🧶 Murder Mitten Kittens Book Club – Episode 1
Book: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
⚠️ FULL SPOILERS
Welcome to the Murder Mitten Kitten Club, where we explore meow-der and mayhem one book at a time.
For our very first episode, we dive claws-first into First Lie Wins, a sharp psychological thriller about deception, manufactured identity, surveillance, and what happens when the lie you tell becomes the life you’re forced to live.
This isn’t just a whodunit — it’s a who-am-I-really story that asks:
How far would you go to survive?
Ashley Elston’s adult-fiction debut delivers:
• A morally gray heroine
• An unreliable narrator
• A story where psychological control is more dangerous than physical violence
Through nonlinear storytelling and strategic reveals, the novel explores identity as performance, survival, and erasure.
And it asks a chilling question:
If your identity is manufactured… do you still own it?
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⚠️ Listener Discretion Advised
This episode discusses:
• homicide
• staged deaths
• stalking
• coercive psychological control
• identity theft
• manipulation
The violence and criminal behavior discussed in this episode are not sanitized.
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🔍 What We Break Down
• Unreliable narration & nonlinear structure
• Identity as costume, weapon, and survival mechanism
• Psychological power without physical violence
• Surveillance as domination
• Moral gray areas and complicity
If you love psychological thrillers, morally complex female protagonists, and stories that blur the line between victim and predator, this episode is for you.
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🕵️ Claw & Order: A True Crime Connection
This episode includes a real-world case that mirrors one of the novel’s missions.
We discuss the theft and recovery of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ochre — stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985 and recovered more than 30 years later.
Read more here:
https://news.arizona.edu/news/stolen-painting-returns-home-uarizona
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📚 Sources
Ashley Elston — First Lie Wins
Pamela Dorman Books / Penguin Random House (2024)
University of Arizona News —
“Stolen Painting Returns Home to UArizona” (2022)
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🐾 Stay Cozy, Stay Cautious
Follow us on Instagram for mini episodes, clips, and behind-the-scenes mayhem:
📸 @murdermittenkittensbc
If you enjoyed this episode, like, follow, and share with your fellow bookish true-crime kittens.
Until next time:
Stay curious. Stay cozy. And remember…
In this world, the First Lie Wins.