SHE HAD IT COMING

Dolores Reese, a master at keeping secrets, attempts to pull off the ultimate deception as she juggles two husbands--one in prison, and one at home--and becomes trapped in a web of love, dishonesty, and jealousy, when her first husband is set free due to new evidence.

The question in Monroe's steamy but seedy shocker is who should suffer the most: the unreliable narrator or her BFF who commits murder on the night of their senior prom? Dolores Reese, a foster child, and her best friend, Valerie Proctor, get caught in a web of deadly secrets after LoReese witnesses Valerie killing her stepfather, Zeke Proctor, to protect her mother. The friends drift apart but stay in sporadic touch, and 16 years later, Lo, now married, confides her own secret: she's jailhouse married to her first love, Floyd Watson, who's been locked up for years on a bogus rape/murder charge. When Floyd is belatedly cleared of the charges, Lo's determined to stay married to both men, and Valerie agrees to help her. Monroe draws a bleak picture of how secrets can wreck friendships, but she fails to create much sympathy for either the sometimes sarcastic and conceited Lo or Valerie. Readers might find Lo's bigamy lifestyle a little too unbelievable and a late-breaking affair too out-of-left-field, but those who can sit back and go along with the chain of double-crosses and deception should enjoy the ride. (Sept.)
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Dolores Reese has had a rough life, but she has managed to stay out of trouble. A foster child in South Central L.A., her boyfriend, Floyd, ends up wrongly arrested, charged with the brutal rape and murder of a young girl, and sentenced to life in prison. Dolores is crushed, but she slowly rebuilds her life while promising to stick by Floyd no matter what. However, she meets and marries Paul, keeping Floyd a complete secret even though she visits him monthly. On one of these visits, Floyd asks her to marry him, and feeling pity, she agrees and goes through with the ceremony. Then Floyd is released, and Dolores finds herself building lies on top of lies as she lives two separate lives with two separate husbands. It’s only a matter of time before she is found out. Though it all seems rather farfetched, Monroe keeps the suspense high, and readers will draw a bated breath with the turn of each page. --Hilary Hatton