Beautiful Liar

Beautiful Liar is simply excellent. The story is gripping, the writing is smooth and rich, and the character exploration is deep. Though it has all the elements you'd expect in a romance, this is more than your normal genre-fiction romance. It's the kind of book I really like in that it has the best of both worlds, the great story we expect from genre fiction, and also the great writing and deep explorations of relevant themes we expect from literary fiction. Though it's not a thriller, the writer expertly manages to imbue every page with tension so that I kept reading long after I should have gone to bed.

The characters are flawed and unpredictable, and they make mistakes, like normal people. The author makes their motivations and reactions to challenges clear and believable.

As to the story, the blurb says it all:

Responsible Nina Baxter knows all about responsibility. With her father dead and her mother drowning her sorrows, it's up to Nina to take care of her younger sister, April, and try to hold the family together. But when her options run out, she is forced to take a job working for the wealthy Noble family.
Reckless Alexander Noble is the rakish heir to an unimaginable fortune. Sexy, charming and entitled, he's never had to do a day's work in his life, and devotes himself to pleasure and partying. With a reputation for bedding a different woman every night, he doesn't appear to give a damn about anything.
Rotten From their very first meeting, Nina knows Alex is bad news, and vows to stay away from him. But as their paths continue to cross, she can't help being drawn to his raffish charisma - especially when he makes no secret of his interest in her. For the first time in her life, Nina is on the brink of following her heart. But can she believe Alex when he tells her to trust him? Or is he just another beautiful liar?

In a publishing environment where quality is no longer a pre-requisite for publication, it's great that those with discernment can still rely on some publishers to dish up nothing but the best. This is the kind of quality we expect from Simon & Schuster, and it's the best book I've read this year. Highly recommended. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until May 7, 2016 for it to be published, but keep an eye out for it. I got the ARC from Netgalley.

The cover is great too. Unfortunately, some mainstream imprints, especially in the romance area have gone for unimaginative, predictable and even in some cases, cheap-looking covers as a matter of course. It's nice to see something so beautifully designed and elegantly understated.