Review: Bald-Faced Liar

Longtime readers of this blog know certain things about me at this point, having blogged for over 20 years. I hate the fated mates trope with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I'm a champion for category and historical romances. And I have an soft spot for nurse heroines. In fact I love a great nurse heroine more so than a librarian heroine - go figure. So I was pretty excited to learn that Bald-Faced Liar by Victoria Helen Stone features not only a nurse heroine, but a complicated one at that.  Unfortunately this ended up being a read I wanted to like more than I did.

Elizabeth "Beth" May is a liar. Running from a traumatic and notorious childhood, she lies to protect herself. She lies about her job, she lies about her name (Liz, Lizzie, Beth etc.), and her career as a traveling nurse fits her like a glove. She keeps moving, never settling in one spot for long - although she's made the fatal mistake of falling in love with Santa Cruz, California. She's been there for a while, long enough for a stalker to find her.

It starts off as harmless pranks. Getting put on the mailing list for Liars Anonymous. But then someone impersonates her online, starts bad-mouthing her employer, and nearly gets her fired. When someone flips the power off on her rental unit and then pushes her into traffic?  Yeah, needless to say Beth starts to question everything. Who is stalking her and who can she trust? Certainly not the nice guy one-night-stand who showed up just as the stalking started. What about the "online friend" she's never met in person?  Ha! And certainly not the police. The one thing Beth clearly learned from her childhood? Don't trust the police. 

I'll be honest, this was a second half book for me mainly because I didn't find Beth all that interesting. I've always said I don't have to "like" a character to enjoy the book, but the problem here is that Beth isn't likeable and there's not much to hold on to to get past that. Basically I spent the whole first half of the book wanting to shake her until her teeth rattled and drag her to a therapist. It's the same problem I have with a lot of unreliable narrator protagonists. Beth isn't unreliable per se but you're trapped in her head for the entire book and not only isn't it terribly riveting, it's also kind of exhausting.  It's not really until Beth gets pushed out into traffic while walking around Santa Cruz that this book started to really grab my intention.

I stuck with it because as a long-time suspense reader I know enough to know when a twist is coming - and yes, this one has a twist.  A pretty good one actually. I feel like this is a book that begs for content warnings but to provide them is essentially a giant ol' spoiler - so just know that it's all wrapped up in childhood trauma. Which, quite obviously, Beth has not been dealing with other than lying to everyone she comes into contact with to protect herself.

Ultimately I think that's my issue with this story, although I'm not sure the author could have resolved it without getting the pacing and plot lost in the weeds. Beth never really unpacks her trauma and how that led her to becoming a lying liar who lies. Not only from her childhood but the fact that she was a nurse at the height of the pandemic ("we" as a society have not truly reckoned with the trauma our health care professionals endured during the pandemic - but that's another book for another day). This ends "happily" (in the way suspense novels end "happily") albeit quite messily.  This one had all the ingredients I've enjoyed in a lot of suspense novels over the years (quietly menacing, messy heroine etc.) but it fell in that nebulous no man's land between OK and Good for me. I mean, it's not a dud, but it never quite elevated itself for me. There is stuff to unpack here though, so very much mileage gonna vary.

Final Grade = B-

Reading Year in Review 2018

I think we all can agree that 2018 was a dumpster fire of a year and yet, somehow, I managed to get through 95 books.  My reading goal is always 100, so while I did fall short, 95 is the most I've managed to get through since 2014 (when I read an incredible 119).  Here's how it all broke down (and yes, I count DNFs):

5 Stars (A Grade) = 7

4 Stars (B Grade) = 27

3 Stars (C Grades, includes some "low B-") = 38

2 Stars (D Grades) = 10

1 Star (F Grades) = 3

DNF (Did Not Finish) = 10

Audiobooks = 28

My A grades were up this year (although pretty consistent from previous years - I rarely assign 5-Stars in the double digits), my DNFs were up a smidge, my audiobook numbers were down (shorter work commute after I moved last year!), and my C grades outpaced my B grades (which is not great).  But, I'll take it.  This was the most productive reading year I've had in a dog's age.

Now, for what everybody cares about: the books!  A reminder that this is a recap of what I loved and read during 2018, but not necessarily books published in 2018.  I'm perpetually behind, so most of my Best Of list will be books that will, hopefully, be lurking in TBRs already or easy to score at your local library.

Note: Title links will take you to full reviews

The Romance:

Burn Down the Night (2016) and Wait For It (2017) by Molly O'Keefe - After not a single romance garnered an A grade from me in 2017, I vowed to start off 2018 on the right foot - with an author who consistently works for me.  The final two books in a quartet series, Burn Down the Night gives me the closest thing I've read to a true Bad Girl Heroine in the genre and Wait For It is an example of an Asshole Hero done right.  I didn't read these books so much as inhale them.

Breathe (2016) by L. Setterby - My contest judging this year was largely meh, but holy hell where has this book been all my life?!  A perfect example of starting a book, reading the first sentence, and just falling head over feet right into the world.  I'm so hooked that I downloaded the Wattpad app to read the next book in the series (still being released in weekly installments as I write up this post).

An Extraordinary Union (2017) by Alyssa Cole - A historical romance with legit high stakes conflict.  I loved this heroine so much I'm thinking of taking the Gone Fishin' sign off of my ovaries.

The Tycoon's Socialite Bride (2014) by Tracey Livesay - Here it is, the best category romance I read this year.  Livesay hit all her emotional beats, right on time.  I loved the heroine's family baggage and the hero bent on revenge but not needlessly cruel (although this one does rip your guts out in parts).  Don't think you like category romance?  Try this one.  It's damn near magical.

Indigo (1996) by Beverly Jenkins - Arguably the book that Jenkins is best known for, and it's easy to see why.  She puts so much into this story, addressing racism, colorism, and sexism, without preaching from the pulpit or losing sight of the romance.  Also, I've always felt that Jenkins' strength (well, besides her dynamite heroines) is her world-building.  The community she creates in this story, using the Underground Railroad as a backdrop, was so well done.

The Soldier Prince (2018) by Aarti V. Raman - This is my cracktastic read of the year, basically a category romance about a former Black Ops-style soldier, who is really a prince, who falls in love with a struggling college student waiting tables in a New York City deli.  This one is full of ALL THE TROPES and I couldn't get enough of it.  Raman needs to publish the next book in this series, like, yesterday.

Delicious Temptation (2015) by Sabrina Sol - Believable baggage (seriously, families can be the worst), and I loved the East LA family bakery backdrop.  Is it because I live in southern California and know the area?  Maybe.  Because Sol writes it so very well.  My runner up for best category read of the year.

Not Romance, Still Awesome:

The Broken Girls (2018) by Simone St. James - It's to the point now where I'm a squee'ing unreasonable fangirl for Simone St. James, but seriously, I loved this one.  A time slip novel with converging 1950 and 2014 plot treads and a nice "romantic elements" secondary thread involving the 2014 heroine and her cop boyfriend.  

Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow - A long book (47 hours on audio!), this one is worth the time investment.  Grant's life exemplifies the old "truth is stranger than fiction" adage.  That this man, basically a failure is every other aspect of his life, defeated the Confederacy, saved the Union, and became President is simply remarkable.  This is my new Read A Book Already book.  Plus, I learned stuff.  Which is always nice when reading non-fiction.

Jane Doe (2018) by Victoria Helen Stone - The revenge thriller I didn't know I needed.  A cool, methodical heroine who exacts her revenge against the worst sort of hypocritical DudeBro.  I loved every blessed minute of it.

Charlesgate Confidential (2018) by Scott Von Doviak - A crime novel set in Boston with three converging timelines. It did take a while for me to sink into this story and I did have to read about the damn Red Sox way too much for my liking, but this one is excellent.  Excellent world building.  Excellent mystery.  Interesting characters.  It kept me guessing all the way to the end.

Comfort Read/Author of 2018:

Marcia Muller - Every reader I know has what they call "comfort reading."  Either a favorite book or author, maybe a favorite genre.  For me, that's mystery.  I fell in love with reading via mysteries.  I devoured them as a teen, so there's a really high nostalgia factor at play here.  Given what a mess 2018 was, it's probably not surprising that I read 14 books in the Sharon McCone series this year.  I got through books 3 - 15 and one short story collection this year, in a mix of audio and print.  Technically these were all rereads for me, revisiting books I first read or listened to on audio as a teenager and in my early 20s.  Yes, some held up better than others, but the world building! The character arcs! I wanted to read more in the series this year, but other obligations have kept me from them.  I plan to pick up again with book 16 in 2019.

And that's my Year In Review for 2018.  I'm quite pleased with myself, but continue to hope for bigger and better in 2019.  The goal, once again, is 100 books.  Let's see if I make it.