Review - An Article of Lies by Lisa Oliver
An Article of Lies"
by Lisa Oliver
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Tags: Fantasy
Posted in Book Reviews on January 14, 2026
As the younger son, Prince Remy is used to being mostly ignored. His family loves and supports him, but all the other nobles dismiss him as unimportant and odd. Odd, because his best friend is a large lizard who terrorizes the stable boys. So, Remy is perplexed when Crown Prince Xavier offers a marriage contract for Remy to his father. Remy developed a crush on Xavier when he was just fifteen years old, but his clumsy attempt to seduce the Crown Prince was brutally rebuffed. The crush has never faded, but Remy can only assume the marriage contract is a political move rather than a romantic proposal.
“An Article of Lies” is another arranged marriage story set in the same fantasy world as The Infidelity Clause. It’s a universe where the world is divided into medieval kingdoms and marriages between men are accepted. Magic is also real but doesn’t play a large role in the story. Although a few characters from the other books set in this world are mentioned, they don’t play any significant role. You can read the books in any order and without necessarily having read the others.
Like most of the books set in this world, there’s almost no build-up to the main story. Xavier and Remy are thrown together after just a few chapters. The primary challenge the couple face in this plot is less physical than in the other swashbuckling stories of this series. Instead, it’s a much more modern tale with Xavier’s reputation destroyed on the eve of his wedding by a fake news story published by his spurned secretary, making the book title a play on words. Much of the drama in the story is provided by how the various characters react to the news, and especially who believes it.
The narration switches between Remy and Xavier. Remy seems resigned to his role as the spare-spare, unlikely ever to take the throne, so relatively free to do what he wants. While other young men might take that as an excuse to go wild, Remy uses it to live a relatively normal life, which endears him to the common people he insists on interacting with.
Conversely, Xavier has lived with the full weight of people’s expectations of him as Crown Prince. He has carefully avoided doing anything that might bring shame on his family and his kingdom. That’s what makes the allegations against him so crushing. What’s worse is discovering that some of those closest to him believe what was written, even when it’s proven to be a lie.
“An Article of Lies” is available from Smashwords.