Review: The Lie by Karina Halle (The McGregors #4)
"And how can we move on if we're back to square one?"
"Because this isn't square one," I tell her, gently running my fingers under her chin. "This isn't going backward. This is going forward. We get to start again. Now. From scratch."
She closes her eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath. Then she shakes her head. "That's easy for you to say, Brigs," she says sadly, moving away from me, "when I'm feeling everything for you that I felt before."
The Lie is the fourth full-length novel and the fifth release in The McGregors, a contemporary romance series that follows a group of cousins by bestselling author Karina Halle. I've read all the books in the series, and this latest one, in my humble opinion, is the best of the lot. It deals with the always controversial subject of marital infidelity, but it does so in a way that I didn't expect, combining it with one of my favorite tropes--a second-chance romance. Brigs McGregor was introduced to readers in the third novel, The Play, and while we get snippets of his story there and in the novella that follows it, Winter Wishes, knowing the extent of his loss and what led to it in the prologue of The Lie makes for a heartbreaking opening. But along with the deaths of his wife and young son, the book is about a love that he found at what some may deem as the wrong time, but it's the kind of love that changes his life and that of Natasha Trudeau, the woman who came along and became the catalyst for all the changes in Brigs's life.
The offer to teach at a prestigious university in London becomes the opportunity for Professor Brigs McGregor to move forward with his life. It's been four years since he lost his wife and son to a car accident and those four years had him hitting the lowest of lows. But it wasn't just his wife and son that he's been grieving for all this time. The guilt and bereavement weighing upon him led to his pushing away the only woman he's ever truly wanted and needed--Natasha Trudeau. I don't want to go into too much detail about what happened, but suffice it to say that when Brigs and Tasha met in Edinburgh, he was very much married and had a family waiting for him at home. When Brigs's wife and son were killed in the accident, the aftereffects were long-reaching, affecting Natasha as well. It takes four years before they see each other again in London and it's clear that Brigs and Natasha still affect one another in ways no one else ever could. But with everything that happened four years ago, can they possibly contemplate a future together?
This was such an intense and emotional story, and your heart goes out to both Brigs and Natasha. Sure, some may say that those four years apart were punishment for what they did, but it's only fair to look at the entire picture and not just the moment were all their lives imploded. Did they make mistakes? Yes, they did, and I'm not excusing the fact that they fell in love and had a relationship while Brigs was still married, but who are we to say that when the self-flagellation is enough? Does the cheating take away from the story? No, because it's part and parcel of the love story of Brigs and Natasha, as wrong as it may be. The story doesn't play out the way you would expect, and that's what I love most about it. It's a love story that's also about redemption and knowing how to embrace the second chance fate gives us. I've read a lot of Karina Halle's books (the entire Experiment in Terror series, the Artists trilogy, and the Devils duology, plus the rest of The McGregors), but The Lie is hands down, her best work so far. Five-plus stars. ♥
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Read my reviews for The McGregors series:
The Pact (book one) - four stars - My Review
The Offer (book two) - four stars - My Review
The Play (book three) - five stars - My Review
Winter Wishes (book 3.5) - four stars - My Review
The Lie (book four) - five-plus stars - My Review (posted above)
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Date Read: 16 February 2016
Learn more about Karina Halle.
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