I’m a terrible liar. Put me on the spot and I cave instantly. I could never have been a spy as I’d be blubbing and sobbing my secrets at the first thought of interrogation. Not so long ago, I took part in one of those lazy evenings-with-wine when the topic of conversation veered to truth-telling, and how lying was dishonest. Well yes it is, but there are times when it’s necessary, and I don’t just mean the brave wartime secret agents.
When your friend (who has low self-esteem at the best of times) asks if a terrible haircut suits her, it’s kinder to bend the truth a little. When your young child accidentally breaks your favourite mug and is in tears, telling him / her it’s not important is better than making them even more upset. Another friend has a husband who is brutally honest with her. If they’re going out and she asks if her dress suits her, he’ll cut to the quick. “It’s too tight.” If he ever does drop a compliment into conversation she at least knows it’s genuine, but I’m not sure I could cope with that level of brutal honesty.
In Obsession, Josh Delaney lies as fluently and easily as breathing, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain his façade with Suki. In the extract below, Josh is talking to Suki about a house that seems disturbingly familiar to him:
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“So you think you know this house from somewhere?”
“Yeah, I can’t explain it. It just feels like I’ve been there before, even though I don’t remember coming here.”
“Maybe you came on holiday as a child.” She turned to give me a brilliant smile. “Why don’t you just ask your sisters? They might remember.”
Ah, yes. I’d invented three sisters. “They’re all younger. If I don’t remember it, they won’t.”
“Your parents, then. Ask them.”
What could I say? I never knew them. I’d been abandoned as a baby, or so I’d been told. One of the older kids fostered with me had told me, with great relish, how my mother had been a whore and my father had murdered her, then run away leaving me behind. I couldn’t tell Suki that. When asked, I usually opted for vague references to them being abroad, but compounding my lies with even more lies had started to weigh on me. I changed the subject instead.
*
So where do you stand on the nothing-but-the-truth debate? Would you lie to save a friend’s embarrassment? Or was there a time you wish someone had lied to you? Leave me a comment and you’ll go into a draw to win a copy of Obsession.
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Josh Delaney is the ideal honey trap.
His charm and model good looks would be enough for most women, but coupled with his psychic ability to read their thoughts, he’s impossible to resist. Suspicious husbands employ him to test their wives, to see if they can be tempted to stray.
High profile couple Suki and Gabe Bridgewater have the perfect marriage, or at least, that’s the image they portray to the world. Behind closed doors, Gabe’s dominance in the marriage is unravelling and he decides to test Suki, using Josh as bait.
For Josh it should be just another easy job, but two things go horribly wrong.
One, Josh falls in love with Suki.
And two, Gabe refuses to let her go.
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Blog tours are fun to take part in, these are my stops:
- 12 June – Layne Macadam
- 13 June – Laura Kaye
- 14 June – Lissa Matthews
- 15 June – Cover Reveals website
- 16 June – Ella Frank
- 17 June – Allyson Lindt
- 18 June – Parker Kincade
- 20 June – Trish McCallan
- 21 June – Tina Carreiro
- 23 June – Silken Sheets & Seduction
- 26 June – Sotia Lazu
- 29 June – Love Lust & Laptops
About Author
Romance author Sofia Grey spends her days managing projects in the corporate world and her nights hanging out with wolf shifters and alpha males. She devours pretty much anything in the fiction line, but she prefers her romances to be hot, and her heroes to have hidden depths. When writing, she enjoys peeling back the layers to expose her characters’ flaws and always makes them work hard for their happy endings.
Find her at: www.sofiagrey.com and on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sofiagrey1, or on Twitter @SofiaGreyAuthor
* images courtesy of 123rf.com
