Thank you to ThrillerBookLovers Promotions, Scarlet, #partner, for an advanced e- copy of A Lovely Lie in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Scarlet
Published: May 28, 2024
Summary:
Is it better to believe a lovely lie or to know the horrible truth?
1999: The night of their senior picnic, Scarlett Russo and her best friend Pepper were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town and Scarlett never heard from her again…
Now: Twenty-two years later, Scarlett has buried that deadly incident deep in her mind and built a comfortable life for herself, working in a hotel on the west coast of Florida and raising her teenage son with her husband Vince. Her peace is disrupted, however, when Pepper’s daughter shows up with news of Pepper’s death. Zoey is twenty-one and studying to be an investigative journalist. She has a cryptic letter from Pepper addressed to Scarlett that alludes to the events of that fateful night and Pepper’s initial intentions to get an abortion. Now Zoey wants answers about her mother’s past. Who is Zoey’s father? And what really happened after the senior picnic? As Zoey continues to dig into the past, all of Scarlett’s buried secrets threaten to rise to the surface.
My thoughts:
This is the second book I’ve read by Jaime Lynn Hendricks and I am a fan! You better believe I will be adding her other two books to my tbr immediately!
I flew through this book…it is so addictive and twisty! From the very first page, I was hooked and that never let up. Told from multiple points of view and alternating between the present and the past, this book kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat the entire time. I also loved the inclusion of the police interrogations because it added another layer to an already complex story line and had me questioning who and what I could believe.
I love a story where I am not sure how I feel about all the characters and I love it even more when my feelings change throughout the book and that definitely happened here. Characters I was lukewarm about to begin with I ended up growing to like towards the end, and the reverse happened with a few, too. And of course, I’m always a sucker for books about lies and that is the foundation of this story and it all spins horribly out of control from there. So many lies are told over the course of this book…it’s hard to keep track.
This is one book you do not want to miss. It’s totally binge-worthy and filled with such great twists and turns, many of which I did not see coming. Jaime Lynn Hendricks has definitely become a must-read author for me!
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