Review: Scandalous Lies by Nigel May

Title: Scandalous Lies
Author: Nigel May
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 23rd July 2015
Pages: 381
Source: Review Copy
Rating: 5/5
Purchase: Amazon

Lovers and liars, divas and sinners, welcome to a world of scandal, where one woman will pay the ultimate price.

SUSPENSE: Georgia’s best friend, ballroom dancing sensation Mitzi, has vanished with boyfriend Foster while on holiday in California. Can Georgia get to the truth of their disappearance before it’s too late?

SECRETS: Reality TV star Nova could give the Kardashians a run for their money. But while she allows millions of viewers into her fabulous home, she’s unaware what her husband, celebrity mogul Jacob, is up to behind closed doors …

SEX: Tanya is filthy rich, married to a man who adores her but she is restless. And her sexual appetite is about to get her into a whole lot of trouble.

SCANDAL: Victoria, once the trophy-wife, has lost her mojo. Determined to get her life and marriage back on track, she’s desperate to inject some excitement in her life – but at what cost?

From the glitz of Hollywood to the glamour of Milan and the exotic luxury of India, Scandalous Lies is a deliciously unputdownable read.

To describe Scandalous Lies in one word: incredible. Insanely good. And off the scale hot. I already had high expectations after reading and loving Nigel May's Addicted, but Scandalous Lies is something else and is a book that everybody should be downloading to their Kindles this summer. Move over Rebecca Chance and Victoria Fox, Nigel May has stolen your crowns and is holding them ransom for the foreseeable. Once again I am kicking myself at never having read Nigel's books before. It's amazing what a publisher and some new covers can do for a book!

Scandalous Lies consumed me so much as a reader that I was did not want to put it down, in fact I was positively seething when I had to. I downloaded it to my Kindle for iPhone app, something that I only do for books that I need to read every spare minute I get. Like shopping in ASDA, glam it is not and I did have stop reading certain parts in public. Ahem. In all seriousness though there's a truly addictive quality to Nigel's novels, the kind I experienced the first time I picked up a Jackie Collins novel. Nigel packs so much into his stories that they are just so action-packed there's never a moment to pause for breath, it's a rollercoaster read from start to finish.

The blurb only touches on some of the characters that feature in Scandalous Lies and as much as I would love to sit here and discuss them all, we'd be here all day. In classic style we are introduced to a whole plethora of characters, some obviously connected and some not so. As the book progresses they all start to interact in the most brilliant of ways and towards the end of the book you know something bad is coming, you just don't know when, by who, and to who. The whole thing is brilliant and the story went in a way that I certainly didn't see coming. I had a whole other scenario playing out in my head! I loved following them around the glamorous locations Scandalous Lies take us to and whilst I envied their life, I was so glad I wasn't a part of it at times!

I will discuss some of my favourites though. Interestingly despite there being such a varied mixture of characters, there were only a select few that I actually liked. And some that I just loved to hate. My first favourites were probably weathergirl Georgia and her TV presenter boyfriend Charlie. One of those couples whose beauty makes you want to stare at them, and then stare at yourself and wonder why you aren't them. Just me? Georgia is on a mission throughout Scandalous Lies, a mission to find out what happened to her best friend Mitzi who went missing whilst on holiday in America with her boyfriend. In a world full of backstabbers, Georgia is a real normal, down to Earth character who I very quickly liked. And alongside Charlie this is a couple that you hope can survive all that Hollywood has to throw at them, like certain desperate housewives.

Reality TV star Nova is another memorable character for a couple of reasons. One of them being that she is the absolute epitome of what you expect someone like her to be like. She is so fabulously outrageous but also believable. A true fame whore if ever there was one she is only interested in what fame can bring her, and the 'friends' that she can gain from having such a successful career. She does love her son Charlie though, perhaps a little bit too much but at least she lavishes her attention on her one and only son as opposed to one of those famous mums who have tons of kids but favourite just a couple... Oddly I did favour some of the male characters over the females this time around. One in particular being gardener Aaron who achieved fame on a gardening version of TOWIE. Think of a more rugged and hairy Mark Wright. I loved witnessing how he got caught up in the whole fame game and with a rather trashy Russian oligarch's daughter whose husband was a bit of a drip with a revenge plan you doubted would ever come to fruition. And then there's characters you wish wouldn't fall victim to drugs and addictions and actually stand up for themselves, a la Victoria. I was almost screaming at her to stand up for herself and take her revenge, rather than the weak excuses she gave for her husband's infidelity with a home wrecking nanny.

As the title suggests pretty much every single character is lying and/or plotting some sort of revenge on the other characters and this leaves you wondering which characters will actually see out their plans and which characters will even still be alive by the end of the story. With such a huge amount of characters we don't know what fully connects them all in the beginning, this is revealed to us as we read and everything just falls into place wonderfully, allowing for some truly thrilling twists and turns to play out as we read. I actually failed to work out how things would ultimately end, especially in the case of what actually happened to Mitzi and her boyfriend. Amazing. I loved picturing all of these characters and trying to imagine who they could be in real life, or even just putting my own face to them going by the descriptions not only of their looks but also their personalities. There's a couple of shady characters in the background not least Jack Christie, a man who has recently been released from prison and is already plotting how he can 'earn' himself some serious money. Think Ross from Emmerdale.

It is clear on every single page the amount of fun that Nigel May must have had writing this book and creating these characters. It just shines through as you are reading. I also love that he is an author whose books exist within the same world, and so regular readers will recognise the character of Evie from Trinity. Scandalous Lies has everything you could ever want from a book and then some. It is wall to wall filth but with a truly engrossing and multi-layered story within. If Nigel May ever finds himself a little deflated with the bonkbuster genre then he is more than capable of turning his hand to crime fiction, because the mystery element here is brilliantly done. The sex in the book is so good it should come with a warning. And there's a scene with a food item I don't think I will ever look at in the same way again. Scandalous Lies is a book I didn't want to end because I was having that much fun reading it. It is full of exotic and glamorous locations making it the perfect book to escape into this summer. Your own holiday will look quite tame in comparison. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to convince Nigel to include me in his next book!