Lies and Other Acts of Love by Kristy Woodson Harvey Book Review

Title: Lies and Other Acts of Love
Author: Kristy Woodson Harvey
Publication Date: April 5, 2016
Pages: 327
Format: ARC
Source: Author
Purchase: Amazon | Apple

Summary (Goodreads):
Dear Carolina was praised as “Southern fiction at its best.”* Now author Kristy Woodson Harvey presents a new novel about what it really means to tell the truth . . .
 
After sixty years of marriage and five daughters, Lynn “Lovey” White knows that all of us, from time to time, need to use our little white lies.
 
Her granddaughter, Annabelle, on the other hand, is as truthful as they come. She always does the right thing—that is, until she dumps her hedge fund manager fiancé and marries a musician she has known for three days. After all, her grandparents, who fell in love at first sight, have shared a lifetime of happiness, even through her grandfather’s declining health.
 
But when Annabelle’s world starts to collapse around her, she discovers that nothing about her picture-perfect family is as it seems. And Lovey has to decide whether one more lie will make or break the ones she loves . . .

_____________________

I loved this book! If you have followed my reviews for any length of time you know I’m not a huge lover of contemporary novels. I don’t hate them or anything but they have to work harder to captivate me, unlike fantasy novels which have to be terrible for me not to like them. And yet this book totally captivated me and I couldn’t wait to sneak anytime I could to find out what happened next.

Annabelle is my age, and like me, she’s lived a life following the rules and planning things out. But then she dumps her hedge fund manager fiancé and marries a musician she has known for three days. At the start of the story, this has already occurred and we are introduced to Annabelle with her new husband spending some time away with her family, including her grandmother, Lovely.

I love how we slowly learn Annabelle’s story as well as Lovely’s story in the flashbacks that occur. The author carefully lays out the current events of the story against the past so we learn more about both our main characters without an information dump. This was done excellently where I felt like the pieces I required to understand the story were filled in as I needed. The author spent only the time necessary in the past which lead for an easy to follow story were I felt as if I was being told what I needed and when while following along the present-day tale.

By intertwining the love stories of Annabelle and her grandmother Lovely we see the journey of two women who find their happy ending after facing similar challenges. The comparison of their stories found by reading about both characters as the story progresses made this book a turn-pager. I was compelled to find out more about Lovely and Annabelle and how two women could face any challenge life threw at them and find their own happy ending.

A must-read for contemporary or women fiction readers and for those who love a good love story (or two!).

 Giveaway!