Rebecca Reid (Perfect Liars) delivers a cracker with The Truth Hurts. Poppy needs a plan after being unceremoniously fired despite years of dedicated nanny service. Instead, she's in a roadside bar in a foreign country with no friends or money. She's approached by an extremely attractive older man. After verbal sparring and an obvious connection, Drew offers Poppy his spare bed. She stays on in his decadent Ibiza summer home and, after a fairy-tale month, they marry.
Poppy isn't stupid. She knows "handsome rich men didn't just stumble into your life, buy you dresses and then offer to marry you.... There would be a reason." The other shoe begins to fall when Drew proposes an agreement: they never talk about the past. Poppy is wary but relieved. Drew is hiding something, but she also has much to conceal. Flashbacks to a prior nanny job swirl into the present timeline, revealing the awful events Poppy wants to stay secret. At the same time, she catches Drew in small lies and feels uneasy in their isolated London mansion.
Poppy invites her friend Gina to stay, then Drew's friends come for a weekend. As the longtime friends eat, drink and dig at each other, Poppy's and Drew's pasts are forced to the surface, to a shocking end. The tense, slow-burn relationship drama in The Truth Hurts unsurprisingly turns ugly and ends with a startling burst of intensity that works extremely well despite its abruptness. Reid's writing is engaging, taut and just plain fun to read. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review