“We spend our whole lives running from our past, never realizing it’s hitched to us – we can’t ever outrun it.”

Title: Dangerous Lies

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick

Series: Standalone

Publication: November 10th 2015 by Simon & Schuster

Pages: 400

Source: Publisher at ALA Annual

 

Summary from Goodreads:

Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska, is not her real home. This is not her real life.

After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.

But Stella was about to start her senior year with the boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.

As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks…

My Thoughts:

Estella Goodwin, now renamed Stella, witnessed something horrible. She came home to a murder scene, and her entire life is overturned because of it. Placed in the witness protection program, she gets carted off to Thunder Basin, Nebraska – and she hates it. That is, until she meets the boy/man who mows her new “foster mom’s” lawn: Chet Falconer. I have to say, Dangerous Lies has launched Becca Fitzpatrick up into the league of my favorite authors. I’ve read her other work, The Hush Hush Saga and Black Ice – but those don’t compare to Dangerous Lies. This new book, this wonderful thriller of a book, blew my expectations out of the water and up into thin air. I hadn’t doubted Fitzpatrick’s skill, but this book has proven her to be an amazing writer and brilliant in the art of crafting stories.

 

One of the most powerful aspects of this book is the change that Stella goes through as a character. At the beginning, I hated her. Hell, I still partially hate her for personal reasons – but she does move past and develop beyond my pet peeves. Fitzpatrick has crafted the epitome of what you want to see from a character. Stella’s character arc is inspiring. She goes from being a total brat that I wanted to bitch slap with a metal chair to becoming someone I was rooting for. In the beginning of the book, she is ungrateful, rude, and a downright unrepentant bitch to everyone trying to help her. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me in a character – but Stella crossed the fine line from fiery heroine to standoffish twit in about two pages. But, here is the illustration of Fitzpatrick’s skill – by the end of the novel, I freaken loved Stella and I wanted her to kick ass. She was amazing. She started to deeply care about the people around her, she realized her mistakes and took responsibility to fix them, and she finally came to understand what it means to truly love someone – not just talking about hot, hunky Chet here.

 
Honestly, every single character in Dangerous Lies is spectacular. Carmina is amazing, just downright amazing. My second favorite part of this book was watching the relationship between Stella and Carmina blossom from hatred into a real family bond. Carmina is the woman who takes Stella in as part of her WITSEC cover story for no reason at all other than she was asked to. Carmina doesn’t put up with Stella’s shit – that woman was a badass, trust me.

 
Then we have Chet… goodness gracious Chet. I love that boy. Love, love, love him. I know I say that a lot about the love interest in books – but this was a different sort of love. Not only do I admire him and what he stands for, but I also found myself feeling his pain and his longing for something more. Chet was a special sort of character. He is completely real. He is not perfect, not in the slightest, but it only made me love him more. Plus, he’s a complete cowboy. Like, boots, hat, works on a ranch, accent, good mannered cowboy – swoon worthy. He is a total sweet heart, but he also has a bad side that we do get to see come out – he was perfection and the best match for Stella.
I can’t pick a favorite character – Chet and Carmina are both way too high up on my list to be able to choose. It would end up going something like this:

 
I was a little disappointed with the ending, no matter how intense and awesome it was. There were a lot of questions left unanswered – I prefer my standalones to be tied up with a pretty little bow at the end. Well, for the most part anyway – I don’t mind endings when I can infer the rest, but this was a little iffy. The entire book seemed to come to the end in the span of twenty or so pages – it just wasn’t enough for me. A little too abrupt, seemingly unplanned, and far too out there. I would like to understand just why some things happened, despite how much it made my heart pound. Don’t get me wrong, like I said – it was still wonderful, I just wanted more out of it, you know what I mean?

 
Anyways, overall Dangerous Lies is a breathtaking and wonderful Young Adult thriller that effortlessly blends themes of facing the truth and the deep bonds of family. Becca Fitzpatrick has done it once again and created one more book to take up space upon my favorites shelf. Filled with lies, steamy kisses, hilarious banter, and heartfelt bonding – Dangerous Lies is one book well worth the expenditure of funds/time/effort to get it into your possession. It will leave you satisfied all the while craving even
more.

Let’s just say Dangerous Lies is like this video. You’re like “Oh no! Bad guys”… and then WHAM! and you’re in love.