Too good to be true

When Burke's marriage therapist advises him to write a journal to get to know himself better, Burke sets to the task eagerly, describing his dwindling feelings for his wife, Heather, and his passion for his new partner, Skye. In the early part of Lovering's novel, those journal entries alternate with narration from the point of view of Heather, before her marriage to Burke. A struggling young woman going nowhere, Heather appears to get on her feet after she takes a nanny job with a well-off family. Everything collapses, however, when Heather meets tragedy, but that's just one in a series of twists that will grip readers as they juggle between multiple points of view and time periods, attempt to make sense of unreliable narrators, and are jolted by explosive turns of events. This firecracker of a novel includes a bonus for many readers: an empathetic look at Skye's life as a sufferer of OCD and how that condition can affect relationships. (Content warning: there is a detailed rape scene.) Lovering (Tell Me Lies, 2018) will leave readers thinking about what they would accept for love and how the most perfect of lives may be a facade. A must for book clubs.

Winsome, wealthy Manhattan book editor Skye Starling is confident she's finally found a man able to look past her occasionally paralyzing OCD, in this Machiavellian drama from Lovering (Tell Me Lies). Ignoring her friends' pleas to take things slower, Skye instead leaps into the arms of much older, somewhat mysterious financial consultant Burke Michaels. Skye's mistake becomes clear as the perspective switches from the besotted young woman to that of her beau, whose description in a diary entry of their first meeting on a Montauk beach reveals him to be married and broke. But that's just a glimpse of the head-spinningly devious plot permutations that emerge as the narration, frequently unreliable, ping-pongs between the couple and a crucial third character, who's initially introduced in chapters set three decades earlier as Burke's high school sweetheart. Though the true shape of the main con seems to become apparent about halfway through, a plethora of twists lies ahead. What Lovering doesn't have are remotely credible--or, for the most part, sympathetic--central characters. Still, psychological thriller fans will keep turning the pages to see what happens next. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)

The second novel from Lovering more than lives up to the promise of her debut, Tell Me Lies (2018). Skye Starling appears to have it all--an enviable Manhattan apartment, a cool and successful book-editing job, and a pleasantly girly group of longtime friends. Still, her struggles with OCD have been a romantic-relationship deal breaker in the past. So when Skye meets the incredibly handsome Burke Michaels beachside at Montauk, the stage is seemingly set for a fairy-tale love story: Within six months they are engaged--much to the consternation of Skye's BFF, Andie--and Skye is over the moon. But there are multiple clamoring voices in this chilling narrative that suggest all may not be well: We read Burke's diary entries, written at the behest of his marriage counselor--yup, Mr. Perfect-for-Skye already has a wife, a startling fact we learn within the early pages of the book; a former toxic boyfriend of Skye's keeps emailing her creepy and threatening messages; and a decades-earlier narrative by Heather, Burke's wife, confounds the dizzying plotline even further. Lovering, a master of manipulation to rival her own characters, does a skillful job of gradually unspooling her intricate tapestry of psychological intrigue while deftly juggling her multiple narratives. And neatly nested in this tale of just who is deceiving whom is a none-too-gentle critique of our system's rigid social and economic inequities. A nifty cat-and-mouse thriller that doesn't stint when it comes to twists, turns, and "gotcha!" surprises. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* When Burke's marriage therapist advises him to write a journal to get to know himself better, Burke sets to the task eagerly, describing his dwindling feelings for his wife, Heather, and his passion for his new partner, Skye. In the early part of Lovering's novel, those journal entries alternate with narration from the point of view of Heather, before her marriage to Burke. A struggling young woman going nowhere, Heather appears to get on her feet after she takes a nanny job with a well-off family. Everything collapses, however, when Heather meets tragedy, but that's just one in a series of twists that will grip readers as they juggle between multiple points of view and time periods, attempt to make sense of unreliable narrators, and are jolted by explosive turns of events. This firecracker of a novel includes a bonus for many readers: an empathetic look at Skye's life as a sufferer of OCD and how that condition can affect relationships. (Content warning: there is a detailed rape scene.) Lovering (Tell Me Lies, 2018) will leave readers thinking about what they would accept for love and how the most perfect of lives may be a facade. A must for book clubs. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

In debut author Andrews's Who Is Maud Dixon?, Florence Darrow, assistant to pseudonymous author Maud Dixon (actually Helen Wilcox), awakens in a hospital after a terrible accident with no memory of the event and Helen missing in action—so why not take over her life (75,000-copy first printing)? In the pseudonymous Finlay's buzzy Every Last Fear, NYU student Matt Pine learns that his entire family has perished while vacationing in Mexico, and the FBI and State Department are questioning the accidental gas leak story put forth by the local police. Flynn, who as a YA author writes as L.E. Flynn, goes adult with The Girls Are All So Nice Here, as Ambrosia Wellington recalls the not-so-nice thing she did one night with former best friend Sully and receives ever more threatening missives about an event she thought was history (150,000-copy first printing). In The House Uptown, Ginsburg's follow-up to Sunset City, 14-year-old Ava winds up in New Orleans after her mother's death, living with a bohemian artist grandmother who finds Ava's presence a reminder of dark things past (50,000-copy first printing). In the latest from Lovering (Tell Me Lies), things prove to be To Good To Be True as starry-eyed Skye Starling blissfully accepts a marriage proposal from her sophisticated older boyfriend, actually a devious skunk whose dark secrets the story backtracks 30 years to reveal (150,000-copy first printing). How does upright Parisian cop Alice end up on a park bench in Central Park, New York, chained to a Dublin musician she doesn't know and in possession of a gun significantly missing a bullet? Read top French author Musso's Central Park to find out. Following Oliva's The Last One, Forget Me Not features a lonely woman still trying to make sense of her past—she was born to replace a dead sibling, escaped the 20-acre compound in Washington State where she had been pretty much abandoned, and at age 12 suddenly faced an incomprehensible world. Already grabbed by 17 territories worldwide, Sten's Scandi-set The Lost Village features documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt's efforts to chronicle the mining town whose inhabitants—save for a dead woman and an abandoned newborn—all vanished on a single day in 1959. But bad things keep happening on set (100,000-copy first printing).

Winsome, wealthy Manhattan book editor Skye Starling is confident she's finally found a man able to look past her occasionally paralyzing OCD, in this Machiavellian drama from Lovering (Tell Me Lies). Ignoring her friends' pleas to take things slower, Skye instead leaps into the arms of much older, somewhat mysterious financial consultant Burke Michaels. Skye's mistake becomes clear as the perspective switches from the besotted young woman to that of her beau, whose description in a diary entry of their first meeting on a Montauk beach reveals him to be married and broke. But that's just a glimpse of the head-spinningly devious plot permutations that emerge as the narration, frequently unreliable, ping-pongs between the couple and a crucial third character, who's initially introduced in chapters set three decades earlier as Burke's high school sweetheart. Though the true shape of the main con seems to become apparent about halfway through, a plethora of twists lies ahead. What Lovering doesn't have are remotely credible—or, for the most part, sympathetic—central characters. Still, psychological thriller fans will keep turning the pages to see what happens next. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)