Waking up and seeing your attempted killer's face is frightening enough. For Lily to realize she's been in a coma for 14 months and that killer has integrated themselves into her family is worse. Learning they know she knows who they are could spell her death, for real this time. Only by lying can Lily have the hope of surviving and saving her family in the process. Trusting no one is second only to lying to ensure the safety of all those she loves.Lily is a very strong woman. I admired her inner strength and commitment to her goal, that no one and nothing would keep her from remembering who she is and what she's fighting for. She never gave up the fight and handled everything that came at her with a focus and clarity that I didn't expect.
But I have to say this story dragged...a lot. While I appreciated all the little elements that made hour journey through the coma and afterward so real, so visceral, it went on for a long, long time. We do get to the point where she's out of the hospital and going through the excruciating experience of PT, but by this point we're deep into the danger from her would-be killer. Her emotional outbursts are quite understandable and I liked seeing her get to a point where something had to change for progression's sake. When she and Duff were finally coming to some kind of understanding I had a really difficult time following their interactions. Their dialogue wasn't easy to follow either because it was far more difficult to decipher joking, sarcasm, honesty veiled with lies, outright lies, and intent in their words than it should have been. I had to re-read sections wondering if I was missing something.
The end is quite abrupt and very leading in terms of Lily and Duff's path together and the drama surrounding them is ramping up to be quite big. It's definitely a cliffhanger, but that's to be expected with this author and how she puts her stories together, and the stopping point quite effectively makes you feel almost a sense of panic to get to the next book...
Picking up exactly where we were left with False Memory, we're treated to Duff's POV. He knows Lily is lying and it's imperative she reveals her secrets to him. But what he learns is both devastating and enlightening. The truth leads them to a web of secrecy so interconnected it'll take a miracle to sort it out and save Lily's life.Through Duff's eyes we see Lily in a similar way as before, but we're adding a tender element to the crazy that surrounds them. Lily is still the strong woman we've come to know and despite her moment of panic and shock, which is completely understandable in their situation, she's also seen as a bit more vulnerable. We get to see her tells and her frustrations with a fresh perspective.
Duff is frustrating to no end. I'm not really a fan of how often we have to hear that he's a robot, or he shouldn't see Lily as he does, or the endless references to their job descriptions as well as his secrets without learning them at all. He lies, he conceals, he evades, he distracts until he's backed into a corner and is forced to share his true allegiance. Nothing is ever that simple, though, because the web just gets more tangled.
If at this point you haven't read the Harmless or Shameless books, you may be lost like I was. Even starting The False Series from the beginning isn't helping me because the characters brought in, mentioned, and the motives and machinations of all of them are so convoluted I can't seem to keep it all straight. I'll be doing a bunch more reading before False Start comes out so I can get it all straight before we're treated to the finale. The final scene here creates that same sense of panic, but we also get disorientation and more urgency. The finale should be a doozy...
Add to your Goodreads TBR list!
Check it out on BookBub!
False Start: Coming January 15, 2019...
Add to your Goodreads TBR list!
Check it out on BookBub!
About Meli...
Meli Raine
writes romantic suspense with hot bikers, intense undercover DEA agents, bad
boys turned good, and Special Ops heroes — and the women who love them. Meli
rode her first motorcycle when she was five years old, but she played in the
ocean long before that. She lives in New England with her family.
Follow Meli...
No comments:
Post a Comment