Little White Lies
Smart, entertaining, and fun - one of my 2018 Favorites!
You know when you're supposed to finish reading a book by a deadline and then that day comes and goes and you just kind of think, "I'm really enjoying this, and I'm not going to rush it because of some deadline?" That was me with this book. I fell in love with it immediately!
This book is a beautiful mix of high society conjecture (sort of like Gossip Girl but more prim and proper), a tale of growing up, and an Oceans 11 type of adventure. Sawyer is the perfect narrator to lead us as we first make our way into this unfamiliar setting with one mystery on our minds: who is her father? It's easy to dismiss certain characters after their introduction, as we normally do to those who are over-polite and bent on social niceties. However, the introduction to Campbell as she is being held captive in the pool house is where things REALLY kick off.
I'll admit to not really knowing how everything was going to come together until it actually happened and I was impressed by the level of talented storytelling that had happened throughout the book . I don't know if you will really be able to recognize that until you reach the end.
Speaking of the end, I truly thought that something was wrong with the ebook I had received until I went down to my local library and opened their copy of it to see it ended the same way. WHAT A WAY TO END! GET ME BOOK 2! S.T.A.T.!
WHAT'S ON THE BACK?
(The book's description from Goodreads)
"I'm not saying this is Sawyer's fault," the prim and proper one said delicately. "But."
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.
Set in the world of debutante balls, grand estates and rolling green hills, Little White Lies combines a charming setting, a classic fish-out-of-water story, and the sort of layered mystery only author Jennifer Lynn Barnes can pull off.