Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you believe the simple denouement that George is Mr. Smith, then you've been duped by the obvious, just like the losers searching for Ralph Tate's ugly painting. Ryan is Mr. Smith, forced into assuming this role along with all the other nefarious businesses when his grandfather, the original Mr. Smith, died. Evie (Lucca) always wanted the sweet house and the husband, and Ryan fit the mold. Ryan wanted out of the Mr. Smith-business, so he slowly and selectively eliminated the "employees." By setting up the fake Lucca Marino and killing her off, he thought he could keep the real Lucca, with whom he was falling in love, from ever being able to leave him and return to her past identity. But as in all things, Lucca lied first, convincing Ryan that she loved him by changing his stolen business accounting turned over to "Mr Smith" to make his business look unworthy of takeover. Then she made him believe she "caught" George as the real Mr. Smith, so Ryan could exit that con game for good. Devon went to Ryan's home in Lake Forbing (see chapter 21) to set up the whole tech room so Lucca could assume the role and run it as Miss Smith, completely separate from Ryan. And with that, author Ashley Elston has set us up for a sequel.

Whoa!! Thank you for writing this out/carefully explaining!! This makes the most sense to me. A twist within a twist...very interesting!

Anonymous wrote:If you believe the simple denouement that George is Mr. Smith, then you've been duped by the obvious, just like the losers searching for Ralph Tate's ugly painting. Ryan is Mr. Smith, forced into assuming this role along with all the other nefarious businesses when his grandfather, the original Mr. Smith, died. Evie (Lucca) always wanted the sweet house and the husband, and Ryan fit the mold. Ryan wanted out of the Mr. Smith-business, so he slowly and selectively eliminated the "employees." By setting up the fake Lucca Marino and killing her off, he thought he could keep the real Lucca, with whom he was falling in love, from ever being able to leave him and return to her past identity. But as in all things, Lucca lied first, convincing Ryan that she loved him by changing his stolen business accounting turned over to "Mr Smith" to make his business look unworthy of takeover. Then she made him believe she "caught" George as the real Mr. Smith, so Ryan could exit that con game for good. Devon went to Ryan's home in Lake Forbing (see chapter 21) to set up the whole tech room so Lucca could assume the role and run it as Miss Smith, completely separate from Ryan. And with that, author Ashley Elston has set us up for a sequel.

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t put it down!
Great book but you have to pay attention. You can’t read and cook or change a diaper, you have to read it.

Anonymous wrote:I'm at 70% on the audiobook version, and I'm struggling to complete this book. I'm finding it hard to follow and get annoyed with the constant time frame changes. I was going to wait to open this thread until I finished the book but decided today that I might give up so I'd go ahead and read the spoilers. The comments here are more interesting than I'm finding the book.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm at 70% on the audiobook version, and I'm struggling to complete this book. I'm finding it hard to follow and get annoyed with the constant time frame changes. I was going to wait to open this thread until I finished the book but decided today that I might give up so I'd go ahead and read the spoilers. The comments here are more interesting than I'm finding the book.

I read a Goodreads review that sums it up better than I did:

"What it came down to was two things: boredom and disbelief. There was never a point in my reading of this book when I wasn't experiencing one or the other."

Anonymous wrote:I'm at 70% on the audiobook version, and I'm struggling to complete this book. I'm finding it hard to follow and get annoyed with the constant time frame changes. I was going to wait to open this thread until I finished the book but decided today that I might give up so I'd go ahead and read the spoilers. The comments here are more interesting than I'm finding the book.

Anonymous wrote:What was the significance of the origami piece..

Anonymous wrote:What is the significance of King Harvest Fan message board? I’m sure it was mentioned previously but I can’t remember

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much for explaining the Miss Smith reference at the end - I was glued to the book the whole time but that threw me right at the end. So yes of course Lucca/Evie and Amy are partnering up as Lucca is taking over Mr. Smith/George’s business after his unfortunate demise - yep make sense - so it’s just sort of a joke that Amy makes at the end of the story to let the reader know what happened to Mr. Smith’s transport business and all his employees - they have a new boss! There could totally be a sequel to this story - I’d love it! Maybe how Evie and Amy and Ryan might merge their operations and clients to work together and then a disgruntled operative or client from the past or a Smith relative shows up for a hostile takeover or something else super sinister!

It would be so much fun to have a follow. I loved the chemistry among Evie, Amy, Ryan and Devon.