Customer Reviews

Deadly Little Lies (Touch, Book 2)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Deadly Little Lies, the sequel to the first book in the series, Deadly Little Secret, definitely lives up to its promise of more suspense, romance and plot twists. Laurie Faria Stolarz really knows how to construct an elaborate plot to flow with such ease, and continuously keep you on the edge of your seat with the mystery and romance of the narrative. Starting a few months after Ben leaves Camelia's life, the story immediately takes off with a burst of heart pounding action that just keeps on rolling the entire novel. Right from page one, Camelia is immediately caught up in a new dangerous situation and that initial spooky basement experience really left me biting my nails and wondering- what just happened? This time around though, Camelia is without the most crucial person to help her stay safe, and that of course, is Ben. What will she do now that she doesn't have Ben to support her and sense when she's in danger?

The romantic tension between Camelia and Ben, two people so obviously still in love with one another was agonizing. I kept flipping the pages, anxiously hoping they would resolve their issues. Their scenes together were a roller coaster of emotions, further compounded by Camelia's budding relationship with Adam, the new guy at Knead. Speaking of Adam, you never quite trust Camelia's attraction him. He appears out of the blue, saying and doing all the right things. Yet isn't that just so convenient?! Other times, I'd switch my line of thinking and want her to give him a chance. By the end, I was so turned around I didn't quite know what to think of anyone, including Ben and even Camelia's best friends Wes and Kimmy! No one was free from suspicion or ever completely trustworthy. And of course, there's always that underlying worry that Matt was back in town too.

In regards to the harassing calls and messages that begin resurfacing around Camelia, at times I felt incredibly agitated with her for not going to her parents, and wanted to yell at her for not being more aggressive about her safety. Haven't we been through this before Camelia? But, with that being said, I do want to point out that Stolarz does a great job in painting a believable picture as to why Camelia wouldn't immediately run to her parents for help. Because of the careful plot building and narrative, it made me able to accept Camelia's actions even though I didn't necessarily agree with them as an outsider looking in.

Time and time again, I'd try and fall asleep while reading this novel, but found myself getting up to check the door locks and make sure I had the house alarm on. Just like when I read Deadly Little Secret, I was almost dizzy from wondering and worrying who could be trusted in Camelia's world. And that is the best thing about Laurie Faria Stolarz's writing. She knows how to captivate the reader- inserting a bit of romance here, some eerie voices there, secrets untold, threatening antics and creepy diary entries. All of these devices are perfectly blended to create an intense air of mystery and keep your pulse pounding. I kept trying to go to sleep after reading this book but couldn't stop thinking about Camelia. Who was stalking her again? What about the new guy Adam? But most importantly, what was going on with those creepy, whispered voices? I have to say that it was the voices which spooked me the most and left me unable to fall asleep, listening to the house creak and settle into the very late hours of the night....

Wait - did you hear that?! What was that?

This was a great second installment in the series. Deadly Little Lies finds Camelia awaiting the expected return of Ben after he had been gone for 4 months. His abrupt departure left Camelia brokenhearted and she found herself studying everything she can about his special gift of psychometry. As she looks further into psychometery she starts experiencing her own incidents of premonition and wonders if Ben's gift has rubbed off on her. Once Ben returns he seems to not want anything to do with Camelia, that is until she starts seeing the new guy in town, Adam. As Camelia is getting wrapped up in her own love triangle she starts receiving threatening messages again. Could someone she cares about be behind them?
I really liked this book it grabbed my attention and kept me in a bit of suspense. There was a bit of predictability to the book but it was fun and exciting and kept you rooting for Camelia and Ben. I think it was a great second installment to a promising series.

This book definitely had me spooked, especially since I would read it at night alone in my apartment. Once again, Camelia is being stalked. There are eerie messages and phone calls to leave the reader guessing as to the culprit's identity. And there are some really good twists--such as the journal entries we get. I have to say that the journal entries were one of the most intriguing parts of the story. They really added to the overall mystery of the book and gets you excited for the next one. So, while I thought it was a good read with great writing to keep the reader in suspense, I have my complaints.

As the story continues, I increasingly get frustrated with the characters, especially how unopen Ben and Camilla are. Ben still feels like a mystery, even after two books. I really hope the next book we learn more about him. And you would think Camilla would have matured and learned from the previous book, such as that she shouldn't keep important things from her parents, like people stalking you. The ending was frustrating, for me, too--Camilla makes a mistake of not trusting Ben and she doesn't even apologize for it. There is no hashing out of their emotions except for them just saying they have to talk, but the book ends before we actually see them solve anything, like their lack of trust in one another. However, none of these complaints completely detract from my eagerness to read the third book, DEADLY LITTLE GAMES. I just now have higher expectations for the next book to solve these issues.

Yet again, Cameila's being stalked! Only this time she's got the something going on with pyschometry. She sculpts things that show up in her future. Random things like Ben's arm, or a horse, or a bottle that serve more to freak her out than anything. Ben misses her and interferes in her new relationship with hunky older co-worker Andrew by showing up at her house and making up excuses to see her. Although she tries to move on, so points for that.

Throughout we get diary entries from 1984 by the mysterious Alexia. Turns out it's her crazy aunt who has the powers as Camelia. Too bad she doesn't realize it yet.

And throughout it all Camelia doesn't tell her parents about the threats. Which is just plain stupid.

Just like the first book, I could not put this one down and read it in one day. It was awesome! I think this book was creative and thrilling..who would of thought it would be that one person doing it all! I love her frinds Kimmie and Wes. They are sooo funny in the book and another thing about these books they are not dry with hummor. I think that Camelia has way more personality then Bella from Twilight..she is annoying. I can't wait for the third book Deadly Little Games to come out! I hope it wont stop after book three!

Since, Deadly Little Secret was only mediocre, in my opinion, I was a bit hesitant to start Deadly Little Lies. Luckily, Deadly Little Lies batted out any future worries I have with this series simply because it was just plain out fantastic and showed major growth in character and plot development!

Camelia got a lot more likable in this one because of character growth, as mentioned above. Since, for one, she wasn't making extremely stupid decisions in not telling anyone what was happening like she did before, making me actually start to care about what happened to her. And for two, I liked how she gave Ben at ultimatum in this book because it proved strength on her part and made Ben step it up. Plus, I loved the whole focus on her pottery and how it may be related to psychometry. I'm really excited to see where this will go in Deadly Little Games( the next in the series). Further more, I loved the secondary characters a ton in this one. Because their constant dialogue brought many laughable scenes into the mix and brought the scary undertone to the story to a point where the level between funny and serious was great!

The plot in this was also fantastic because I loved the development in it, once again, and it constantly provided you with a twist and turn you never saw coming. I mean seriously half of the stuff that happened in this book was way differnt then what I thought would occur.

In all, Laurie Faria Stolarz proves the Touch series to be a must read in this follow-up, making it a great add to your wishlist.

Deadly Little Lies is book 2 in the Touch Series. If you haven't read Deadly Little Secrets, check that one out first...

Camelia is back at school for the second semester of her Junior year. It would seem that things couldn't get much worse than they were in the first semester, with being kidnapped and held in a secluded trailer by a psychotic ex-boyfriend and all, but things suddenly take a strange turn once again. Photos and strange messages begins showing up in her life again at the same time that Ben returns to school and tells her that he wants space and doesn't think they should be together. Camelia is heartbroken but Spencer hires a new college student at Knead that happens to be a good looking guy who's very interested in her and his name's Adam. Will Ben become jealous and decide he made a mistake? What will happen with the threatening messages and phone calls she's suddenly receiving again?

Deadly Little Lies held my attention from the beginning, I am always wondering what is going on in Ben's head and why he continues to avoid Camelia. Camelia has discovered that her new psychometric ability to sculpt objects of future (or past) relevance is with her to stay but she would like nothing more than to share this with Ben.

The overall story isn't all that different from Deadly Little Secrets. Ben tries to avoid Camelia and ignore the chemistry that pulls them together. Another boy enters in and tries to take her attention away but fails at which point Ben makes himself more present and weird things begin to happen making him look all too guilty.

Good for a lazy day that you want a quick book that requires no concentration to read. A simple story with suspense and mystery. Fairly predictable, and as I said before, very similar to the first book. But, if you liked Deadly Little Secrets then you will like 'Lies'. I enjoyed it enough that I plan to read book 3, Deadly Little Games (Dec 2010).

After read the fifth book, Lover Unbound of the Black Dagger Brotherhood Saga, I was so unsatisfied with the resolution she gave to my favorite character in the whole saga. I was starting to think that Ward was loosing her magic touch and not to mention that she was falling into a pattern I was beginning to get bored but then I read Covet and I believe that's was her way to tell me, that she hasn't loose anything.

Once again she writes an action pack novel, fill with passion and rough, dominating but romantic men but now she changes the scenario is not the cruel battle between vampire and lesser now is the mythical battle between the angels of god and the demons of the devil and the man that walk between the thin line of both worlds and for good or bad his actions would define the future of men.

In the beginning there's a whole bunch of information you have to process and it can get a little confusing at times but I guess Ward was trying to put every piece of the story together so you can understand some stuff that are going to be seen later in the book but after page fifty the story just kick off nicely and once again she submerge you in that world of hot men, a very hot romance and erotic scenes that would blow your mind away, the bathroom scene is my favorite *winks, winks*

I must confess I'm very intrigue with Jim Heron aside from the fact that he's total bad ass he's also a man with many secrets and what I've understood is that he used to be a part of special government force but definitely in a black ops operation group doing very dangerous mission but also he seem like a conflicted man with a very complex past which I guess we would find about it the next books that are coming. Also he has the weight of the world in his shoulder he had been chosen as the person who would decide human faith and he doesn't have the slightest idea how the heck he's going to do it and his "allies" aren't giving much away. So is going to be interesting to read the developing of this character and to tell you the truth I'm looking forward to it.

The romance between Vincent DiPietro and Marie Therese was a bit rush for my taste but Ward wrote pretty hot scenes between this two and you can't blame them for falling in love and though this is not a vampire story where the male is claiming his females as "mine" but she does it here without the "mine" but she throws around some stuff that would find it similar to her previous books which is one the thing I love the must about her writing, a hot rough male, claiming you are his and he's romantic as hell. What else you can ask for?

This was a perfect start for what seem a very promising series, a bit confusing at first but after you are past that you are going to enjoy it. I can't wait for October 5, when Crave the second novel of the Fallen Angels Series comes out.

Book 2 of the Touch series is just as great as the first one. If I would have had the time available, I would have finished it in on sitting. It's easy to get lost and caught up in Camelia's story. The creepy parts made me think someone was in my house stalking me, the lovey-dovey parts made me wish that everything would finally work out for Camelia. I think this is a good crossover book for those that don't read a lot of paranormal fiction, because the paranormal portions are more of a side story or occurrence that just happens to be in part of the story. It isn't front and center with werewolves and vampires running amuck. (Amuck, amuck, amuck!) Every character that is there is for a reason, there are no straggling characters in this book, no wasted space.

I wish the books were longer, only because I want more, not because they need to be. I'm selfish that way. As soon as I finished this book I looked for more of the author's works when I was in the library (all checked out), so you can be sure that I am in love with her writing! I want to gather up everything she's written and devour it all.

Reviewed by Jessica for Book Sake.

SPOILER ALERT: Nothing too serious but if you're determined to not know a thing prior to reading, then do NOT read this.

I usually write long, drawn out reviews and go into detail about all aspects of a book. I also usually do this when I somewhat enjoyed a book. For books that don't come anywhere near, I don't. :/ I feel like it's mean and so refrain. I'm starting to think that just saying "this sucks" doesn't help anyone though, and that maybe I should actually go into depth about what I found wrong with it. So here goes:

1) The writing was poor. Perhaps I would've enjoyed this back when I was 11, but at nearly 21 I found it to be juvenile and immature. Not the actual content, but the writing itself. I was disappointed. I could've written in that same manner at 15. While Delirium (the last book I reviewed) was very big on details, this book hardly had any at all. Each sentence was a jump in plot and although that makes the book move along at a relatively fast pace, I felt like I was losing out on a lot of actual writing. I also felt as though the book HAD to move along at a fast pace, otherwise you'd probably have just put it down and not even read anymore.

2) The plot itself was a poorly developed suspense/mystery. I wrote a mini-novel about a serial killer on a college campus when I was 14, and while I look back on that and laugh now, I read this book and thought, "Oh my god...this is the sort of 'plot' I'd have come up with back THEN..." Seriously? Someone stalking/leaving notes/attempting to kill someone else because they thought that person 'didn't belong there'? An absolutely ridiculous vendetta that made NO sense whatsoever? I highly doubt a high school student would go THAT far just because they didn't like someone. As awful as this may sound, a student gathering a group of friends to jump another student after school would've made more sense. This seemed like an intricate criminal mastermind's plan, except it wasn't intricate at all! It was childish and lame. Maybe it's just me, but I felt like the "criminal's" entire reasoning was utterly absurd. There was no major plot twist, no unbelievably creative idea, no...nothing. I love suspense books and while this caused the occasional few seconds of "Oh boy..." it quickly subsided as you fell into the same old routine: character conveniently ends up alone in the house (which is something you COMPLETELY see coming after the first time), spooky things begin happening, it all reaches a climax, it turns out to be nothing or someone safe. This exact same series of events happens, literally, about 20 times throughout the entire book. I was so fed up by the end of it that I could practically predict exactly what was going to occur on the next page.

3) A love triangle somewhat developed at some point throughout the book. I have no problem with love triangles. But with this one? I actually LIKED the "other guy" in the love triangle, the one that shows up basically as competition to Mr. Perfect-from-Book-One and who everybody is supposed to automatically hate because he's challenging Mr. Perfect's alpha male-ness or whatever. Well...I didn't really think Mr. Perfect was perfect at all. In fact, I thought he was a jerk. :/ He seemed to just mess with the main character and at one point, seemed to completely string her along for no other reason other than him and his wishy-washy feelings. Um, the guy just said he didn't like you, wanted you to leave, and did NOT want to pursue a relationship with you. You do NOT let him into your bedroom to spend the night to attain "closure". HOW IS THAT CLOSURE?!?! It was frustrating to the point of being painful. The other guy on the other hand? A decent human being who actually treated her with respect, took her out on nice dates, and genuinely seemed to care for her. He had his own faults, but I honestly thought that his mistake was more understandable than Mr. Perfect's. But of course, she chooses guy #1. Why? Because she is a teenage girl and this is what teenage girls do. Disappointing and disheartening to say the least. :(

And now, before die-hard fans of the book come after me with torches and pitchforks, I must say this: there is a hefty amount of dialogue that I truly enjoyed. The main character's two best friends were hilarious if nothing else, and a lot of their banter was extremely witty. They used a lot of teenage slang that I'd never heard previously and I thought it was very creative. :)

I read this because I read book #1 and it ended so abruptly that I had to know what happened next. Book 3 is already out and book 4 is on the way apparently. I have no idea how Stolarz intends to drag this story out any longer, I can only hope it becomes more original...although I will not be reading the others and am SO thankful that I did not buy this. It was truly a letdown for me however, because I enjoyed Stolarz's Blue is for Nightmares series. The actual plot of that series was something I did not like towards the end but I thought the writing was fun and mature. The mystery was well thought out. It's possible that because the element of magic was thrown into the series, she managed to make it work. You can make up excuses for things to happen and have them make sense because "it's magic" and that's the way it is. This series attempted to use the concept of psychometry but I thought it was done poorly and without a lot of thought put into it. There was another book of hers that I was eager to read, Project 17, but after this disaster I think I'll probably stay away from that too. :/