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Tag: Blackmail

Book Review: Deadly Little Scandals

November 19, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Deadly Little Scandals – Jennifer Lynn Barnes – Debutantes #2 – Freeform – Published 5 November 2019

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Synopsis

Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret. When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group’s ranks may have the answers she’s looking for. Things are looking up… until Sawyer and the White Gloves make a disturbing discover near the family’s summer home–and uncover a twisted secret, decades in the making.

No one is quite who they seem to be.

My thoughts

Deadly Little Scandals is the sequel to Little White Lies, and, if possible it is even better than its predecessor. More intrigue, more plots, bodies to uncover, secrets to tell, and twist after twist that you never see coming, because, seriously who else but Jennifer Lynn Barnes could conceive of such an idea and actually make it work. Deadly Little Scandals will thrill fans of the first book and keep readers on the edge of their seat.

When Sawyer accepted her grandmother’s terms last summer, she did so to discover who her father is. Now, after a lengthy process of uncovering long-buried secrets and a little blackmail, she knows but would rather maybe not know. Keeping her secrets from her cousin Lily is hard, harder still to know if it is worth digging further to find answers to the questions she has. When an all girl secret society recruit Sawyer, Lily, Sadie-Grace and Campbell to compete for a position, Sawyer discovers that one of the girls may be key to helping her discover the secrets surrounding what happened the year her mother fell pregnant.

Deadly Little Scandals is a sequel and you must read the books in chronological order to make any sense of the story. Even having read the first book, it is a little hard to keep all the characters straight and by the end of the book I needed a map to fully make sense of it all. That’s just testament to Barnes’ skill as a writer to make such a complex plot work.

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Book Review: Deadly Deceit

November 9, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Deadly Deceit – Natalie Walters – Harbored Secrets #2 – Revell – Published 5 November 2019

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Synopsis

When journalist Vivian DeMarco’s boss dies under suspicious circumstances, her only hope for finding the truth is Deputy Ryan Frost. The deeper they dig, the more twisted the truth becomes, and someone called The Watcher forces Vivian to decide what she’s willing to lose for the sake of a headline.

My thoughts

Deadly Deceit combines romance with solid investigation as a detective and a reporter work together to uncover the work of a deadly blackmailer.

Vivian found a second chance in Walton. Fired from her last position for refusing to release harming details in her article, the kind-hearted Harold offered her a position at his newspaper. But when Harold dies with his last words to Vivian to find the details on a big story, she knows she must uncover what he was talking about. Ryan Frost has returned from training at Quantico and resumed a position as Deputy on Walton’s force. He has offers from the CIA and FBI but he doesn’t want to leave his family, like his father once did. When Ryan responds to the death of Harold, he and Vivian cross paths. She isn’t the dogged reporter he remembers and he isn’t the scrawny police officer she recalls from their past run ins. But, if Ryan wants to keep Vivian safe, he will have to work with her.

Deadly Deceit is the second book in the Harbored Secrets series by Natalie Walters. While the setting and characters from the first book have carried over into this second instalment, the main characters and plot are complete and so the two books can be read as standalone titles.

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Book Review: Little White Lies

October 21, 2018 / / 7 Comments

Little White Lies – Jennifer Lynn Barnes – Freeform – Published 6 November 2018

♥♥♥♥

 

Synopsis

Eighteen-year-old auto mechanic Sawyer Taft did not expect her estranged grandmother to show up at her apartment door and offer her a six-figure contract to participate in debutante season. And she definitely never imagined she would accept. But when she realizes that immersing herself in her grandmother’s “society” might mean discovering the answer to the biggest mystery of her life-her father’s identity-she signs on the dotted line and braces herself for a year of makeovers, big dresses, bigger egos, and a whole lot of bless your heart. The one thing she doesn’t expect to find is friendship, but as she’s drawn into a group of debutantes with scandalous, dangerous secrets of their own, Sawyer quickly discovers that her family isn’t the only mainstay of high society with skeletons in their closet. There are people in her grandmother’s glittering world who are not what they appear, and no one wants Sawyer poking her nose into the past. As she navigates the twisted relationships between her new friends and their powerful parents, Sawyer’s search for the truth about her own origins is just the beginning.

My thoughts

I would usually steer away from books about Debutante balls and the drama that might accompany such events, but Little White Lies is written by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, so instead it became one of my most anticipated reads of 2018. And it did not disappoint. Only Barnes could create such a setting and accompany it with breathless tension and mystery, expertly combined with humour and good old insult-laden compliments.

Sawyer Taft has never known who her father is – her mother refused to speak of him or the life she left behind. But when Sawyer’s maternal grandmother makes a sudden appearance, she promises both answers and a whole lot of money if Sawyer will agree to live with her for nine months and become a Debutante. While trying to find her own answers about her mother’s past and her unknown father, Sawyer becomes entangled in another mystery, all while juggling brunch, dress fittings, and the special kind of horror that is a spa day.

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