True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

Travel writer Claire has kissed enough frogs (snakes and toads) to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that fate, love at first sight and 'The One' do not exist.

So when she ends up sitting next to sexy American ex-pat, Jack, on a flight from New York to London and he asks her out, she figures there must be a catch. Or maybe after years of dating disasters and bozo boyfriends, Claire has finally met the man of her dreams. But just as she's about to start believing in destiny, Claire discovers that someone else got to Jack first, and she can't believe who it is...

• ISBN10: 0755341104
• ISBN13: 9780755341108
• Publish Date: 4 October 2007 (first published 1 January 2004)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
• Imprint: Little Black Dress
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

True Love (and Other Lies) tells the story of Claire, a travel writer for Sassy Seniors. She’s single and doesn’t believe in The One or Happy Ever After.

However, on a flight to London, she meets Jack, an attractive ex-pat and they spend the three days she has in London together.

It’s all going well, until it turns out Jack was seeing someone close to Claire… someone very close to Claire.

I first read True Love (and Other Lies) a year or so ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Seeing a fellow blogger review it I decided to re-read it and review it myself.

I found it a bit slow-going second time around so it’s probably a book you can only read once unlike some where you can read them again and again without questioning what the main characters of the book do.

However the book is still really enjoyable. At first the meeting of Claire & Jack seems fanciful and not something that would happen in real life. However all is revealed through-out the book – which is one of the reasons I loved the book. The fact that someone would go out of their way to do what they did made the book for me. Of course, what I’m saying sounds ridiculous but I can’t mention what happens otherwise it spoils the magic of the book. Let me just say it’s incredibly romantic and makes you say, “I wish that would happen to me!”

Second time around I found Claire a bit annoying. Going on and on and on and on and on about how fat you are compared to your best friend gets really annoying after a while. If, as Claire said, she was happy with her body she would not be comparing herself to Maddy or keep mentioning the fact she was Amazonian sized. However I enjoyed reading about her struggles in the office to have her column printed the way she wanted it to – sarcasm and all.

I liked Jack even when everything was revealed. Depending on your views the big reveal could make or break the book for you. I found it romantic and thus, it made the book for me. I thought he and Claire clicked and worked well together.

I liked Maddy but there were also huge dislikeable points about her. I thought she was a bit of a cow to Claire but I could also understand why she was so spiteful.

Overall it was an enjoyable novel, and a quick read at that. I love Little Black Dress books and this is one of my favourites. It’s the ultimate in romance novel and is well worth a read.

Rating: 4/5