Thursday, November 19, 2015

Review: The Beauty of Lies (Stand by Me #1) by Brinda Berry


Secrets are exposed, trust is betrayed and two people face the beauty of lies.

Leo Jensen has a secret--he is Mr. Expose, a blogger that reveals the truth about liars and frauds. It's a way to make a living, and he's had a motherlode of experience with liars. Cheaters. Women who live for drama and carry more hidden baggage than a Boeing 747. Even his twin sister can't seem to admit the truth about her relationships, so finding an honest woman is about as likely as finding a unicorn in the middle of Nashville.

Harper Wade wishes life had a do-over button. She'd press that sucker and reset the last four years. Now, she has the chance to start fresh and make things right, but first she has to retrieve the damning evidence of her past from an annoying blogger. She's doing all the things she knows she shouldn't--breaking and entering, lying by omission, falling for the hot guy next door. Too bad he holds the key to her clean slate.



 



You know what? Despite the not-so-great reviews that are being left about this book, I really enjoyed it! This is one of those times that I'm glad that I didn't read any reviews or info about a book before I picked it up because I probably would have been turned off and not picked it up at all. Sometimes I do read reviews before picking up a novel but I always stick to the higher ranking ones just because I don't want to hear the bad stuff until I decide it's bad stuff. 

Anyhow ... I thought that the chemistry between the main characters was pretty great. I enjoyed watching their relationship ebb and flow with what was going on within the pages. There were a few times that I rolled my eyes because things seemed to happen a bit too easily in some of the situations and it wasn't really realistic to me. That being said ... I really enjoyed the interactions between the ex, Leo and Harper. It was almost like a train-wreck that I couldn't turn away from. I was just itching to see what this ex was going to do next and if they would cause problems and heaven help me, let them be bad problems because Brinda Berry is an awesome writer who can write some interesting dialogue between characters that will keep you on your toes. 

The storyline was interesting ... I don't think that I've read anything like this before and the twists and turns were unexpected and highly amusing. For the most part, I never really knew where the plot was heading or what was going to happen next. That's really a breath of fresh air because I've just read so many books that I can sometimes pick out what is going to happen next and then I turn into the book-fun-sucker since I'm ruining everything for myself. 

I'll probably read something else by this author again. I enjoyed just about everything about this novel except one thing. The copy that I received didn't say that it was an advance reader copy. ARC's are sometimes full of errors with punctuation, grammar and spelling. This book had quite a few issues but it was not written anywhere in it that it was an ARC. I really hope that it is and this version isn't being sold anywhere.

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *



Available Now



No comments:

Post a Comment