Review: Ink & Lies by S.L. Jennings
Note: This ARC was provided by TRSoR Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
I once told myself that I wanted to write something that made Fi fall in love. And now that I see that it wasn't the words I wanted her to hold so dearly that she couldn't help but weep as she read. I wanted to write something to make Fiona fall in love with me. Not my pretty words or my pretty face or any of the other inconsequential bullshit I had deemed important. I just wanted her to love me, her Rhys.
I've read my fair share of books told from the perspective of the male main character, but I think this was the first time it felt so damn honest. You get the good, bad, and the ugly with August Rhys Calloway (yes, his initials spell out "ARC"...love it!), and it isn't limited to the thoughts tumbling around in his head or in the feelings he sometimes keeps on lockdown for far longer than can be considered healthy. It's in the words he jots down in his Moleskine notebook and types on his mean machine and the love stories he weaves out of nowhere when his Fi points out a couple she notices. August may be every bit the man who doesn't date and merely spends time with the women he's interested in taking to his bed, but there's also more to him than that, and it's those hidden somethings that those closest to him--his beloved grandfather, nicknamed the Colonel, who opened his eyes to the wondrous world of books and his best friend, Fiona Shaw, who has been August's Fi for over a decade--wishes he would embrace and own up to.
August's story, one where Fiona plays a prominent part, is told in Ink & Lies, a standalone contemporary romance novel from bestselling author S.L. Jennings and a book that I can easily declare as one of the very best that I've read this year, and yes, I know it's only February. August is a writer and while he's only had one title that he's published on his own, he's a bestselling romance author who has quite a following...except only four people know this fact. Why? He writes his romance novels under the pseudonym Hope Hughes and he has no immediate plans to let the rest of the world know that Hope doesn't actually exist and that the person behind the name is actually a man. While he's able to give his readers love stories that keep them flipping from one page to the next and has them swooning, August isn't a hopeless romantic nor is he a believer in real life happily-ever-afters. Nope, August is a realist, but he enjoys being able to write stories any reader can fall in love with...stories Fiona could fall in love with.
The book doesn't play out in a way that I would have ever expected, and that is just one of the reasons that this is such a standout read. There are moments that I felt the urge to knock both August and Fiona's heads together, blind as they were to the fact that they were perfect for one another. For someone with a degree in Literature and the other a degree in English, you would think that these two would do a better job communicating, but while they share their fears and secrets, their highs and lows, it's almost as if they fail to recognize what's right in front of them until it's gone. I think, however, that Fiona was a bit more aware than August and she was either merely waiting for him to come to his senses or she had given up hope that they would ever be more than best friends. These two made me laugh (there was one particular point that I couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes), but they also broke my heart with their stubbornness over and over again. At times, though, you need to get through the heartache before getting to your HEA.
I pre-ordered Ink & Lies even though I had the advanced reading copy supplied for the blog tour and I put in my order even before I actually read the ARC. I put my faith in the synopsis, on my one S.L. Jennings reading experience (with Fear of Falling), and on a review posted on Goodreads from a trusted fellow reviewer and blogger, and I'm happy to say that that faith paid off tenfold. I absolutely loved this book and every single thing it offered me. This was August's story to share and we see him stumble and fall back on bad behaviors, but ultimately, we see him grow and evolve in order to become the person who knows how it feels to have loved and lost but also learned a few things along the way. We meet August and Fiona and we fall in love with them, but we also meet Rhys and Fi--the two people who were unabashedly real in each other's presence. And can I just say that the epilogue made me pause and I wondered...but I'll keep that to myself because I'm encouraging you to read Ink & Lies, so let's try to keep this spoiler-free. Five-plus stars. ♥
Date Read: 10 February 2016
Learn more about S.L. Jennings.
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