Devious Lies

This book hit a lot of likes for me. Age gap, bad boy, alpha. All of the above. I also love when they don’t fall in love right from the beginning. Nash and Emery were perfect for each other. In the beginning I was pulling for her and Reed but one night changed how I felt about her and Nash. It also changed for her too. Great read!
I wrote this review based on an advance reading copy that the publisher sent me.

5+ STARS for Beautiful Words, Starless Skies and Fate!

One of my Top Reads for 2019!!! There were so many things I loved about this story. I could not get enough of Nash or Emery. It was beautifully written with amazing insights and words so moving that I didn’t want it to end!!!

Emery was a girl that was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her family had more money than they would ever need in several lifetimes. She grew up with her best friend and his family that worked around her family’s estate. Then corruption tore her family apart and left her completely broke in more ways than one.

She’s been struggling to keep her head above water all on her own. She’s estranged from both her parents. Her best friend offers to get her a job working for his brother….the brother with whom she shares a past that she’d rather forget. Queue the sparks!!! Sexual tension will be sizzling right off the page.

First…I have a girl crush on Emery. She is quirky and a total bada$$! She has no problem standing up for herself. She is self-sacrificing to a fault and loves big. I adored her. She has a brilliant mind and an incredible love for words. The girl can banter like the tiger that she is. And her pride, well she is not backing down…EVER!

Nash is a total DICK and I loved everything thing about him. He was filter-less and uninhibited when it came to telling people the truth. He was also incredibly intelligent and driven. He came from nothing and built his own empire. The man is beyond generous with his time and his money, but uses it as penance for the sins he needs to make right.

This was a favorite read of 2019! The writing was perfect! And YES…I can use that work in this instance because it totally applies. I wanted to devour the story because I needed to know how it ended but I wanted to slow it down because I did not want it to be over. These characters were everything that makes for a great story. The suspense and lies will keep you wondering. The chemistry will leave you hot and bothered! The love will make you swoon and and wish for a Nash of your very own.

Recommended reading for anyone who loves a strong alpha, a bit of suspense, witty banter, a slow burn with incredible chemistry and characters you’ll never forget!

I seriously LOVE Parker S. Huntington’s writing. Period. As soon as I got my greedy little hands on this book, I knew I needed to go somewhere quiet so I just sit and get absorbed into the story. It’s the kind of writing that just flows so effortlessly, moving forward at an alarming rate. Case in point: this is probably the longest book I’ve read all year, and I still devoured it like it was nothing. The story is intense, gripping, and addictive with characters that walk a fine line of likability at times but still leave you wanting more. It’s an enemies to lovers romance that spans several years, and undoubtedly one of the best books I’ve read in 2019.

While I won’t sharing too many details about the plot – it’s better if you let it all unravel naturally – I can tell you that the story follows Emery and Nash, starting back when Emery was 15 and Nash 25. Emery comes from a wealthy family and lived in a gilded cage for most of her life, crushing on Nash’s brother while being his friend. Nash is the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, moody, broody, and jaded from a young age. He sees the love that Emery has for his brother, and assumes that someday things will work out for them. What he doesn’t expect is for Emery to sneak into his room at night and unknowingly alter the relationship between the three of them in a major way. There’s no going back from that night, so Emery and Nash’s already strained relationship winds up in tatters. Fast-forward a few years and they’re reunited, only the tables have turned and the dynamics have once again shifted.

This is absolutely engrossing with a complex, slightly twisted relationship that goes through so many changes throughout the course of the book. The chemistry was sizzling, the tension almost unbearable, and the emotion easy to feel. Don’t start this one unless you intend to get sucked in for hours, because this is one book you won’t be able to put down. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC via Social Butterfly PR (then purchased it for my collection), and am voluntarily leaving a review of this gripping, emotional romance.

Devious Lies is so much more than a hot book cover (and this cover is smoking hot!) This story has everything I look for in an angsty romance with an added bonus of a age gap romance (Nash is 32 and Emery is 22), a best friend’s brother romance, and a enemies to lovers romance. This story owned me, kept me up all night, and left me with a massive book hangover and a new favorite author.

Lies is a major plot point to this story. The lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves to justify those lies. But in a small town full of liars and thieves, Emery Winthrop is the most closed and untrusting of them all. She is such a unique character that doesn’t fit into any mold. She’s lived in privilege but has a soft heart hidden behind a quirky personality and unique eyes. She’s a fighter where it counts, passive aggressive with some but definitely holds her own with Nash. Their fights are a battle of wills and is so angsty, deliciously good!

Nash Prescott is a bitter, ruthless man with a score to settle. I wanted to hate him and the nasty way he treated Emery, but there was something in the way the author described this character that made me love him even at his worst. I loved how easily he accepted Emery’s quirkiness and even indulged the little things like her love for strange words. These two are the best part of this book and I will miss them dearly, hence the book hangover that hasn’t left me since I finished this story.

Devious Lies is a brilliant slow-burning, quick-witted, sinfully sexy, ingeniously cunning storyline, that will blow you away!
Simply put it’s sensational, a literary work of art!
Now hold on to your seats because Parker is going to take you on a ride of a lifetime!! Yes!
You will be teetering on the edge of sanity for a short time. Maybe even planning Nash Prescott’s demise and then in your next breath, you’re basically wishing for him to come to life in human form. So you could bear his children, have over the top sex with him, and then fight with him.
Oh, dear God, he’s one character I would die for!!!
Plus I’m a sucker for the ruthless banter!

Wow!!! This book is just amazing!!! I don’t even know how to put it in to words just how good Devious Lies is!!

The main characters in this enemies to lovers story are Nash and Emery…..these two are everything!! Nash grew up poor, one of the sons who’s parents worked for Emery’s parents. She is best friends with his 10 years younger brother. Life chances for them and their roles are reversed. Nash wants nothing more than to break her for a wrong he thinks she did.

This story is part heartbreaking and funny, a bit twisted and hot AF. The way Parker S. Huntington wove this story together was brilliant and Nash, as bad as he may have kinda been, was oh so swoony. Best HEA ever!!!

For some insane reason, this is my first read from Parker and I am mentally slapping myself for it. I will definitely be picking her books up in the future.

This slow burn, enemies to lovers romance gave me all the feels. The angst was off the charts. The chemistry was scorching. The alpha-hole attitude was on point.

I loved everything about this book. Nash is definitely drool worthy.

Overall Grade: +

This is a warning. I’m going to spew forth love and adoration for Parker S. Huntington and her newest book, Devious Lies. There is nothing unbiased here whatsoever because I fell. In. Deep. with this book. This is the first book I’ve read by Huntington, but, given the beauty of the storytelling, it will most definitely not be the last.

So why? What is it about Devious Lies that makes it a formidable and decisive read? Why do I pledge my undying love to it? In a word: smart. This book is my favorite type of storytelling. At the most basic level, it embodies the enemies-to-lovers trope which happens to be my romance of choice. I read all types of romantic tropes, and I’m a sucker for most of them. Yet, this trope particularly curls my toes and attaches to my soul in a way that other tropes can’t compare. With this trope comes a hero who is borderline sociopathic. They feel compelled to destroy the person who has wronged them, usually the heroine. It’s in these moments of destruction that the true pain of the hero is revealed, and as a reader, you can’t help but revel in those moments. For an emotional masochist like me, it’s these provocative, gut-wrenching moments where the magic of an enemies-to-lovers story exists. It’s a gut check to your stomach and your heart, and this is where you empathize with the heroine and fall deeply into the story. And this is entirely true with Huntington’s Devious Lies. From its start, Emery becomes your emotional barometer.

Devious Lies boasts more than one bully. And as every brilliant enemies-to-lovers story does, these bullies wreak havoc on the heroine. It’s here that you fall down the emotional rabbit hole. Every moment with Emery in this story is heavy, but we find her wrapped in a warrior veneer. She’s bullied by her mother, by her “uncle,” by a peer, and eventually by Nash, the “hero” of Devious Lies. Then, later, she’s bullied by her boss, Charmaine. Yet, in the face of these people who judge her and seek to exact emotional torture on her, she stands in her truth. She’s powerful; she knows her mind and her spirit. There is both a simplicity and a complexity to her, and it’s why I fell for her. She’s quirky and spirited and beautiful. She stands for justice and willingly self-sacrifices to right the wrongs of the story even when it feels futile. Huntington personifies her as a goddess, and it is truth. She is probably one of my favorite heroines to date because she makes no excuses for herself, and she willingly embraces the underdog to fight for justice.

With a heroine this powerful, it was imperative that Huntington carve out a worthy adversary. She completes this with such purpose that Nash, even in his moments of pure bullishness, feels as necessary to the story as Emery. Nash is a contradiction, a complexity. On the one hand, Nash and Emery are the same. Huntington illustrates it best when she places these words in Nash’s mind: “She [Emery] reminded me of an active minefield. Volatile. Dangerous. A liability to herself. Because when a mine exploded, it’d take her down with it.” While he’s using these to describe the volatility of Emery’s persona, this is also him. He is all of these, at least to Emery. Yet, while they are so similar in their approach to love and each other, he is more dangerous than Emery because he doesn’t read situations or people well. He misreads Emery and her father through much of the story. He’s an illiterate due to his own filter in his reading of her. He’s a narcissist before he is anything else. This makes him dangerous to her, and Huntington carefully formulates him to become like her father, the very being he detests. This is ingenious because it shows his fallibility. Through his reticent pure attraction to her as his driving force, he becomes more literate and eventually reads her better than everyone (save for her father). It’s all of these contradictions engendered in this explosive hero that drives you deeper into Huntington’s story. It feels imperative to your soul that he recognizes his incongruities and rectifies the story. When this moment hits in the story, it’s the single most tender moment of Huntington’s romance, and it’s Nash’s undoing. The Nash after this moment is nothing compared to the Nash before it. In other words, Huntington generously offers us two Nashs for consumption, a gift to the reader.

“She believed in words, and magic, and storms. In fighting back, going down hard, never giving up. In blind loyalty, jumping first, dealing with consequences later. She was awful. She infuriated me. She drove me [f’ing] crazy.”

Beyond her characters, what endeared me to Parker S. Huntington’s romance is her style. As a professor of writing, prose and style cause me to “geek out” in the realm of writing. I have a handful of romance writers who I adore simply for their ability to put words on the page while imagining worlds for their readers. Huntington just stole a spot on that list. Because she was new to me, I didn’t realize the power of her storytelling. She pummels you moment after moment, drowning her readers deliciously in overwhelming feels. When you start to normalize, she crafts a wave of emotions to pull you into her story. It’s the best torment of feelings. Her language choices, her allusions to mythology, and her imagery throughout Devious Lies conspire to make you a prisoner to her story. Once I began this book, I couldn’t put it down, and it’s lengthy. She details Emery and Nash to make concrete for her reader the emotional journey towards their happy ending. It never feels staid or overproduced. Every detail and moment find purchase within their story. I simply didn’t want to rush this book, but I was compelled forward to the end as a respite from their struggles. And in the end, the reward is a magical epilogue that quenches your final thirst for Emery and Nash.

I think Parker S. Huntington says it best here: “Falling in love with you is like diving blindly into a book, not knowing it’s destined to be my favorite. Whatever’s more than love, I feel it for you. I am only ever going to be in love with you.” Devious Lies is one of those favorite books that you cannot know until you read it that it will become so. I simply didn’t know of the genius that is Parker S. Huntington until I read this tome. Now, I can’t unsee her specialness, and I hope as I continue to read that I am afforded the opportunity to drink in the nectar that she offers through her books.

This Is a really great book. It has everything you want in a book. The dominant alpha male the feisty heroine drama conflict revenge and steamy scenes. I highly recommend this story.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This book was AMAZING! It is one of the best books I have read this year. It takes you on an insane ride and by the end you have no idea what is actually going to happen. You don’t know what is going to happen until it does but even then it still keeps you guessing. This book breaks you apart and puts you back together better then ever. It is a must read book!

I have received a free copy of this book for an honest review