Luna Allen really likes her boss, Mr. Cooper, but when he brings Lucas Ripley into their car restoration business as a second boss, she tries her best to keep Mr. C's and Rip's arguments from turning into something physical. Luna has her own problems dealing with Rip's unreasonable expectations of her work, but she believes that everyone has a silver lining and is determined to find his. The more time they spend together, the more their feelings for each other grow, but secrets and lies threaten to tear their worlds apart.

Even at 616 pages, it seems as though some things in Luna and the Lie are rushed or glossed over, especially serious topics like child abuse, substance abuse, and PTSD. Also, several small time jumps throughout the book make it seem as though things have been left out of the plot. While the characters mostly come across as realistic, some of their actions are illogical based on their construction in the story. Even with these issues, Luna and the Lie successfully develops a slow burn romance between the protagonists, and grabs the reader right from the very first page. Overall Luna and the Lie is an emotional roller coaster that is difficult to put down. ( )

Writing was all over the place. The inner monologue of FMC made up close to 85% of the book and it was hella boring ( )

3.5 ( )

Did this book follow the same “Girl meets boy. Girl falls for boy even though he doesn’t seem to like her very much. Girl realizes boy is unavailable emotionally. Girl is confused when boy suddenly starts acting like a boyfriend. Boy makes girl realize he loves her” format of most of the other books by this author? Yes. Yes it did. But I loved it all the same. Luna and Rip has such an interestingly tumultuous journey to love. You can’t help but fall in love with them too. ( )

Another lovely book by MZ. As usual, this was super slow burn. I appreciated the fact that the hero, who had a contentious but workable relationship with his father, didn’t end up all rainbows and roses with him at the end because of the heroine’s presence. Just more realistic. Also liked the part where the hero had left the motorcycle club life behind and was turning his life around. Although it seemed like that might come back to bite him on the ass butthat story line was just dropped. Oversight? Maybe those hints should have been left out if that bit wasn’t going to go anywhere. Just a minor quibble though. I liked both the hero and the heroine. I enjoyed that he was older. The relationship was believable and this was just an all around good read. ( )