Deceiving Lies by Molly McAdams
Series: Forgiving Lies #2
Published by William Morrow on March 4, 2014
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss, Publisher
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Rachel is supposed to be planning her wedding to Kash, the love of her life. After the crazy year they've had, she's ready to settle down and live a completely normal life. Well, as normal as it can be. But there's something else waiting—something threatening to tear them apart.

Kash is ready for it all with Rach. Especially if all includes having a football team of babies with his future wife. With his line of work, he knows how short life can be, and doesn't want to waste another minute of theirs. But now his past as an undercover narcotics agent has come back to haunt him ... and it's the girl he loves who's caught in the middle.

Trent Cruz's orders are clear: take the girl. But there's something about this girl that has him changing the rules and playing a dangerous game to keep her safe. When his time as Rachel's protector runs out, he will turn his back on the only life he's known, and risk everything, if it means getting her out alive.

Deceiving Lies, the much anticipated sequel to Forgiving Lies, was a let down after the total awesomeness that was Forgiving Lies.  Every part of this book was lackluster compared to the first book and I ended up wishing that Rachel and Kash’s story just ended with the first book.

Rachel and Kash are back but their relationship is far from perfect.  The strong relationship they had at the end of Forgiving Lies is completely torn apart shortly into Deceiving Lies.  Their relationship is severely tested in Deceiving Lies and I spent a lot of the book wondering if they were going to make it through or call it quits.  As if the events of the first book weren’t bad enough for Rachel, shortly into this book she is kidnapped by a gang that Kash formerly infiltrated while undercover.  She’s held hostage and she spends most of her time wondering if Kash will make it to her in time.  When she’s not worrying about getting out alive though, she’s spending all her time getting closer to her captor, a guy who just happens to be sexy and smart with a dark past that he’s completely ashamed of.  Ugh.

The first part of the book is spent showing how strong Rachel and Kash’s relationship is and the next part of the book completely contradicts the first part.  Rachel is help captive and she slowly starts to maybe develop feelings for her captor, Trent.  Really?  I get that he is trying to help protect you and all that but he put you in that position to begin with!  How could you possibly fall for a guy like that?  Of course, there is more to Trent than meets the eye.  He’s not really a bad guy, he’s just in a bad situation.  Sure.  I’m not buying it.  I felt no sympathy for Trent or Rachel because while they were busy making eyes at each other, Kash is being torn apart by guilt and doing all he can to get Rachel back.  It’s made very clear that Kash loves Rachel and is willing to sacrifice his own life for her.  And he’s repaid with her thinking about cheating on him.  What a great relationship.

Lucky for me I had Kash and Mason to help make the book better.  Their relationship was as great as ever.  I truly love reading about friendships between guys because they are so different than friendships between girls.  Kash and Mason clearly loved each other like brothers and they were always there for each other.  Sure they fought but they always got past that.  Their friendship made me like this book a lot more than I would have otherwise.

There were some other things that bothered me about Deceiving Lies but I really can’t get into them without spoiling part of the story so I’ll leave them out.  Just know that the part of the book leading up to the ending really doesn’t help make it better.  There were a lot of little things with Kash and Rachel that got on my nerves.

Overall, Deceiving Lies was nowhere near as good as I’d hoped.  I felt like there was no need for the love triangle and honestly there wasn’t a lot of need for this sequel at all.  I was happy to read more about Kash but that’s all this one really had going for it.

What others are saying about Deceiving Lies:

The Bookpushers’ review: “All in all, this was a very good but difficult read.”

It’s Andrea’s Book Blog’s review: “I give this book a solid 4 stars for its suspense and action and a well-rounded story that has you swooning at the end.”

Anna’s Book Blog’s review: “I really enjoyed Deceiving Lies and I look forward to reading more from this author!”