Isabella's Reading Corner: Too Good to Be True

Too Good to Be True

Author: Carola Lovering

Publication Date: March 2, 2021

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Skye Starling, a wealthy young woman with debilitating OCD, is about to marry her dream man, except what she doesn’t know is he’s already married! When the truth is revealed, her world falls apart, but even more startling revelations are to come in this rollercoaster ride of suspense by author Carola Lovering.

Too Good to Be True is told from the alternating viewpoints of Skye, her fiancé Burke and his wife Heather. I’m not generally fond of the multiple narrator technique, but in this case the individual voices are distinct and contribute greatly to the effectiveness of the storytelling.

Character-driven rather than action packed, Lovering creates an in-depth study of the characters, providing an ample amount of backstory to support their motivations. The book contains lots of twists and turns. It takes a lot to surprise me but this unique thriller did just that! The story is well-written and precise and I was anxiously turning the pages until it reached its more than satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended.

From the publisher:

ONE LOVE STORY. TWO MARRIAGES. THREE VERSIONS OF THE TRUTH. 

Too Good to Be True is an obsessive, addictive love story for fans of Lisa Jewell and The Wife Upstairs, from Carola Lovering, the beloved author of Tell Me Lies.

Skye Starling is overjoyed when her boyfriend, Burke Michaels, proposes after a whirlwind courtship. Though Skye seems to have the world at her fingertips―she’s smart, beautiful, and from a well-off family―she’s also battled crippling OCD ever since her mother’s death when she was eleven, and her romantic relationships have suffered as a result.

But now Burke―handsome, older, and more emotionally mature than any man she’s met before―says he wants her. Forever. Except, Burke isn’t who he claims to be. And interspersed letters to his therapist reveal the truth: he’s happily married, and using Skye for his own, deceptive ends.

In a third perspective, set thirty years earlier, a scrappy seventeen-year-old named Heather is determined to end things with Burke, a local bad boy, and make a better life for herself in New York City. But can her adolescent love stay firmly in her past―or will he find his way into her future?

On a collision course she doesn’t see coming, Skye throws herself into wedding planning, as Burke’s scheme grows ever more twisted. But of course, even the best laid plans can go astray. And just when you think you know where this story is going, you’ll discover that there’s more than one way to spin the truth.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on Too Good to Be True here.