All the Lies We Tell: Quarry Road, Book 1

In this mediocre contemporary from prolific author Hart (Lovely Wild), Alicia Stern is dispirited, divorced, dwelling in her childhood home, and being driven up the wall by her ex, who’s also her unsatisfactory business partner. Growing up, she and Ilya were always accompanied by his brother, Nikolai, and her older sister, Jennilyn. They lived on a cul-de-sac in Quarrytown, Pa., and played around at the old quarry at the end of the street. Despite a tragedy involving Jennilyn, Alicia and Ilya married and started a deep diving business at the quarry, which absorbed all their savings and drove them to divorce. Now Ilya flirts with the customers while Alicia does most of the work. When Ilya’s grandmother, who also mothered Alicia and her sister, becomes gravely ill, Niko returns home and is thrown together with Alicia, his first love. Although touched by his tenderness and responsive to his caresses, Alicia refuses to fall a second time for someone who will leave her behind in the small town that she somehow can’t leave but finds too haunted to endure alone. The characters lack appeal, and readers will be bored with the dragged-out backstory long before Hart reveals the predictable secrets. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary. (May)