Secrets and Lies: A Novel

by Selena Montgomery

New York Times bestselling author and NAACP Image Award winner Stacey Abrams , writing under her pen name Selena Montgomery, delivers a “sexy thriller” that is deliciously “twisty and satisfying” ( Publishers Weekly). Tell me no lies . . . She just witnessed her uncle’s murder, she’s running for her life, and now Dr. Katelyn Lyda is face-to-face with a man who could be her salvation. It’s too bad Sebastian Caine is one of the bad guys . . . A “recovery specialist” skilled at separating prized possessions from their owners, Sebastian is after an ancient relic. But he reconsiders the job when he finds himself staring at the wrong end of a gun. The lady with her finger on the trigger seems to have everything he needs—and not just the artifact. In a race against time, Sebastian and Kat must learn to trust each other if they’re going to survive.

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Romantic Suspense, Contemporary Romance, Audiobook

384 pages, Paperback

Published October 26, 2021

About the author

Selena Montgomery is the nom de plume of Stacey Abrams, an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017. She founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018.

Reviews

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating 2.25

I thoroughly enjoyed Stacey Abram's political/crime novels and hoped those written with a nom de plume, would be equal if not better. Unfortunately this is NOT the case.

What appears to be a plot involving Sebastian Caine, a seasoned 'thief 'hired by affluent clients seeking to 'recover' items of value, turns out to be a spin on "Romancing the Stone" but lacks what's needed for an engaging experience.. Caine is contracted by the CEO of a US Pharma company to obtain an ancient manuscript called the Cinchona held by Felix Estrada, a 'collector' of artifacts from around the globe. When he arrives at Estrada's home, he finds Felix has been murdered. Soon after he meets Felix's niece, Katelyn, an enthnobiologist and heir to her uncle's possessions that included the Cinchona and diary. Over the course of their journey together, romantic flames flicker and eventually ignite.

Caine was told the Cinchona held information relating to the location of Incan gold. But over time Kat reveals it holds the formula for a Fountain of Youth elixir based on native plants from the Amazon. As with most mysteries, their search for the meaning of the manuscript becomes complicated when they realize they're being hunted by the thugs that murdered her uncle. Classic cat & mouse plot crippled by unnecessary romance.

And that's about all there is here. A plot that's been done numerous times, a poor attempt at romance and a finale that's less than expected. Nice try Stacey, but this one is a real dud!

[Mary Robinette Kowal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a book that makes me cry and a good romance always does that. Secrets and Lies is hot, vulnerable, and a thriller. I finished reading it and want to track down all of her other novels so I can get glimpses of Sebastien Caine before he goes to the Bahia. And THANK YOU for a heroine that's a woman in STEM and completely kick-ass. I loved Dr. Lyda.

(Also, I think, it's secretly science-fiction. Fight me.)

PS I was supposed to be writing and totally stayed up late to finish reading instead.

[⚣Michaelle⚣]

Yes, I am adding an MF romance to my prodigious TBR. Because Selena Montgomery is a pseudo for Stacey Abrams...and she's the kind of politician I wish had run for office in Georgia back when I lived there. So, supporting her now. (Not sure how much of royalties she gets off Hoopla reads/listens, but it's something.)

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars, rounding up

Secrets and Lies is a romantic suspense novel set in Peru. Dr. Katelyn Lyda overhears her uncle being brutally murdered to protect a valuable manuscript which he has entrusted to her care. But Sebastien Caine "recovery specialist" has been hired to retrieve the manuscript. The two are thrown together in a dangerous adventure.

I won't say much more about the plot, but this was fun. I had a good time with the story and thought the elements about traditional uses of plants for medicinal purposes was interesting. This is more of a slow burn with the romance and uses more vague language in describing the few intimate scenes, so if you prefer less explicit writing this might be one to check out.

I wanted to try something by this author after discovering it's a pen name for Stacey Abrams! I enjoyed this and would read more from her.

[Dosha (Bluestocking7) Beard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I did not know what to expect so I got the book from the library. It turned out to be an excellent thriller. I am very impressed with the versatility of Ms. Stacey Abrams, writing as Selena Montgomery, and I look forward to more stories by her.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean, I’m not a big romance fan, and that’s what took it down a star for me. I’d say the romance was more of a subplot, so this is really a great book! Is there anything Stacey Abrams can’t do?

[Natasha Niezgoda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mmm. Rushed and cheesy. It was just too improbable to me that two adversaries would fall head over heels within days. Like, if this was trying to play the same trope as the movie Speed, then Seb and Kat shouldn't have been so angsty from the start. Their relationship would have been more believable.

I will say the double-crossing moment at the end was well played!

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stacey Abrams should probably stick to politics. I should probably continue to avoid romance novels. Particularly egregious in this book were the Spanish translations, the invented South American nation, and the dialogue. I did think the narrative was well written, though. Stacey is no dummy, and the $5 words felt genuine from her pen but not from the mouths of her fantastic (as in fantasy-like and unbelievable, not as in awesome) characters.

[Laura]

I like the author’s political organizing more than I like this book.

[Juhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to Selena Montgomery after reading that Stacey Abrams (who might up being the next governor of Georgia *fingers crossed*) wrote romance novels. Naturally, I had to read one. I couldn't put this one down. The characters were deliciously flawed, and they kept surprising me, which I really appreciated because I'm over the trite romance tropes. But Montgomery really brought the story to life- there was chemistry (romantic and scientific, both of them actually ha ha) and there was suspense. The setting was so lush and vivid. I found this to be a refreshing read that includes the best of romance but also improves on my critiques of the genre- mainly the characters of color and in-depth research that shows how much she respects other cultures. A GREAT read, and I can't wait to go back to the previous stories in the series!

[Rachel C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A current events adjacent read. Congratulations to Stacey Abrams and all the organizers and voters in Georgia who helped Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock pry that gavel from Mitch McConnell's hand.

[Lisa Angle]

Only made it through two chapters. A few ounces of beautiful sentences among pounds of omniscient over descriptions. So much telling, no showing.

[Latiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twitter isn't good for much, but at least it introduced me to Selena Montgomery. A writer that I follow tweeted about her interest in reading a romance novel and asked her followers for suggestions. I was shocked when someone suggested Stacy Abrams. There was a quick reply that she should be acknowledged by her pen name- Selena Montgomery. That was all I needed. I grabbed my Kindle and chose the title that seemed the most interesting.

Secrets and Lies is a fairly solid romance story. It is well written with a decent plot and interesting characters. The four star rating is due to personal preference. There isn't anything wrong with this story, it just didn't captivate me. I finally made myself sit down and finish it. I admired the strong will of the main character, Kat, but midway through the book she makes questionable decisions and goes from being an equal to the male hero to a liability. The plot moves at a reasonable pace, but picks up very quickly at the end. I was at 90% and figured that there would be a sequel, but no. The pace speeds up and the story is wrapped up quickly.

I am not done with Selena Montgomery. As I mentioned, the book is well written and although I didn't love this title I am going to give another one a try.

[Bruin Mccon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Secrets and Lies is a Selena Montgomery (politician Stacy Abrams) romantic thriller.

As I did after reading my first Stacy Abrams novel, I need to gush a bit about this amazing writer turned public servant. I’ve been spacing out her novels because I don’t know that she’s planning to write more fiction and I don’t want to rush through the entire set too quickly.

This book features Dr. Katelyn Lyda, an ethnobotanist, and Sebastian Caine, a high end art thief. The two team up to solve the murder of her Uncle Felix.

This book features corrupt pharmaceutical companies involved in murder and theft. It was funny reading it and realizing that while the author probably doesn’t think Big Pharma is murdering people and stealing drugs in lieu of R&D, figuratively she may believe they have a hand in deaths. Raising the price of insulin so high that patients have to ration it would seem to be a form of indirect murder.

3.5 ⭐️s.

[Di Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up because it is written by Stacy Abrams, who is being talked about as a potential VP candidate. I knew it was romance, but the story had more depth than I expected. Sebastian, a “recovery expert” (aka thief) takes on a mission he thinks will allow him to retire, “recovering” a legendary artifact. When he goes to pick it up, he finds someone has beat him to it, and he finds the owner dying. He sets off after the other thief, who isn’t really a thief, but the former owner’s niece, Katelyn. Obviously sparks fly, and Sebastian has to figure out if he is going to put his feelings aside and go for the payday, or chose the love of a good woman, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the true killers. For those of you looking for a romance, the words turgid , suckling, and others of that ilk do in fact show up (they made me laugh), but there was more to the story than the Big Bang!

[Jenny Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always love a book that makes it easy to turn the page. This novel wasn't quite as well plotted as some of the others - I had trouble keeping up with who our male lead was betraying at any given moment. That said, I still found it entertaining.

[Kaitlin CU · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to make myself finish this one.

The story is interesting and there’s passion and action BUT the author writes like she’s trying to prove she knows a lot of obscure words.

I really wanted to love this book but it was hard to read because it often read like a vocab test.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2018
------------------------------
#10 A romance novel by or about a person of color

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love romance novels with an actual story. Secrets and Lies had an actual plot, and a natural build to the romance. This book didn’t disappoint.

[Joslin Harmon · Rating 2 out of 5]

God I would not expect a book with adventure and murder and stealing treasure be so boring. Also Jesus Sebastian is a supremely unlikable love interest.

[Kaitlin Monis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out interesting and then I very quickly lost interest and didn’t care for the characters… eh

[Mckenzie Bridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so hard for me to finish reading not because it was difficult but the story line was so dull and you already knew what was gonna happen before it occurred I was stuck on this book for 3 months and could not wait for it to be over

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars for an ingenious plot, but too much of the narrative was devoted to the heavy breathing and torrid, if frustrated sex between the two main characters. And the characters were too predictable: the handsome superman thief who is basically honest and kind and the brilliant, brave, beautiful scientist who falls in love with him. Try another by this author, who is Stacy Adams the politician from Georgia who came close to winner the Governor's office a few years ago.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

More thriller than true romance, this book rocks! I loved the setting of a fictional South American country and the two main character, Katelyn and Sebastian. She’s smart, serious and sassy, while he’s an upstanding bad boy. Every time I thought the story would be wrapped up, there was another twist. Even though Selena Montgomery wrote this in 2007, it is still woke and feminist.

[Limecello]

Well, it was bound to happen :X

I ... think? I'll re-listen to this book? But I didn't like it as much as the first two SM books I read/listened to.
The plot and everything is interesting - much more grand too...
And I LOVE how the giant pharmaceutical company is thwarted ...

But our heroine.
[ALSO I liked that the hero was ... I mean, unapologetically a thief. [He calls himself a "recovery specialist."] While I wasn't thinking so while reading it - thinking it now ... think Neal from White Collar. Good guy ... but also very imperfect. And you know. Technically a criminal. >.>

:P As Archer [YES THE ANIMATED GUY] would say ... <.< "victimless crime" ... as Sebastian "steals from the rich and sells to the even richer."

Kat though. Yes, she's amazing, wonderful, smart - brilliant!
It's ... and this is kinda a quibble but also a major pet peeve ...
low key TSTL. Like - ... MULTIPLE TIMES there have been people after you that you just barely escaped mostly thanks to Sebastian ... and yet she resists him TRYING TO SAVE THEM.

Like when he's telling her "the bad guys are here - the same ones that murdered your uncle. We have to GO" and she's all "but these books are here and I want to read them." ... AYFKM. Look I get the books are important and they're central to the thing ... but ... STASH THEM AND GO. COME THE FUCK ON.

One thing I DID like is ... honestly I was pleasantly surprised by how steady Kat was after she overheard the incredibly damning phone call - just going by faith [in Sebastian]. LOL he's actually kinda upset even she doesn't jump to conclusions so he has another reason to push her away.

... I guess ... C+?

And again - I need to re-listen because while a LOT happens, it seems ... not SLOW but very evenly paced until near the end and then it's like "THROW EVERYTHING INTO A BLENDER AND TURN IT ON LET'S GOOOOO" :X

so anyway.
First impression: C+

Like - friend. You LITERALLY WITNESSED YOUR UNCLE GET MURDERED BEFORE YOUR EYES. LITERALLY. YOU HID IN THE CLOSET. [Not a spoiler; it's literally in the book blurb]

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Stacey Abrams so I wanted to check out her books. I didn't realize that this book is part of a series so this is my first time meeting Sebastian Caine, so that influences my review a bit. I'm also not normally a big romance book reader in general.

First the things I liked. There's a lot of uncommon words used in this book and they don't feel shoehorned in. I don't often find words I'm not familiar with in books, let alone multiple times so it's nice that Abrams is writing in a way that doesn't feel like the reader is being talked down to or expected to know things. I also liked that it's written in the 3rd person so we get the perspectives of both Sebastian and Kat, not just one of them. It's also not a super lengthy book, there's no filler or dragging on for the romance novel that it is.

Things that I didn't enjoy as much...I just didn't feel the spark between Sebastian and Kat. Maybe there's things in the other books about Sebastian I would understand him more and it would make sense, but to me this came across as a very tropey thief with a heart of gold sees a beautiful woman and he's instantly in love. There's a sort of twist on this trope at one point, but I guess I was expecting more. Also for how progressive Abrams policies are I was surprised that she seems to have made up an Indigenous South American tribe for a plot point. I also wasn't personally wowed with the ending not about Sebastian necessarily, that made sense given the rest of this book. But the "trap" that by announcing that the tribe would get the money that automatically means it will happen? Everything wrapping up a little too nicely at the end while also not necessarily delivering on any real change? Eh. .

Maybe my expectations are too high because Abrams' real life work is so great I expected a lot from her writing, but this just wasn't one of my faves.

[JigsawGirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I had good feelings at the beginning when Sebastian stumbled into an unexpected situation and the conversation with Felix. It almost immediately fell off with the Kat confusion, with Sebastian not rapidly removing himself from the situation, not even knowing exactl what he was supposed to be stealing, was it a diary, a manuscript, etc. What kind of thief was he?

I lost interest around chapter 6, if not earlier. I should have felt the build up.of suspense. I didn't. I know I started skipping through chapters on the audio book after chapter 6. Normally, if I lose interest that early, it becomes a DNF. I didn't want to do that with this book. I felt like the narration added nothing to this book. The narrator wasn't terrible, just blah.

So, I went back and struggled my way through. I kept realizing that I didn't care about Sebastian or Kat. I didn't care about any of it. Some of the historical and background aspects were mildly interesting. I am not sure what .it was that made me not care. I thought Sebastian was kind of interesting. Kat left me flat. I felt no chemistry between Kat and Sebastian at all.

Even at the very last chapters, I hate to say it, but felt like I wasted my time following through with finishing the book. Maybe this would have been better as an ebook. I would recommend that you give it a chance and judge for yourself. Just because I wasn't feeling this book doesn't mean that someone else won't enjoy it.

[N.R. Emerson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would still consider this book a happy medium. There's not much that I expected from the story. It is your typical pick it up off the shelf and go with it, but I found it harder to go with.

Kat is a scientist who witnessed her uncle's death when a group of robbers are on the hunt for an ancient relic, a book known as the Cinchona worth billions. She escapes in time for our main love interest Sebastian to wander in on a dying Felix and ask about the Cinchona since the reward is too great for a thief like him to pass up.

He finds Kat not too long after, or rather she finds him. Things kind of happen in this book when you're not looking. Blink or skim a page and you're suddenly in a different building.

Ironically enough, the only really jarring thing about the story is the romance. Meant to be more emotional than sexual, but neither character feels like they've really learned anything, and Sebastian kind of just decides to be a better person and give up his life of crime at the end because he loves Kat. Typical guy-changes-because-of-a-girl trope. (I'm personally just tired of this trope but it still works for some)

They team up to find the Cinchona, which ends up being a formulaic book with the medicinal information needed to treat...I think it was malaria? Or there was another relic compared to the treatment for malaria.

A little dialogue-heavy, but whiplash world building aside, it read pretty solid.

[L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my third Stacy Abrams novel and I enjoyed it very much. The four stars aren't a criticism its only that the first two were phenomenal. The plots were very unique and so well written so a third one had a lot to live up to.
In "Tell me no Lies" we meet Dr. Katelyn Lyda and Sebastian Caine, two people who are very different from each other. Kat is a law abiding citizen with very strict ethics rules while Sebastian is a thief, or as he prefers "a recovery specialist."
Kat is accused of killing her uncle Felix by both the local police and Sabastian, but Kat isn't sure if Sabastian was one of her uncle's killers. Their biggest problem is they have to learn to trust each other because the police are after them both.
They not only are fleeing the police but a group of hired killers and a ruthless drug company CEO who wants the famed Cinchona dairy, that Felix died protecting, which supposedly contains the formula for a drug that will cure almost all wounds and diseases.
This is a wild ride with our two characters as they dodge all the evil people trying to capture or kill them while Kat is trying to perfect the formula.
Loved the ending!!
I'm eagerly awaiting the next novel by Ms. Montgomery. Can't wait to see what she comes up with next!