The Truth About You    by Susan Lewis Order:  USA  Can Ballantine, 2013 (2013) Softcover, e-Book     Reviewed by Hilary Williamson Susan Lewis, author of No Child of Mine and Don't Let Me Go, brings fans another engrossing tale of family and secrets in The Truth About You. Lainey Hollingsworth is the hub around which everyone and everything in her home revolves. She's the perfect mother, stepmother, wife and daughter - almost too saintly to be true. Her husband Tom (fourteen years her senior) is a famous writer and she manages his career on top of everything else. Her beloved stepfather Peter, who has Alzheimer's, lives with them as does her stepson Max, whose attitude is extreme. Her daughter Tierney is in full flung teen rebellion at fifteen and her son Xavier is eleven. Lainey is also supporting her best friend Stacy through her divorce. Lainey still feels bad about Tom's first wife Emma, though she had been unaware that he was married when they fell in love. And she has her insecurities. Though Peter was always loving, Lainey's mother Alessandra had often been cruel to her and never talked of her early life in Italy or of Lainey's real father. Nevertheless, Lainey copes with it all with aplomb, that us until she learns that Tom has another daughter, the same age as Tierney whose mother is 'the sassy, sophisticated, and exceptionally beautiful Kirsten Bonner'. Not only that, but Tom starts spending time with mother and daughter in Hereford. Is he planning to leave her and the children? As the misunderstandings build between husband and wife, the date of a planned holiday to seek Lainey's roots in Italy looms. Lainey goes with Stacy and the children and eventually finds out what made her mother so unloving. Tom eventually joins them there and they talk about the future. Susan Lewis always gives her fans characters one can't help but love and she's done it again with Lainey in The Truth About You. Though her virtues are a bit hard for the rest of us to live up to, and the quest for Lainey's roots seemed peripheral to the plot, I enjoyed spending time with her. As a bonus, the back of the book has an excerpt from the author's next novel, Never Say Goodbye; I look forward to it. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews