Lies that Bind is second in the Anastasia Phoenix series by Diana Rodriguez Wallach. Anastasia has found Keira, alive, and they have plans to go into hiding after they helped Marcus find his brother. Before they get the chance to disappear, though, Anastasia gets devastating news. Her best friend Tyson has been murdered in a mugging gone wrong. She returns to Boston to attend his funeral, only to learn it wasn’t a random mugging. Tyson was murdered as a message to Anastasia and Keira. This pushes her to decide to go on the offensive against Department D. Joined by Antonio, Marcus’ brother, and the continued help of hacker genius Charlotte and Julian, they begin tracking down people hurt by Department D, and collecting evidence to turn over to the CIA. But enemies prove to be allies, and allies enemies, leaving the mistrustful Anastasia even more uncertain. Coupled with even more soul-crushing news about their family’s involvement and with one of their own the target of an assassination attempt, their group has some tough decisions to make.
This story is becoming even more convoluted and complex, in a good way. Really, who is safe to trust? Not just for Anastasia, but for the reader? Haha, I’m learning a new reason to not get attached to characters besides that every time I pick a favourite character in a story, movie, game, etc, they seem destined to die. Now it’s that I shouldn’t trust them.
I think I read the second book even faster! Missed my proper bedtime again, too. Julian’s still my favourite character overall. And I patently do not like Antonio, for similar reasons to why I hedge liking Keira- the attitude of wild party person, combined with excessive drinking tendencies. I get why Keira us the way she is, hence the greater understanding towards her. As this story goes on, you learn more of why he is the way he is, but he still does some things that keep me disliking him.
The deep attention to psychological detail is evident in this book, as with the first. Antonio’s reaction to Anastasia’s mistrust causes serious friction with which I’m familiar. There’s the backlash of Keira having been rescued by her younger sister. And, the biggest is Regina, Tyson’s girlfriend, and once Anastasia’s friend, who turns on her after learning she is the ’cause’ of his death.
I do have one recurrent annoyance that was in the first book as well. Anastasia mentions several times that she holds a ‘double black belt’ in karate. While I’m not familiar with every style of martial art, I’ve never heard of this. I’ve heard of different ranks to a black belt. I suppose you might say ‘double black belt’ if you learned two different styles, but that is never mentioned, and that phrasing would be better as ‘a black belt in X & X’.
Still- highly recommended!
***Many thanks to Netgalley and Entangled Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
