Book 1 in Two Truths and a Lie
Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 3.75/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 | 📱
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read The Naked Truth yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
OPENING HOOK
A ghostwriter and a secret internet-famous naked chef spend months emailing each other about the tone and voice for his cookbook that she’s writing. Neither one knows who the other actually is, but their correspondence gets flirtier and more personal (two truths and a lie somehow becomes a staple in there) as the months pass. Then they get stuck in a car together for a road trip and it turns out they’ve hated each other since high school, but don’t know about each other’s alter ego, so they’re friends and don’t know it. That’s the whole premise, and it delivers.
THE FULL STORY Summary — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Okay so Annie is the loud one. She’s spent her whole life being the family chaos gremlin so her twin sister could stay the golden child, and that role landed her deep into partying and a writing career that hasn’t gone where she hoped it would. She’s a year into getting her life back together and ghostwriting to pay the bills, and I loved that aspect because we’ve all had a reinvention era.
Her sister is marrying a guy Annie can’t stand, and the wedding prep throws her directly into the path of Nico, the groom’s best friend, and Annie’s actual high school nemesis. These two go back to a valedictorian fight that Nico won and Annie never got over, because losing that spot is what knocked her out of the program that would’ve changed her whole trajectory. So we’re not talking mild irritation here, we’re talking a decade of resentment and hostility.
Of course, the bride and groom suggests the two of them should carpool down the coast together because a train ticket for Annie costs a small fortune, and Nico has already booked rentals and mapped everything out along the way. Annie does not want this. Nico does not want this either, because he’s using this road trip to film content for his secret job, moonlighting as an anonymous, faceless “naked chef” for a subscriber-only site, cooking in gorgeous kitchens along the route. Another person tagging along is a problem for him.
They agree to it anyway to keep the peace, and from there it’s a slow burn of forced proximity, old grudges, and neither one able to admit the other is kind of more interesting than the other thought.
Here’s the part that makes this book fun: Nico catches Annie watching his content in a guest house one night and gets a whole thrill out of it, not realizing why she’s actually watching. Because she’s not watching for the reason he thinks. She’s the ghostwriter he’s been emailing for months about his cookbook, and she’s studying his on-camera tone for the book. Also because she thinks he’s hot AF, but partly for the book. So there’s this entire second relationship running underneath the one they know they’re having, and the reader gets to sit there knowing both halves while neither of them does. The banter in these two timelines is sharp with a more grown-up and layered wit than a lot of the snark you get in this genre.
As expected, eventually it all unravels. She figures out he’s the chef, he figures out she’s the ghostwriter, but it’s not a clean, easy landing into happily-ever-after. There’s a third act split, but it’s not the “we just need time apart” kind. It’s the kind where they both recognize they’ve got individual work to do before they’re any good for each other, and they actually go do it separately instead of just waiting out a timer. I wasn’t sure they would end up together in the end before he makes a big beautiful grand gesture by putting her name on the book as an author instead of leaving her uncredited under the terms of her ghostwriting contract.
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
The dual-identity structure. Watching Annie and Nico be openly hostile in person while being warm and vulnerable with each other in email, without either of them knowing it’s the same person, is such a good device. The book never cheats it or drags it out past the point of being fun, so it’s a great mix of will they, won’t they, but how will they react when they find out?
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
Nothing was badly done, but I didn’t click with these characters the way I usually do. Annie’s whole chaos-and-reinvention arc is so far outside anything I relate to that I stayed a step removed from her emotionally the whole book. That’s a me thing, not a writing thing because the character work is clearly intentional and consistent, it just wasn’t hitting for me. There’s a bit of a culture barrier from their location to mine as well that didn’t help, but I think enjoyed it even more for those differences even if I couldn’t connect with the characters themselves as much.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
🔥🔥🔥🔥 — spicy. Yes, there are sex scenes, and given Nico’s whole secret job, the tension is doing a lot of work before you even get there. Content warnings: past drug use and a wild, promiscuous lifestyle for Annie (all in her past, handled as backstory/reform rather than on the page), plus some strained parental and family relationships running under the wedding plot.
THE ENDING explained — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Satisfied, with an asterisk. I’m not usually a fan of the third-act breakup trope, but this one worked for me because it wasn’t just time apart for the sake of drama, it was both of them actually going to work on their own stuff. The wedding itself goes sideways too, and the bride took her ex (and former adult content actor) on the honeymoon, so I’m hoping they may be book two.
A MOMENT THAT STOOD OUT
The guest house scene. Nico getting worked up seeing Annie watch his content, without realizing that Annie’s actually watching for research on his cookbook, and the reader is the only one who knows both sides of that. So much tension packed into one moment having Nico wonder if he should let her know it’s him, and if so, how.
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
Honestly not sure yet. I liked it and laughed a lot, but I don’t know that it’s calling me back the way some others do.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Readers who want a forced-proximity, secret-identity romance with sharper-than-usual banter and a heroine who’s mid-reinvention rather than already put together.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📖 Physical Book
Amazon
📱 Ebook
Amazon Kindle
🎧 Audiobook — none
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📚 More from Two Truths and a Lie
- Book 1 — The Naked Truth | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 3.75/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 2 — Coming Soon
Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📱 | Series: Two Truths and a Lie Book 1 | Genre: Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
TAGS: The Naked Truth, Ana Kirkshaw, Two Truths and a Lie, Plot Twisted, spoiler review, contemporary romance, forced proximity romance, secret identity romance, road trip romance, third act breakup, spicy romance, ebook review