WICKED LIES (Men of Summer #2) by Lora Leigh-a review

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / The Book Depository / BAM

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date September 1, 2015

HE’S TEMPTING FATE
Jazz Lancing is the stuff of legends. A mountain-bred ex-Navy SEAL with rugged dark looks, a tall muscled frame, and gorgeous blue eyes, he can have any woman he wants in the state of Tennessee. Except Annie Mayes. The beautiful, innocent teacher refuses to fall for Jazz because she’s hiding a secret more powerful than her own temptation …
SHE’S IN TOO DEEP
Jazz knows that Annie isn’t who she says she is-that she’s lying about her identity, her past, and her motives. But can she be trusted? Little does he know Annie has been craving his kiss for years, dreaming that Jazz would take her in his arms and save her from her demons. But telling Jazz the truth could put both of them in peril. In this deadly game of danger, deceit, and darkness, is desire worth the risk of losing…everything?

••••••••••••

REVIEW: WICKED LIES is the second installment in Lora Leigh’s adult, contemporary Men of Summer erotic, romantic suspense series. This is Jazz Lancing, and grade school teacher Annie Mayes’s storyline-a second chance romance for two people who believed they had lost one another ten years before. WICKED LIES can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. The first book in the series was released almost nine years ago.

Told from dual third person perspectives WICKED LIES revisits the small town of Loudoun, Tennessee where family secrets and mountain whispers speak of deadly games, the Kin, and the heartbreaking story about two young lovers torn apart before their romance began. The Maddox family lost a mother and daughter to a deadly New York hotel fire, and with it brought too many unanswered questions and ten years of grief and heartbreak.

Jazz has mourned the only woman he has ever loved for close to ten years; her death, and that of her mother’s, has weighed heavily upon many hearts throughout the small town of Loudoun, but none more so than Jazz Lansing’s. But two years ago the arrival of Annie Hayes brought with it a familiarity and fleeting moments of memories from long ago. Jazz knew Annie was hiding secrets and he was determined to uncover the truth behind Annie’s need to hide –in plain sight. Jazz’s reputation as a ‘love em and leave em’ alpha male left a sour note in our heroine’s feisty façade but Jazz’s need to protect Annie overrode everything else.

The relationship between Annie and Jazz is one of second chances; Annie has never forgotten the only man she has ever loved but eight years had passed without any contact, and her arrival in town brought with it the potential for death and chaos to anyone who got too close. Annie’s need to keep Jazz at arm’s length was for his own protection, and hers. The $ex scenes are erotic, seductive and hot but for a Lora Leigh storyline, the scenes are limited in number as compared to many of her previous books and novels.

The secondary and supporting characters include Jazz’s best friends Zack, Slade, and Slade’s wife Jessie from book one-Loving Lies. We are introduced to the Maddox Clan-brothers Cord, Sawyer and Deacon, and their father Vinny and aunt Luce, and Luce’s daughter Grace. The requisite evil comes from within the Kin, the Clan and the mountains of Tennessee-although not necessarily whom everyone suspected.

I did have one issue with this particular storyline and it involves the true identity of one of the leading characters. I am not saying nothing is impossible but colored contacts and a box of hair dye isn’t enough to mask someone’s real identity especially from family, close friends and the love of one’s life. The reality of the situation was far from believable but it is a story of fiction meant to entertain.

WICKED LIES is a quick but predictable read; an entertaining storyline about family and friends; betrayal and greed; second chances and a happily ever after.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy