Too Good to Be True by Carola Lovering

 

Too Good to Be True by Carola Lovering
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sorry for being away for awhile! It's been a long time since I've done a book review. I've had a really crazy couple of weeks- or months, really- we just moved from Hawaii back to New Mexico. We lived in a hotel for a couple of days, then left on Tuesday night, arrived here mid-day Wednesday, and we are quarantining with my mother-in-law for the time being. Even though we haven't gotten to see much of our family yet, it was still nice to spend Christmas with someone. Jared ETS'd from the Army, he'll be starting school in January, and the biggest news of all is that we are expecting baby #2 in May! We hope to be moved into a place- hopefully our own house- by then.

Synopsis:

Skye Starling is overjoyed when her boyfriend, Burke Michaels, proposes after a whirlwind courtship. Though Skye seems to have the world at her fingertips—she's smart, beautiful, and from a well-off family—she's also battled crippling OCD ever since her mother's death when she was eleven, and her romantic relationships have suffered as a result.

But now Burke—handsome, older, and more emotionally mature than any man she's met before—says he wants her. Forever. Except, Burke isn't who he claims to be. And interspersed letters to his therapist reveal the truth: he's happily married, and using Skye for his own, deceptive ends.

In a third perspective, set thirty years earlier, a scrappy seventeen-year-old named Heather is determined to end things with Burke, a local bad boy. Inspired by the sophisticated mother of her babysitting charges, Heather vows to leave her impoverished hometown behind and make a better life for herself in New York City. But can her adolescent love stay firmly in her past—or will he find his way into her future?

On a collision course she doesn't see coming, Skye throws herself into wedding planning, as Burke's scheme grows ever more twisted. Meanwhile, three decades in the past, Heather's longed-for transformation finally seems within reach. But of course, even the best laid plans can go astray. And just when you think you know where this story is going, you'll discover that there's more than one way to spin the truth.

My Feelings/Reactions:

I was extremely impressed with the twists within this story! Alternating between present (Skye and Burke are deeply in love) and past (Heather is dating a bad boy named Burke), we can assume that Burke is up to absolutely no good with Skye, and we’d be right. 

But, we’d also have totally wrong assumptions about why or what will happen next. 

I was slightly disappointed with the end of the story, but since it’s a spoiler I won’t include it here! All I can say is don’t get burned twice- and that I was really frustrated with Skye at the end of the book.  

Excerpts: 

Favorite Quotes:

Gold diggers aren't vacuous; they work hard for the life they get.

But the irony in unbearable things is that they actually are bearable. They force you to endure what you cannot comprehend enduring. They demand that you sit in unimaginable pain.

Skye probably isn't crazier than anyone else in this madhouse of a world, and she's too crippled by her own insecurity to realize that. 

She was rich and beautiful and educated and articulate, but she was also silly and humble and open as the ocean. 

But the truth is... you never really know. You hope for the best, but when you commit to a marriage, it's always a risk. You can never truly predict what's going to happen when you take two people and tie them together and blindly throw them out into the great big world. 

Spoilers:

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Oh! No spoilers today! This book will be published in March 2021, so I will update after that date!

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