Loving Lies

Penelope Neri

3.61 · Rating details · 23 ratings · 1 review

United By Ecstasy
Rugged Joel McCaleb would do anything to get some property of his own—even if it meant faking his identity and marrying a woman he'd never before seen. But when the gambling cowboy met his intended, raven-haired Seraphina Jones, suddenly it was more important to possess every luscious inch of her than to claim his vast California spread. Her creamy sil ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 528 pages

Published June 1st 1987 by Zebra

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Jun 24, 2020 Blue Falcon rated it it was ok

Shelves: tbr-master-list

This review is of “Loving Lies”, the sequel to “Passion’s Betrayal” by Penelope Neri.

The book starts at the Boston Academy for Young Ladies. It is here that Katie Steele, the heroine of the book, has two issues to address: Her parents-and his-want her to marry her longtime friend Chuck Bushley, but he’s in love with another woman, Seraphina Jones,; and two, Seraphina’s father, William McCaleb, has passed away and she needs to go to San Francisco to hear about his will. The three come up with a p This review is of “Loving Lies”, the sequel to “Passion’s Betrayal” by Penelope Neri.

The book starts at the Boston Academy for Young Ladies. It is here that Katie Steele, the heroine of the book, has two issues to address: Her parents-and his-want her to marry her longtime friend Chuck Bushley, but he’s in love with another woman, Seraphina Jones,; and two, Seraphina’s father, William McCaleb, has passed away and she needs to go to San Francisco to hear about his will. The three come up with a plan to allow Seraphina and Chuck to be together, but it will require an elaborate ruse.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Joe Christmas, the hero of the book, is surviving a tough life, a natural disaster, and a shipwreck. There was one other survivor, a man named Joel McCaleb, William’s grandson. The younger McCaleb dies, however, from injuries sustained in the shipwreck. Before he passes, he asks Joe to become him and go to San Francisco to claim Joel’s inheritance.
Thus, a series of lies begins. “Joel” arrives in San Francisco, to discover that he won’t inherit anything unless he marries Seraphina. Not wishing to marry, he comes up with another plan: get married briefly, inherit, liquidate the assets, and go their separate ways. “Seraphina”, who is Katie, comes up with the same plan.

“Seraphina” and “Joel” meet, make love, argue, marry, and head to Los Angeles to a ranch “they” now co-own, where they face trouble from their neighbor, Harper Monroe, and his sons, who have forced out all the other ranchers in their area, and now want to force out “Seraphina” and “Joel”. Val Monroe, one of Harper’s sons, finds out Katie’s true identity and uses the information to blackmail her into leaving “Joel”.

After Katie returns home and speaks with her parents-btw, she’s pregnant-she decides to return to California and “Joel”. Good thing, because he’s decided to take on the Monroe gang, and he could use her help. In the end, the Monroes are put out of business, “Seraphina” and “Joel” tell each other the truth, and a shocking twist occurs. Katie and Joe marry, and have their Happily Ever After.

Upside: The ending of the book. It is here that the twist in the tail occurs, and Katie and Joe are finally honest with each other.

Downside: Unfortunately, in order to get to the end, one has to go through 400+ pages of less-than-special stuff. Ms. Neri pays more attention to the scenery, the environment, the clothing, than she does really anything else here.

The main storyline is illogical and preposterous. I’m not objecting to the fact that Katie and Joe lied to each other for months-or the lame attempts to justify the lying-what I’m objecting to is the fact that the story was boring as hell. Whenever I read Ms. Neri’s work-”Loving Lies” is the third or fourth book of hers I’ve read and reviewed here-I get the feeling that she believed that readers are supposed to care about her characters just because she wrote them, and she doesn’t need to do any work to make her readers care about her characters. Caring about the characters, however, is very important to me. If I’m going to invest my time and hard-earned money on your books, I want to care about the people I’m reading about, not simply view them as words on a page or screen. Ms. Neri never made me care about Katie or Joe. Ms. Neri believes readers are supposed to care about Joe because he had a rough childhood and about Katie because she’s being pressured-however subtly-by her parents to marry her best friend. It’s not enough for me.

Sex: One thing Ms. Neri does do well is her love scenes. They’re multi-page and are fairly hot, if not entirely creative.

Violence: Assault, battery, shootings, and off-screen killings. The assault and battery scenes are mildly graphic.

Bottom Line: I never go into reading a Penelope Neri book with high expectations. She didn’t let me down with “Loving Lies”.
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