~*★Review★*~ Lie to You (Forbidden Trilogy #2) by J.C. Valentine

Title: Lie to You

Author: J.C. Valentine

Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Erotica 

Series or Standalone: Series/Trilogy (Forbidden Trilogy #2)

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Reviewer: Melyssa

First things first, Lie to You is the second book in the Forbidden Trilogy, which means you can’t move forward with this one until you’ve gone back and read the first book, Dance For Me.

Got that out of the way? Alright then. On with the review. I’m gonna do my best to leave it spoiler free so that you all can experience the enjoyment of getting into a book that might be up your alley, but without having the entire thing given away.

At the end of Dance For Me, there’s a pretty big bombshell dropped on the female lead, Josephine (Joe for the purpose of this review) and this book picks up where the last one left off…in the aftermath.

Again, because this is a trilogy, this one doesn’t end clean either. It’s another cliff-hanger that will bring you into the final book, but one that was quite a bit less shocking than the first one you experience at the end of the first book. But since the third book will be released soon enough, if you’re a fan of waiting for all three books to be out before reading because of the cliff-hanger dilemma, you won’t have to wait long. Answers, final ones at that, are coming.

By now you know there are two of them. Ransom and Rebel, both of them sharing the same face, and a lot of the same characteristics at their most basic, but yet so very different at the same time. Joe, having been with both, is confused, lost and unsure about everything when we pick up with her again and with what she’s been through she has every reason to be. I connected to her again in this book because of that.

I’m not entirely sure I would have done the same things she does in this story, taken the same roads, but I did understand why she did. This isn’t exactly your garden variety romantic situation. It calls for missteps, screw ups, misunderstandings and a whole lot of confusion and all of that and more happens here.

I went into this hating Rebel. I was a Ransom girl…I mean, I’ve got a thing for the sweeter guy. Add in the fact that he was a professor (which means he’s smart) and good lord. The way he was with her, in this book and the one previous made him the clear winner for me…At first. But of course, I’m not Joe. And honestly, by the end of this story, I was #TeamRebel myself. So thanks author lady…you made me as all over the place as your character.

As with every J.C. Valentine book, the love scenes were off the chart. While it’s definitely not the first thing I look for in a read, I do notice when they’re written well, when they’re hot and I don’t feel the need to skim over them. (Yeah I’ll skim if it’s ridiculous….sue me). I didn’t do any of that here and was just as gripped by those scenes as I was with the story taking place around it. So for you steam lovers, you get that in spades here.

Pacing was fast, just like the first one, but not in a way that you missed anything while you were reading. Everything there had its place, furthered the story along to its inevitable end and kept me firmly planted the entire time. Again I quote my earlier statement while reading because it bears repeating. “Holy book devour, batman.” It read that easy. So for those of you looking for a fast paced steam driven yet romantic read, this is it.

What took me off guard in this book (and in the third as you’ll see when I review it) was the humor laced throughout. There were moments while reading where I felt bad that I was laughing so much. I mean surely, it wasn’t her intent to write a comedy, but yet here I was laughing. Sarcastic comments, looks the characters would give, actual funny statements made, I mean it all came together and I couldn’t help myself. It was such a nice touch given the situation they all found themselves in. If I needed something to hook me in (I didn’t), this would have done it for sure, which is why J.C. Valentine will always be an auto-buy author for me. I can’t get enough.

For anyone that’s not a fan of mild love triangles (there is one in this for a time), this might not be your thing, but if like I said before fast paced humorous books, with kinky fuckery and steam, along with romance are your thing then this is definitely a trilogy you have to pick up. Hopefully you’ll feel the same way I do by the time you’re done.

Completely and utterly hooked…and also #TeamRebel <3