Too Good to Be True

January 4, 2021
Winsome, wealthy Manhattan book editor Skye Starling is confident she’s finally found a man able to look past her occasionally paralyzing OCD, in this Machiavellian drama from Lovering (Tell Me Lies). Ignoring her friends’ pleas to take things slower, Skye instead leaps into the arms of much older, somewhat mysterious financial consultant Burke Michaels. Skye’s mistake becomes clear as the perspective switches from the besotted young woman to that of her beau, whose description in a diary entry of their first meeting on a Montauk beach reveals him to be married and broke. But that’s just a glimpse of the head-spinningly devious plot permutations that emerge as the narration, frequently unreliable, ping-pongs between the couple and a crucial third character, who’s initially introduced in chapters set three decades earlier as Burke’s high school sweetheart. Though the true shape of the main con seems to become apparent about halfway through, a plethora of twists lies ahead. What Lovering doesn’t have are remotely credible—or, for the most part, sympathetic—central characters. Still, psychological thriller fans will keep turning the pages to see what happens next. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit.

Starred review from March 1, 2021
When Burke's marriage therapist advises him to write a journal to get to know himself better, Burke sets to the task eagerly, describing his dwindling feelings for his wife, Heather, and his passion for his new partner, Skye. In the early part of Lovering's novel, those journal entries alternate with narration from the point of view of Heather, before her marriage to Burke. A struggling young woman going nowhere, Heather appears to get on her feet after she takes a nanny job with a well-off family. Everything collapses, however, when Heather meets tragedy, but that's just one in a series of twists that will grip readers as they juggle between multiple points of view and time periods, attempt to make sense of unreliable narrators, and are jolted by explosive turns of events. This firecracker of a novel includes a bonus for many readers: an empathetic look at Skye's life as a sufferer of OCD and how that condition can affect relationships. (Content warning: there is a detailed rape scene.) Lovering (Tell Me Lies, 2018) will leave readers thinking about what they would accept for love and how the most perfect of lives may be a facade. A must for book clubs.

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Starred review from February 15, 2021
The second novel from Lovering more than lives up to the promise of her debut, Tell Me Lies (2018). Skye Starling appears to have it all--an enviable Manhattan apartment, a cool and successful book-editing job, and a pleasantly girly group of longtime friends. Still, her struggles with OCD have been a romantic-relationship deal breaker in the past. So when Skye meets the incredibly handsome Burke Michaels beachside at Montauk, the stage is seemingly set for a fairy-tale love story: Within six months they are engaged--much to the consternation of Skye's BFF, Andie--and Skye is over the moon. But there are multiple clamoring voices in this chilling narrative that suggest all may not be well: We read Burke's diary entries, written at the behest of his marriage counselor--yup, Mr. Perfect-for-Skye already has a wife, a startling fact we learn within the early pages of the book; a former toxic boyfriend of Skye's keeps emailing her creepy and threatening messages; and a decades-earlier narrative by Heather, Burke's wife, confounds the dizzying plotline even further. Lovering, a master of manipulation to rival her own characters, does a skillful job of gradually unspooling her intricate tapestry of psychological intrigue while deftly juggling her multiple narratives. And neatly nested in this tale of just who is deceiving whom is a none-too-gentle critique of our system's rigid social and economic inequities. A nifty cat-and-mouse thriller that doesn't stint when it comes to twists, turns, and "gotcha!" surprises.

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