Review: The Truth in Lies (The Truth in Lies Saga #1) by Jeanne McDonald

by Sarah Reads - 7:00 PM

Life is a sequence of choices. Some are deliberate, others are forced upon you. This was a lesson that McKenzie Evans knew all too well. After the miscarriage of her son, she made the hard decision to leave her absentee boyfriend and move in with her former college roommate, Olivia Hamilton. That's when she was introduced to Andrew Wise, a brilliant attorney, working for his family's law firm in Sarasota, Florida.

To McKenzie, Drew became her salvation. He had a way of understanding her when no one else could. The closer they became, the more McKenzie found herself falling in love with Drew. He was everything she ever dreamed of in a man, and for the first time in her life, she felt truly alive. There was only one problem. Drew was dating Olivia.

With the help of fate and circumstance, Drew and McKenzie journey down a path of unrequited love and denied feelings. In the end, they must make a choice between their hearts or their consciences. In this one decision they discover that there's always a glimmer of truth to a lie, that there's a fine line between love and friendship, and sometimes you have to risk everything to gain everything.

An unexpected melody arose through the air. There was no one orchestrating the rhythm, yet it flowed as if someone had spent countless hours writing a masterpiece. This gave a whole new meaning to marching to the beat of your own drum.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled with electricity. My eyes shift up to Drew who was standing behind me. His attention was focused strictly on me. I opened my mouth to speak but he touched his fingers to my lips and wordlessly directed me back to the crowd.

My breathing became deeper as the drum started to pick up speed. Women moved away from the group and started to dance near the water. They were free from conformity. They allowed themselves to be lost in the music with not a care in the world. I was mesmerized by the way their bodies moved. These were women that in normal walks of life might me overlooked. But here on the water’s edge they became sensual and sexy as they danced to the beat of the music.

I closed my eyes as the heat of the day disintegrated into the sunset, and let the rhythm gradually overtake me. The pulsating sound had a power in which no one was able to deny. It was provocative with an emotional depth that reached the soul. The pitches were both low and high, as if two lovers were talking to one another.

My body started to swing to the beat. Energy pulsed all around me. Carried away by the thrum of the drums, my arms lifted to their own freewill above my head. The sway of my arms moved down my hips.

Even though I had always loved to dance, I wasn’t thinking about dance steps. That’s not what the beat was about. It was about freedom.

Flinging my head forward, my hair flew around my face in the soft wind. I push my blond locks back from my face. Bending my knees, my body dropped close enough to the ground that I could touch the soft granular sand. I moved back up, as my shoulders rolled and my hips moved languidly from side to side. All logic thought had ceased to exist. I was one with the music.

The air grew cooler as the dark clouds took over the sky. My hands roamed over my own body, feeling the vibrations pulsate inside me. As they reached the top of my legs, I gripped my dress in one hand and started swishing it gingerly, exposing my thighs. Tiny drops of water began to falling from the clouds, adding its own personal beat to the music that had invaded its territory.

I continued to move with the heady thrum set by the drummers. The rain ran down my body causing my dress to stick to me. It chilled my skin making my flesh goose bump. I felt empowered and even sexy as the material conformed to my body.

The rain started pouring down on us. Blinded by the water, I closed my eyes and felt the rhythm. No amount of water was going to turn the musicians away. The rain only spurred them on.

The beat became harder and deeper. The more intense the beat became, the faster the rain seemed to fall. I swiped my wet hair back from my face and wrapped it around the side of my neck.

That’s when I felt him. I had been so lost in the music that I had forgotten all about Drew being behind me. It felt so natural to have him so close to me. His hands gripped my hips, pulling my body flush to him. His fingers dug deep into my waist, pressing the soaked cotton of my dress deeper into my skin. I felt his bated breath on my neck, as his nose ran along my jaw. My skin ignited with fire at his touch.

We mirrored each other’s movements without a word. Our bodies had a language of their own that guides us. Our hearts beat in the same cadence. The rhythm provided by nature and the drums.

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This story gets four and a half hearts from me.

I LOVE this book series, Author Jeanne McDonald pulls you in during the prologue and has you running to buy the next installment moment it is out! It turned me into a mini stalker because I’m dying for my next dose of Mickie and Drew. My heart ached and I cried right along with Mickie during parts of the story. In others, I laughed until I had tears.

McKenzie Evans “Mickie” is stuck in relationship that just has her going through the motions. Mickie feels unwanted, unworthy, and a burden to her longtime boyfriend. This is a place any woman wants to be in. That all changes when she finally agrees to have dinner with her best friend Olivia Hamilton and meet her new sexy, successful boyfriend Andrew Wise. The moment “Mickie” locks eyes on him she knows she’s in trouble.

What would any of us do if we realized our soul mate is our best friend’s current boyfriend?

Andrew Wise “Drew” is the kind of man all us ladies want. He’s hot as hell, passionate about his job, and just enough arrogance not to cause us to scream! Throughout the book, I found myself loving the brooding Drew more and more. The more I learned about him the more I understood and needed more of him.

The sexual frustration drove me mad! I could not wait for these two finally talk about how they felt for one another! Talk about growling at two characters for being stubborn!

This story has many layers that Author Jeanne McDonald slowly peels away before our eyes. She does an amazing job at intertwining her characters throughout the entire Truth in Lies Saga.

Jeanne McDonald began telling stories at the ripe young age of five, when her mother considered the truth to be a lie due to her extensive embellishment to the retelling of an event. She wrote her first short story when she was twelve years old, and at the age of sixteen she tried her hand at poetry. She reconnected with her love for writing in 2010 thanks to the encouragement of a dear friend.

Her passions include a "mild" Starbucks addiction, music, reading, quotes, movies, and romance. When she's not spending time with her family, she can be found reading, writing, chatting with her friends or diligently working toward her bachelor's degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology. A proud Texan, Jeanne currently resides in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with her family.