I recently learned that Stacey Abrams, when not going above and beyond saving democracy, is an author of fiction, under the pen name Selena Montgomery. Intrigued, I decided to check out Secrets and Lies.

Expecting a straightforward love story (she’s generally described as a romance novelist), I found instead more of a thriller (with some romance thrown in). Actually, more than anything else, it reminded me of an 1980s action adventure movie–one of the Raiders of the Lost Ark ones, or Romancing the Stone, or the Han Solo and Leia scenes from the Star Wars films. There’s a beautiful and accomplished heroine (an ethnobiologist), a thief with a code of honor (also impossibly handsome and whip smart), a mysterious and valuable book, assorted bad guys (big Pharma execs, local hired thugs), and all kinds of escapes and close calls.  

It’s not at all my kind of thing, although it did keep me amused. I actually think it would work much better as a film–for some reason, I find it much easier to suspend my disbelief when it comes to ridiculously attractive people having unlikely adventures in movies than in books. (So, let’s hope someone’s pursuing the movie rights.) Ms. Abrams told the Washington Post that her novels were written with the goal of illustrating that Black women can be “as adventurous and attractive as any white woman,” and to that I say, “Yes! Pass the popcorn!”

HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon

NOVEL: Secrets and Lies

AUTHOR: Selena Montgomery

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2007

LEAD-IN IMAGE

Book cover, HarperCollins