Review: Deadly Little Scandals (Debutantes #2) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
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Series: Debutantes #2
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Published November 5th 2019 by Freeform
Goodreads Synopsis
"Think of the White Gloves like the Junior League-by way of Skull and Bones?"
Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret. When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group's ranks may have the answers she's looking for. Things are looking up... until Sawyer and the White Gloves make a disturbing discover near the family's summer home--and uncover a twisted secret, decades in the making.
No one is quite who they seem to be.
Goodreads
Review
As soon as this book dropped through my letterbox, I immediately started reading it. I had loved book 1, Little White Lies, and with the way that one had ended, I was glad I had only a month and a half to wait until I could find out more. Now that Sawyer is fully immersed in the Taft family, and is thinking of herself as a Taft, and that she belongs, she's found a bit of security. She's still hiding the fact that her father is in fact her uncle, and that cousin Lily is actually her sister. Lily is still struggling with the breakup with Walker and that her family seem to be imploding, and has fallen into a depression. When a mysterious society known as the White Gloves want the four girls - Sawyer, Lily, Campbell, and Sadie Grace - to rush for them, in the hopes of being made members when they go to college, Lily begs they all join, and they do, for her. Campbell is also struggling with the stigma of her father's arrest - that she played a part in - and will do just about anything, and Sadie Grace will always help her friends, especially when it takes her mind of her stepmother's fake pregnancy. Now, the White Gloves aren't your usual group. They're made up of the highest of societies debs, and it's not all dresses and parties. When the girls uncover a 20 year old mystery, literally finding a dead body in the lake, they find that their families - of course - are involved in the death, and cover up, and do whatever they can to find out the truth, when the stakes are honestly stacked up against them.
As I had hoped, the friendship between the four girls is better than ever, and their love for each other is so apparent in this book. They all are struggling with different things, but would do anything for each other, mainly made clear when Lily begs them to join the White Gloves. They are really like sisters in this book, which is ironic when some of them actually are, but it's as if their friendship is more important than blood, as they've all learnt that family isn't everything, and that all of them have skeletons in the family closets - some actual skeletons.
Again, the book is told in a mix, this time with three different parts. There's the present of the four girls, their own flashbacks to the start of the summer, and then flashbacks to when the body in the lake was alive, what happened to her, and who was involved. I liked the extra scenes this time, as we had more mysteries, and this helped to tie everything together. All three story lines were running side by side, with different parts and people popping up time and time again, which helped to sort out any plot holes there might've been.
Having such a good cast already, I liked the addition of others, including those in the White Gloves, and the introduction of Sawyer's mam, who had come back home and wanted to rejoin the family. Her and Olivia's dynamic was amazing, especially as we discovered more about them form their youth. Family, and found family is a big part to this book, and we can't see that any clearer in the Taft's.
The romance between Sawyer and Nick wasn't that good, but it didn't matter to the plot, if I'm honest. If there were anything I would take out, it's probably that, but like I said, it didn't bother me too much. Sadie Grace and Boone are the true couple in this series, and every time they were together, the hearts eye literally flew off the page.
This book was a lot darker than the first, with a different vibe, but I still loved it, and hope there is a third one.
Dates Read:
November 12-15, 2019
Rating
4 Stars
November 12-15, 2019
Rating
4 Stars
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