A teen is forced to make a fresh start after witnessing a
violent crime—but love and danger find her anyway in this novel from Becca
Fitzpatrick, the New York Times bestselling author of the Hush, Hush saga.
Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska,
is not her real home. This is not her real life.
After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to
the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man
she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.
But Stella was about to start her senior year with the
boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows
and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection
and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why
be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her
guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.
As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life
increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks…
Admittedly, I requested to review this book based on
Fitzpatrick’s name alone. It’s not just because she wrote one of my favourite
series – Hush, Hush. It’s also because she impressed me last year with her standalone
release, Black Ice, a departure from the paranormal world she had inhabited.
Having enjoyed that, I had no hesitation in reading her latest.
Dangerous Lies follows sixteen year-old “Stella” who has
been placed into Witness Protection after agreeing to testify against the
perpetrator of a heinous crime she witnessed in her own home. She’s uprooted
from her hometown of Philadelphia and taken to Thunder Basin, Nebraska, where
she’ll stay for the summer until the case is set to go to trial. This small
town is far-removed from her former life. She’s annoyed to be left in the care
of a retired cop, Carmina, who actually has the gall to set boundaries and
curfews for her, something she’s never had to deal with from her own strung-out,
ineffective mother. The only thing that could be a bright side in this middle-of-nowhere
town is local hottie, Chet Falconer. The two get along well and Stella has to
quell her attraction to him by reminding herself that she does have a boyfriend
waiting somewhere out there with whom she hopes to be reunited soon. Carmina warns Stella to stay
away from Chet but of course, she doesn’t listen. In fact, Stella spends quite a
bit of time at the beginning looking down her nose at people, putting her arrogance on full display and defying
Carmina. You can well imagine what sort of stupidity that can lead to.
As I read Dangerous Lies, I challenged myself
to gather the clues and put the pieces together before Fitzpatrick’s final
unveiling of the truth. She set a nice pace and surprised me with some diversions and twists I didn’t
see coming. That's the point, right? Fitzpatrick also gives Stella a strong personality with a voice that expresses her disdain for her current situation. When you first meet her, she's just oozing hostility. And although she's in a new setting, Stella's terrifying nightmares still accompany her along with the guilt over her mother's condition. I was happy to see Stella eventually change her tune as she gets accustomed
to Thunder Basin and the locals. Everything in this temporary home has given her a new perspective on what her life was like in Philly and what she has gained in the time she's been here.
I enjoyed Dangerous Lies and how our heroine went from feeling invincible to realizing that she can allow herself to count on people who care about her. Turns out Thunder Basin is a good place after all!
~ Bel
No comments:
Post a Comment