A second chance stand alone office romance from USA Today bestselling author K.A. Linde…Five years ago, Sam and I fell in love just as hard as we fell apart.The last thing I expect is for him to walk into my office as the new legal counsel.Now, I have to see him every single day. We vow to remain professional, but it’s a small office. The sly glances and his blistering charm are unavoidable. It … his blistering charm are unavoidable.
It all feels so familiar. Too comfortable. After what happened the last time…I should know better. If I’m not careful, he’ll break my heart all over again.
But being with Sam is everything I’ve ever wanted.
Maybe it’s worth giving my heart to him a second time.
Note: Originally titled The Lying Season.
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This cover is HOT!
A timely spin on second chance/office romance, and a great start to the new spinoff series by K. A. Linde.
***I received an ebook copy from the author at no cost***
This book was everything I hoped it would be and so much more.
Larkin and Sam have a history together and are reunited unexpectedly, working together on Mayor Kensington’s reelection campaign. Their story is equal parts angst and romance. Neither one thought they’d see the other again, so one can imagine the awkwardness that hangs in the air following their reunion.
I haven’t read the series that Larkin was initially introduced in, but as a character I found it easy to like her and it didn’t take me long to start to admire her. She comes from wealth and privilege and has every opportunity to fall into the Upper East Side world she grew up in. Lark doesn’t want that though. She’s passionate about the political work that she does, despite her mother’s horror, and is dedicated to the mayor and the campaign. She’s on this continuous personal mission to be the best person she can be and do the best she can do, and I loved that.
The background characters in this story played just as important a role as the main ones did. There is a solid group of friends established and it was so fun to see that. I love the banter between Larkin and her group. These people know one another inside out and that’s evident through the way they support one another throughout the story and how they interact with one another.
Sam is a wonderful book boyfriend. He’s a good guy who finds himself in a new place, surrounded by new people … but the girl he loved in a former life is there every day too. His personal journey was a wonderful one to read. He stayed true to himself, even when there were opportunities not to, and I appreciated that about him.
This is a second-chance romance story first and foremost, but the ploy goes so much further. Linde explores friendship, familial connections, and the internal struggle that can come when you decide to stray from the path that people close to you think you should take. The Lying Game has well-developed characters, vivid and strong writing, and a plot that’s both unique and well-crafted. This was an easy read for me and I can’t wait for the next story in the series to come out. Also, I want to grab the Cruel Series and read that too, so I can see more of where Larkin emerged from and get to experience that circle of friends more.
Five stars to this novel!
I was granted an ARC for a review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
OMG KA Linde has done it again. By again I mean I think she will have topped my favorite book collection of hers with this series. I fell madly in love with Sam and Lark. Lark is determined to live her life the way she sees fit and not the way her parents would rather her do. KA Linde doesn’t write weak women; she writes strong women who can hold their own and don’t back down. I didn’t realize how much I missed her writing until I read this book.
So, I finished this book while getting IV treatment for my Flu diagnosis. I planned my first true meal to eat with be a juicy burger and yummy fries. Don’t read this book on diet. There are lots of discussions at “Buns”.
Larkin St. Vincent aka Lark had spent a year in Madison working with a politician. She met southern Sam Rutherford and enjoyed a year-long relationship until it ended. Now fast forward 5 years and Lark is now the campaign manager and Sam the new lawyer hired on to help. Lark is the heiress to St Vincent’s Resorts and St Vincent Handbag line. She has grown up on the Upper Eastside and went against her parents’ wishes and followed her heart to work in campaigns.
Sam didn’t know he would see Lark again. He thought she would head back to NYC and work for her family’s company, St Vincent’s Resorts like she originally said she would be doing. They had history 5 years ago and are now back working alongside each other. Sam moved to New York with his girlfriend Claire. Sam hasn’t told Claire the whole truth. He told her he dated a campaign person while in Madison. Claire does know that Sam has worked with Lark in the past, but hasn’t put together that she is the who was with.
Lark doesn’t know how she is going to be able to hide her true feelings for Sam for the next 6 months, but she will do her best. Sam goes home to find Claire packed to go on her 3-month long orchestra job in Europe. However, she leaves telling Sam that they need to take a break. Will Sam rebound with Lark only to break her heart again? Will Lark give Sam a second chance after learning what really tore them apart all those many years ago?
This is not my first rodeo reading a KA Linde book and I was not disappointed one bit. I am over the moon excited for Court’s book. I truly want to see him find happiness again. I also can’t wait to see what happens with Camden. I would highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone who believes in second chances and wants a glimpse of an Upper Eastside New York life.
A second chance for Lark with a man who didn’t follow her to NY city 5 years ago. The book is about Lark running the Mayor of NY City’s reelection campaign. Sam and Lark were together for a year, 5 years ago in North Carolina where he was a construction worker.
Lark was moving back to NYC to work in politics and wanted Sam to go with her. When he didn’t follow her she took her own path. Sam is now an attorney and gets a job working
for the mayoral campaign. The chemistry between Lark and Sam is still there. Lark is still hurt
over the fact that Sam did not go with her when she left NC. Now 5 years later Lark finds that Sam
has moved to NY City. The slow burn of lovers to enemies to lovers takes time to unfold. I find Sam
a bit wishy washy as to being able to make bold decisions not a true alpha. But the take charge
Lark has enough strength for both
This book is edgy, and sexy and all the things a good dark romance book should be. I really enjoyed it!
This was my first introduction to K.A. Linde. I have been meaning to crack open others but I am thrilled that I finally did just that with The Lying Season. I was hooked and couldn’t get enough. The push and pull between the characters, the secondary characters, the drama that enfolds, it was just a real winner for me and has me eager to get the rest of the East Side crews stories. I am so freaking intrigued and need more!
is book 1 of the Seasons series. It features Lark and Sam. Lark grew up with wealth and privilege on NY’s elite Upper East Side, but she has chosen to pursue a career in politics instead of work for her family’s businesses. Sam is a principled Southern boy who finds himself in New York, a place he never thought he wanted to be.
Lark and Sam originally met working together on a political campaign after graduating from college and had a relationship that ended badly. When they parted, they never thought they would see each other again. They were from two different worlds heading in two different directions. Fast forward five years and the two are reunited unexpectedly in their roles working together on a mayoral re-election campaign. None of their co-workers and friends know the details of their past relationship so their reunion is awkward, to say the least.
They haven’t seen or talked to each other in five years, but the chemistry is still there.u2009Through working together, Sam and Lark are reacquainted and learn more about the people they have each become. They recognize the personal growth each has experienced while apart. The journey to their HEA is emotional and full of angst but makes a great read. It involves not only second chances but also forgiveness and acceptance.
Set in the world of KA Linde’s Cruel series, features many old friends from “The Crew.” This group of longtime friends has supported each other through many difficult times and celebrated each other’s successes. In the past, this group of friends has been exclusive and unwelcoming to new members. However, as their lives evolve, a new crew with old and new members starts to emerge with the same strong bonds of friendships and support but without the negative baggage of the past. I’m dying to know more about this fascinating group.
I highly recommend this sweet, angst-filled, second-chance romance.
Lark and Sam! I have been waiting for this and loved it. Lark is a character who has been present throughout this fabulous series and her story needed telling, as did Sam’s. The privileged world that Lark inhabited all her life is filled with riches and coldness, heartlessness yet also potentially deep feelings and love. A rich mixture that has made this such a wonderful series!
Lark’s story portrays her quest to grasp her individual identity and future, living a better life and still maintaining her long lived friendships. Sam is such a great partner for her and their battle for their HEA makes for a great read. This has become one of my favourites and I am holding my breath in anticipation of the explosion of Katherine and Camden’s story!
The Lying Season is a second chance, office romance that centers around Sam and Lark.
I really liked Lark. She’s hard working, focused and a loyal friend. I really enjoyed current day Sam and how he fit into Lark’s crew, but especially his friendship with Court. There was just enough tension and drama, and a nice dash of steam. We see a lot of their friends which gets you excited to read their stories. My only quibble is that I really would have liked to see more of their relationship the first time around. I would have enjoyed more of a “show me” of that, than a “tell me”.
Looking forward to reading more in this series and exploring more by the author.
K. A. Linde was a new to me author, and I am so, so happy I found her. This book was exactly what I want in an adult romance. The author’s own experience on a campaign added so much to the storyline. It just felt real and there was so much emotion! The characters are so human. Gah. I could NOT put it down. If you like second chance romance, you need to read this one! AND I’m SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED for the sequel to this one. I just know it’s going to be as amazing as this one.
In one word, YES we finally have Sam and Lark’s story back making these two a favorite couple of mine. Have to say it was quite a surprise the way K.A. Linde brought these two back yet felt like serendipidity. Though the love is still there, a little bit stronger this time there is still a lot of questions that need to be answered. Seeing them you would think they have always been together but all it takes is one girl to make them question once again their future for each other. K.A. Linde not only shows us these two we see more of Court, Katherine and Camden welcoming the country boy but making him see that they are actually normal in their own ways. Seeing them interact with each other and fighting for their love was great and then we Court and English next cannot wait to see what K.A. Linde does with those two. Loved it.
“I received an eBook copy from the publisher for the purpose of an honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own.”
Lying Season by K.A. Linde is the first full length interconnected standalone story in her Seasons series. The full story of second chances and fated love when Larkin St Vincent and Sam Rutherford meet again in the re-election campaign offices for Mayor Kensington. After a bitter ending, Lark isn’t sure how to handle seeing Sam again. She has all these feelings that she hasn’t dealt with and seeing him brings everything back to the surface and leaves her feeling raw. Sam is living in New York, somewhere he didn’t think he’d ever be, especially when Lark and he ended abruptly five years ago. But moving here with his girlfriend a couple of years ago placed him in New York and then his new job landed him in Larks world, once again.
Angst-ridden, filled with emotion, heartbreak, passion, and pain, this story was a slow build to a great ending, and the perfect introduction to Lark’s crew from the Upper East Side which we will meet more of in the upcoming books in this series. LOVED IT! Enjoy!
The world that K.A.Linde created is amazing and absolutely fantastic. The group of friends in this book are friendship goals. This group of friends reminds me of Gossip Girl and I love everything about it. The writing drew me in and I couldn’t stop reading. The friendships shown throughout the book are complete friendship goals. The second chance is one of my favorite tropes and K.A.Linde delivered on every aspect. I will say that I started with this series by reading The Hating Season so I kind of read the order of books backwards. With that said, I was not lost at all from reading out of order. I can safely say that each book can be read as a standalone. The Lying Season has intrigue, slow burn, sexual tension, second chance, and some serious steaminess. Who wouldn’t love this?!
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A second chance for Lark with a man who didn’t follow her to NY city 5 years ago. The book is about Lark running the Mayor of NY City’s reelection campaign. Sam and Lark were together for a year, 5 years ago in North Carolina where he was a construction worker.
Lark was moving back to NYC to work in politics and wanted Sam to go with her. When he didn’t follow her she took her own path. Sam is now an attorney and gets a job working
for the mayoral campaign. The chemistry between Lark and Sam is still there. Lark is still hurt
over the fact that Sam did not go with her when she left NC. Now 5 years later Lark finds that Sam
has moved to NY City. The slow burn of lovers to enemies to lovers takes time to unfold. I find Sam
a bit wishy washy as to being able to make bold decisions not a true alpha. But the take charge
Lark has enough strength for both.
This was my first time reading K.A. Linde and I really enjoyed it. This was a cute and sexy story with a few feelings thrown in the mix. All my favorite ingredients for a good story. I look forward to more from this author.
I’m giddy as I write this review, because I just finished the book. I was so excited to get back in with the Upper East Side crew of friends, although in this book, the crew is a little fractured. In this story, we get to read Lark’s story, get to know her close and get to see some of the others, a little closer than in the Cruel Money series. And I loved being with them for this little while!
You could say that Lark has more money than she knows what to do with, but real crappy luck with love. Thomas turned out to be a cheat and a scumbag, not that we hadn’t realized that in the previous books. Now Lark is free from the creep but not from her interfering mother Hope St. Vincent, who keeps dropping in to her apartment, unannounced and uninvited, to drop clothes that she had the “initiative” to acquire for her daughter’s social life (she wishes!). The only satisfactory facet of Lark’s life is her life working as one of the managers in Leslie Kensington’s re-election campaign as Mayor of New York city. She feels lonely because her crew is incomplete; Penn is away with his girlfriend Natalie, Rowe and Lewis have new loves so are unavailable. There’s only Katherine who is unhappily married to Camden Percy, and friends from high school out off-crew Anna English and Whitley. It’s like an offshoot of the crew, which is not the same, and she misses her friends.
When an old flame Sam Rutherford suddenly appears in her campaign headquarters as the new lawyer in their legal section, she’s floored. They had a one-year relation, five years ago, and it ended badly. She was broken up for a long time after that and didn’t ever recover. Having Sam nearby, and having to work with him close is a new phase of hell, and she will have to endure. And this is where the fun begins because the chemistry is hot, but they have bad history, there’s lots of work and politics involved in their workplace and there are some other obstacles. Sam has a secret that needs to be disclosed sooner than later.
Apart from Lark’s and Sam’s history, which was riveting, we also get glimpses into the lives of Katherine and Camden, Court Kensington, and Anna English. As secondary characters they are fascinating, and I learned to like Court, who was a screw up but has hidden depths, and also started to like Katherine. As a friend to another crew member she’s all that can be, she’s only bitchy to outsiders. With Lark she’s supportive and caring, and I hurt for her when her husband humiliates her. This is one love story I hope will get it’s chance.
Overall, the story is addictive and riveting, I loved all the characters, loved getting to know Katherine and Court more closely, and loved the couple that Lark and Sam made. I had some concerns about the huge difference in their economical status, but then realized that they didn’t let this affect their relation and that Sam hit perfectly in with her crew of friends. I would totally recommend this book, but would also recommend reading the Cruel Money series to get the full enjoyment out of the story. Loved it!
Larking St Vincent was an Upper East Side princess, raised to inherit and take over the family business. But during college something changed in her, and she decided to change her frivolous way of life and became the deputy campaign manager of the mayor of New York.
Lark is called to meet the new attorney hired for the campaign finance, Sam Rutherford.
Sam and Lark knew each other, they worked together on the presidential campaign in Madison Wisconsin. And Sam is the one that got away, and now they will have to work together. Can she be professional at work? Can she resist him? Can she forgive him?
This is a story of second chances, full of angst and surprises. Lark, Sam and all the other characters in the story, are amazing and complex, they have difficult relationships between them, you can feel their struggle, although you may not relate to their lives.
Loved how the book was written, it gets you needing to know what happens next, and love that it has Lark and Sam’s point of view.
This was my first book of K.A. Linden, really loved it, and now I’m anxiously waiting for the next book of the series.
I received this book as an ARC for an honest review.
4.5 stars
LAAAARK! She has to be my favorite of the “crew”. She seems to be to the most authentic. Obviously she hasn’t always been that way, but life and experience has changed her outlook. She’s a hard worker, something her parents thought she would be putting to use at the family business, but Lark found her calling working as a campaign manager on the upper east side.
Then she runs into a blast from the past. Someone she didn’t see coming. Sam came crashing in and threw Lark on her backside. These two has a past that didn’t end all that great, but Lark has a hard time holding that against him. Where will things go now?
I’ve always had a soft spot for Lark. She cares about others in a way that not many of the crew do. To see her with Sam was a completely new side. The past hurt but these two had a fire to them that is hard to extinguish regardless of what happened. Angsty, second-chance romances are my jam and K.A. Linde brought it as she always does.
I had really high hopes for this book. I love a good political romance and KA Linde has delivered some of the best in the genre with her Record series.
This book is supposed to be a stand alone. However, most of the characters are from Linde’s Cruel series. That series follows a group of friends from the Upper East Side of New York City. There are a whole lot of secondary characters–too many to follow. And if you haven’t read the other series I think it would be hard to keep up. The emphasis on all the secondary characters really takes away from the main story.
I didn’t like the portrayal of people from the Upper East Side in this book (the same comment I had on the Cruel series). Either the characters are stereotyped or people from the Upper East Side are entitled assholes. This group of characters are not inherently likable.
The political storyline is not the main focus of the book. It is more just the backdrop. Sam and Lark are reunited while working with the Mayor of New York on her re-election campaign. They had a brief relationship years before when they worked on another campaign in Wisconsin. There wasn’t a great explanation of why Sam and Lark broke up in the first place. Something about Sam inviting a conniving ex-girlfriend to live with him. Yeah, probably not a good idea.
There’s no time spent developing the characters of Sam or Lark. I didn’t connect with either of them. Once their paths cross again in NYC, there’s really no reason they can’t act on their feelings. Sam’s girlfriend is dispatched almost immediately. Then Lark just seems to be mad at Sam for no good reason.
I was so looking forward to this book and it was just disappointed.