As he tries to find the missing Preston, he discovers secrets from long ago to present time.  The story line is unusual and outrageous.  However, it's still believable.  If you have enough money, you can make anything happen.  You ought to think about the effect of a big lie before you tell it, though...