Synopsis:

Always the one who ends relationships before they’ve barely begun, it’s way out of character for Maggie Lawless to take a risk with a man she hardly knows. But when she meets a man in a seedy New York City diner, she senses a truth about him, a sincerity like no-one she’s ever met before.

Tony Valentino is an FBI agent fresh from a long-term undercover operation that’s left his life in tatters. His marriage over, separated from his children and with nowhere to call home, he’s frustrated and angry. All that keeps him going is the sweet memory of a brief encounter with a beautiful woman, though it wakes him from crazy dreams that leave his mouth dry and his sheets soaked with sweat. When he meets her again, it’s obvious the fire that burned so briefly between them never really went out...but as their affair rekindles, both Tony and Maggie find the very people they thought they could trust are the first to turn against them.
 

SRR GRADE:  A+
 

Sometimes as readers we find characters we become attached to easily. Jane Richardson has created such characters in A Different Kind of Honesty, placing them each in a situation where the truth is not initially possible, and then seeing what they do with what happens from there. From the beginning of the book, Ms.Richardson reaches out and grabs her readers by the heart and doesn't let go, the same as Maggie takes hold of Tony's heart when they first meet. Ms. Richardson begins A Different Kind of Honesty with a chance meeting between Maggie and Tony, and the little falsehoods they both use to hide their true identity from each other. What they don't realize is the impression they each leave on the other, and the wish they both secretly harbor to meet again.

The author has a strong sense of detail when it comes to character development, instilling each with individual and distinct personality traits that the reader can either identify with and love, or acknowledge and dislike. We are anxious to see what happens to Maggie, Tony, Chang and our other favorite characters. As readers, we are vested in the outcome of the book, and find it difficult to put it down, continuing to read it obsessively without end until the final page.