by Brittney (link)
Genre het, romance, mystery/thriller
Pairings Taylor/OFC
Length 30 chapters and epilogue
Status Completed (with sequel)
So I decided to read Bed of Lies because I really haven’t read much of Brittney’s stories all the way through, even when I did read fanfiction back in the day I never really finished them and I have always seen Brittney’s stories getting talked about highly and she had a bit of a following back when she actually wrote Hanfic.
I decided to start with Bed of Lies because it was one of her first and it’s also one I have seen a lot about. Also my mom might have read it too back in the day. So I wanted to see if it was actually any good. I know stories set in the era she wrote Bed of Lies have tendencies not to be that well written mainly because most of the writers of early Hanfic were young themselves. As the writers have grown so has the quality of hanfic in my opinion.
In reading Bed of Lies I found that Brittney’s story seemed to fall under a few typical cliches like having a parent who was a jerk and having a Hanson be a jerk too and while I found her main character Eden a bit Mary-Sueish I kind of liked her in a way. Mainly because she felt like she was believable for an eighteen year old thrust into the life was given by fate.
I also liked Taylor even if he could be an ass at times, like when he hit Eden twice, both times during her pregnancy. I’m firm in my stances that you should never hit a woman, especially a pregnant woman and so that kind of ruined my perception of this Taylor just a bit as did his ever changing moods. He isn’t the best fanfic Taylor around but when he has his cute moments though he really has his cute moments.
I may have found myself though liking Zac much more than I liked Taylor and not just because I am a Zac girl. I just felt that maybe Eden had more chemistry with Zac than with the man who was her husband and stayed her husband in the end. A little fact that I may have liked just because I like when what the characters have planned always fail. It’s something I see a lot in soap operas and I really love it in fanfics too.
One thing that did make me sad was how famous Brittney had Hanson in this story. She wrote in ’02 so it was during that really long break where they were having troubles with the label and I get that not many fans knew what was going on but with this story set in the future a bit from when it was actually written it makes me sad to still see a famous Hanson who gets hounded by the press for their love lives and other stuff, mainly because the reality is they never stayed that famous.
I also kind of wished Brittney had drawn out the last little twist or introduced that plot line a lot earlier but only because I like mystery driven stories.
In conclusion I am not sure Bed of Lies was my favorite story of hers but it is also the first one she wrote and I believe she wrote it when she was eighteen so I can’t fault her for the issues mainly because every fledgling writer’s first stories are definitely not the best but they sure can be fun to read and Bed of Lies was a fun read even with the stuff I didn’t like and I am looking forward to reading the sequel now.
Review by Elizabeth (tumblr)