For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer: love and lies have always been the most intimate of bedfellows.

And Clancy Martin – divorced twice, married three times – is no stranger to either.

With help from Plato, Machiavelli, Raymond Carver and Pinocchio, here he explores the entanglements of love, truthfulness and deceit. First, unrequited, lasting or misguided – love always goes hand in hand with secrets, and it’s time we started being honest about our lying.