I’ve been absent as of late and I apologize for that. So to make up for it, I’m bringing you a bunch of reviews to make up for it. One is a mystery that will mess with your head, one is a sweet romance and the last is a YA/NAish romance featuring super diverse characters. We’ll start with the mystery.
The synopsis from GoodReads:
In this twisty psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Before, an actress plays both sides of a murder investigation.
One out-of-work British actress pays the rent on her New York City apartment the only way she can: as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, hired to entrap straying husbands. When the cops begin investigating one of her targets for murdering his wife–and potentially others–they ask her to lure the suspect into a confession.
But with the actress pretending to be someone she isn’t, differentiating the decoy from the prey becomes impossible–and deadly.
The story focuses on Claire, a struggling actress who came to America from England to pursue an acting career. Except a million people come to America, New York City especially, to pursue an acting career and they don’t come with black marks on their record like Claire does. So she finds a job with a divorce lawyer and basically makes money by tricking men into thinking she wants to sleep with them while she records their conversations.
Through her work, Claire meets Stella and then Stella meets dead. Claire gets arrested for the murder. And what comes next is such a twisty, turny, upside story that you have to read it to believe it. When the book ended, I sat there staring and thinking WTF did I just read? I almost feel like I need to go back to read it again just to see if there were clues I totally missed along the way. Seriously, did not figure it out until the author told me what happened.
One bit about the story that annoyed me were the chapter openings that read like a script, including stage directions but you get used to it. None of the characters are trustworthy and I’m not even sure they are likeable but it’s definitely a story you need to read to believe.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.
Believe Me is available for purchase now.
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