Sweet Liar would have to be #5 on my list wittily dubbed as my "Top Ten Favorite Jude Deveraux Books" (after the Velvet series, of course). The reason why I love this book so much? The hero, Michael Taggert.

Following the death of her father, divorcee Samantha Elliot travels to New York City to fulfill an odd condition of his will: she has to live in the city for a year and see what she can find out about her grandmother, who disappeared immediately after the murder of Samantha's mother when Sam was very young. To help - or compel - her, her dad has sold their house out from under her and taken a twelve-month lease on an apartment in Manhattan, so Samantha really has no choice but to obey her father's wishes. She arrives at the apartment and meets (in a very unorthodox fashion) her landlord, the oh-so-attractive, oh-so-charming, oh-so-wealthy Michael Taggert.

Jude Deveraux definitely delivered some terrific one-line zingers (such as the old lady who wonders why a young woman would blush at her mention of making love: "Why is it every generation thinks it invented sex?").

Next to Jamie Fraser (of Diane Gabaldon's Outlander), Mike Taggert has to be one of my favorite romance heroes. The man is pure fantasy, and nobody does a fantasy man as well as Jude Deveraux. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, Mike is a complete character. And completely appealing, to boot. When he tells Samantha, "I'm Michael Taggert, and I'm a different man," my bones just melt.

What reader could resist a man who drags the woman he loves on an all-day shopping and makeover marathon at Saks Fifth Avenue, who insists on spending oodles of money on her, who worries about her health and spirits even when she's not worried about herself, who helps her discover the truth about her family's shady past, who teaches her to appreciate and celebrate who she is, who breaks down the walls of negativity built up by her ex-husband, and who's drop-dead gorgeous to boot? This guy suffers from a refreshing drop of self-doubt, by the way, and he's never let all his money go to his head. He also loves, loves, loves kids. Here's how Deveraux describes him:

He was the most perfectly formed man she'd [Samantha] ever imagined. He was movie stars, men in underwear commercials, guys at the gym, the construction worker in the red T-shirt who'd whistled at her but she'd pretended she hadn't heard; he was the men in three-piece suits whose brains were as sexy as their bodies; he was lazy, indolent seventeen-year-old boys whose muscles bulged out of their clothes, rodeo stars, and those smooth-cheeked, eyeglassed men who held their children tenderly. He was all of them.

I'll take one of each, please.

Gosh - this book was so boring that I skipped a good two hundred pages and still understood what happened. Firstly, let me list the common factors in all of JD's books:

1. A heroine who is beautiful but likes hiding her looks for some stupid contrived reason (Legend, Sweet Liar, A Knight in Shining Armor).
2. She also suffers from low self-esteem and comes up with stupid reasons to look down on herself...all resulting in men treating her like s**t.
3. A story that involves either time-travel or hynotism, bringing her into the past.

Yet, while I did somehow manage to finish Legend and A Knight in Shining Armor, I read about 200 pages of Sweet Liar, skipped the next 150 pages in disgust and just read the ending. And you know what! I didn't miss anything, it seemed.

The only JD book that I liked was Remembrance, but only when Talis & Callie make an appearance. I wish I could've skipped the first 60 pages but I might not have understood what was going on then... Skip Sweet Liar; it's boring...

I have most of this author's books and this book made me want to order the rest. I got my book accurately, the condition is new and the customer service was great. I would recommend this seller and author to anyone. Great service

Through most of my early romance reading, I was strictly an historical romance reader. Contemporary seemed bland compared to the love found on the wagon train or in a castle. But I read the preview of Sweet Liar in the back of another novel and I was hooked. I couldn't wait to read the whole story. I fell in love with Mike Taggart and his whole family that day. I had finally connected the present day Montgomery/Taggart family with all of the ancestors from the past that I had already read about.
This book launched me into appreciating a good modern romance and still remains my favorite. I read it at least once a year.

I have read many of Jude Deveraux's books espically the taggert/montgormery ones and I have to say I enjoyed this one. As I do all of them. It is a definate must read if your Deveraux fan. At times Samantha the heronie was a bit unlikeable but it all comes together in the end and you end up really liking her.