A CHARMED LITTLE LIE BY Sharla Lovelace Review, Excerpt & Giveaway!

Spinning a story of a joyous marriage to make 
a dying woman happy is forgivable, isn’t it?

A CHARMED LITTLE LIE

Charmed in Texas #1

Sharla Lovelace

Releasing April 18th, 2017

Lyrical Shine

Lanie Barrett didn’t mean to lie. Spinning a story of a joyous marriage to make a dying woman happy is forgivable, isn’t it? Lanie thinks so, especially since her beloved Aunt Ruby would have been heartbroken to know the truth of her niece’s sadly loveless, short-of-sparkling existence. Trouble is, according to the will, Ruby didn’t quite buy Lanie’s tale. And to inherit the only house Lanie ever really considered a home, she’ll have to bring her “husband” back to Charmed, Texas for three whole months—or watch Aunt Ruby’s cozy nest go to her weasel cousin, who will sell it to a condo developer.

Nick McKane is out of work, out of luck, and the spitting image of the man Lanie described. He needs money for his daughter’s art school tuition, and Lanie needs a convenient spouse. It’s a match made . . . well, not quite in heaven, but for a temporary arrangement, it couldn’t be better. Except the longer Lanie and Nick spend as husband and wife, the more the connection between them begins to seem real. Maybe this modern fairy tale really could come true . . .

A CHARMED LITTLE LIE is a fun and quirky small town romance in Charmed, Texas. Told in first person, it features a shocked heroine grieving the loss of her beloved aunt. Though its been a few years since she's seen her aunt, Lanie finds out that she is inheriting her aunt's house with a catch, she must live in the house with her husband for three months or else the house reverts to a sleazy cousin. Lanie has lived out of town for a few years and she never wanted to disappoint her Aunt Ruby. Unfortunately, she fibbed a little bit when she wrote her aunt and bragged about her husband. There is no husband. 

     Lanie recently met Nick at a small diner where he was fired. He is a good, hard working man who can't seem to find the right direction. He likes Lanie and agrees to help Lanie, with the help of her aunt's lawyer (and her old friend) Carmen out with a wacky scheme to pretend to be married. It's important to Lanie to keep the only home that she has ever really known, and so Lanie offers to pay Nick for his help. He is divorced and wants to help his daughter get into a good college. 

     There is a cast of crazy characters in the town and Lanie's ex. Lanie's cousin never visited his aunt and just wants to sell Ruby's house. The ex is also lining up a deal to help the cousin sell. Lanie and Nick have to go to quite a few social events and the more they are together, the more they begin to really care for each other. It is a familiar trope, handled well by Ms Lovelace with a nice little twist. Lanie was an enjoyable heroine who might have done the wrong thing  but for the right reason.  It didn't hurt that the sexy and  hunky Nick always had her back. I enjoyed this quirky little town and can't wait to visit the town again for Carmen's story.

There are things a girl hopes to hear in her lifetime, and a marriage proposal definitely tops that list. A proposal offered as a business deal, probably thrown out in desperation to stop my meltdown and pending dehydration, however, was not what most women have in mind.

             “Don’t, Nick,” I said, hiccupping through my sobs, trying to make it stop. “Don’t play with that. Don’t make fun.”        

“I’m not,” he said, still facing Ralph, the dog’s face in his hands as if it were all addressed to him. “I’m dead serious.”

I waited for more and it didn’t come. Um, I needed more explanation than that.

Wiping at my face in vain, I leaned against the post and looked down at possibly the hottest man I’d ever met. Sitting on my porch in a black-on-black suit, asking me to marry him by proxy of Ralph.

“Why?”

Finally, he let go of Ralph’s large head and stood, turning to face me as though it was with his last dying breath.

“You need this house,” he said, his words slow and precise. His dark eyes didn’t blink, didn’t look away uncomfortably, didn’t falter. “You may or may not need the money, I don’t know. I don’t see you getting all emotional about that, but you’re hugging the house, so I’m guessing the money’s not an important factor.”

“I didn’t even know about that money.”

“Which brings it to me,” he said, closing his eyes briefly. “I need a job.”

“Are you saying—”

“I’m saying I just got in a car with a stranger for five hundred dollars,” he said. “That’s how far I’ve fallen. Three months of my life—what would that be worth?”

My tongue felt as swollen and stuck as my eyelids.

That sentence, along with the glazed over look his eyes got and the hard set of his jaw, was possibly the saddest thing I’d ever witnessed. To be followed closely by the strong possibility of my saying yes.

Sharla Lovelace is the bestselling, award-winning author of sexy small-town love stories. Being a Texas girl through and through, she’s proud to say she lives in Southeast Texas with her retired husband, a tricked-out golf cart, and two crazy dogs. She is the author of five stand-alone novels including the bestselling Don’t Let Go, the exciting Heart Of The Storm series, and the fun and sexy new Charmed in Texas series. 

For more about Sharla's books, visit www.sharlalovelace.com, and keep up with all her new book releases easily by subscribing to her newsletter. She loves keeping up with her readers, and you can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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