The Greatest Lie of All

by Jillian Cantor

A glamorous romance novelist and an aspiring starlet share an unexpected secret in this addictive story about love, ambition and how far we’re willing to go to protect our hearts.

Fledgling actress Amelia Grant is at rock bottom when offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to star in a biopic about the world-renowned romance author Gloria Diamond, who used her own tragic love story as inspiration for her bestselling books. To prepare for the role, she’ll spend a week with Gloria at her secluded Washington estate. It’s a chance to get out of LA, away from her cheating ex-boyfriend, and to make her recently deceased mother proud.
 
Amelia’s excitement is short-lived, however, once she actually meets Gloria, who is cold, verging on rude and mostly unavailable. If not for Gloria’s frustratingly handsome son Will, the visit might be a complete waste of her time. But when Amelia stumbles upon a secret from Gloria’s past, she realizes Gloria’s life story is more fiction than fact. And as the movie’s filming date draws nearer, Amelia must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice to uncover the truth.

• ISBN10: 0778310914
• ISBN13: 9780778310914
• Publish Date: 3 December 2024
• Publish Status: Forthcoming
• Imprint: Park Row
• Edition: Original ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://harpercollins.com/products/the-greatest-lie-of-all-jillian-cantor?variant=41622926950434

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Never Meet Your Heroes - You Might Find Out More Than You Wanted To. Seriously, this book takes that age old saying to heart in its basic premise... and then spins it on its head in the actual execution of the tale at hand and in showing all that has transpired in these characters' lives.

 

This is one of those inventive enough tales that it seems almost completely implausible... and yet real enough that it feels all too real at the same damn time. Surely, *nothing* could be *this* convoluted, right? (Says the guy whose mother in law is best friends with her husband's ex-wife and whose grandparents lived together on the same property - at times even in the same house - even after they divorced and remarried.) In other words... yes, life can get quite messy at times, and this book does a tremendous job of showing this to great dramatic effect.

 

This is one of those women's fiction/ romance genre benders that actually has the *cajones* to walk right up to the RWA/ RNA gatekeepers and say "Really? You're going to try to tell me that *this* isn't a romance for the ages?". There is even at least one element of this book that will certainly, if the book reaches enough people, prove quite controversial indeed, and while I know *exactly* what those arguments will be and who (in general) will be making them, revealing even the specific nature of that particular debate pretty well spoils what this element is, so this is about as close as I can get to noting its presence without spoiling it.

 

Releasing late in the year when Yankees are seemingly already snowed under and largely inside their might-as-well-be Igloos for the winter and thus needing much reading material (at least that is how this Southern boy who has never lived any further north than the Atlanta exurbs tends to look at these things), this is going to be one of those great ones to read while huddled up trying to stay warm. Yes, even for us Floridians in our heaviest Arctic gear getting ready for temperatures that begin with "5" for a few days.

 

Very much recommended.