Product Description

Harris serves up a treat that will capture and enchant audiences everywhere—a big, bold, and irresistible novel about football, family, and secrets.

Brady Bledsoe and his mother, Carmyn, have a strong relationship. A single mother, faithful churchgoer, and the owner of several successful Atlanta beauty salons, Carmyn has devoted herself to her son and his dream of becoming a professional football player. Brady has always followed her lead, including becoming a member of the church’s "Celibacy Circle." Now in his senior year at college, the smart, and very handsome, Brady is a lead contender for the Heisman Trophy and a spot in the NFL.

As sports agents hover around Brady, Barrett, a beautiful and charming cheerleader, sets her mind on tempting the celibate Brady and getting a piece of his multimillion-dollar future—but is that all she wants from him, and is she acting alone?

Carmyn is determined to protect her son. She’s also determined to protect the secret she’s kept from Brady his whole life. As things heat up on campus and Carmyn and Brady’s idyllic relationship starts to crumble, mother and son begin to wonder about the other—are you just too good to be true?

A sweeping novel about mothers and sons, football and beauty shops, secrets and lies, JUST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE has all the ingredients that have made E. Lynn Harris a bestselling author: family, friendship, faith, and love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2857 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-15
• Released on: 2008-07-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

About the Author

E. LYNN HARRIS is a nine-time New York Times bestselling author. His work includes the memoir, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, and the novels I Say a Little Prayer, A Love of My Own, Just as I Am, Any Way the Wind Blows, If This World Were Mine, and the classic Invisible Life. Harris divides his time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Fayetteville, Arkansas, home of his beloved college football team The Razorbacks.

Customer Reviews

E. Lynn Harris does it again!
My book club chose this book and I am glad. I really liked the book.

Oustanding Read!
I'm glad to see E.Lynn step out from his norm and go in a different direction. I love his writing style but I have never been a big fan, until now. This was an excellent read. I highly recommend it. A great book club discussion book.

Reviewed by
Dawnny

OK, maybe another half-star for his intentions...
This is my first book by this writer, and I picked it up because the dust jacket promised a "read" about family, faith and football...a winning combination, I thought. This story was good enough to stick it out to the end, but frankly, I found the main characters fairly unlikeable. The mom of one of the most talented major college football stars of 2005 has a public image of perfection and success. She has hidden a less perfect past and present from her son, and some of her secrets and deceptions seem quite unfair to him. The son, who has promised to be pure, has given in to a couple of temptations, which he hides from mom and the sports world which has taken an interest in him. The family's best friend spills a couple of their secrets foolishly to his new lover, and that gives an unscrupulous sports agent real leverage against the player. Kind of caught in the middle of all this is an overage hooker/cheerleader sent to seduce the player into signing with her adulterous boyfriend/agent. If you are interested, as I was, in learning some things you hadn't known about the pressures in big time college football, you may like the environment in which this novel is set. However, I just didn't really root for the characters I think the author wanted me to support. They are not evil, but it is hard to equate hypocrites with "heroes" either. And the final few pages seem rushed and inadequate to wrap up the story lines. The character I cheered for the most was a guy that mom dated, who ran a sandwich shop, and a man from her past who made a non-hypocritical success out of his life. The football presented here, while bearing little resemblance to reality, was more interesting than either this family, or the faith its members were supposed to possess.