Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I tried for weeks to finish it but I found nothing about it interesting in the slightest. However, I am grateful for the opportunity! Thank you to the publisher!

a breezy thriller/mystery about two friends and con artists.

Summer and Leo are friends and con artists who live in California. Leo’s latest mark is a tech billionaire, and all seems to be going to plan — until Leo follows him to his private island and disappears. Summer goes looking for her friend — and may have finally met her match.

I was nervous to start this one; it sounded like something I’d love, but I’ve been let down by a lot of book marketing pitches this year. Not this one! I’ve been flying through this book every time I pick it up. If you liked “Lucky” by Marissa Stapley, you’ll really enjoy this one.

I really enjoyed this thriller! Two con-women may have met their match as the target of their scheme may not turn out to be who they think he is. After joining him on an island getaway, it turns out they may not make it off the island alive. Would recommend this and find this a great beach read for anyone who likes the thriller genre.

The first part of You Can Trust Me was great with likeable characters and an interesting story with an engaging mystery at its core. However it slowed down once the characters are on the island, the plot was strong enough to keep me invested until its ending. I would still recommend the book for mystery/thriller lovers as it was an easy fun read.

Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer’s tricked-out Land Cruiser. It’s not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they’ve left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist—and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.

Eager for a big score, Leo catches in her crosshairs Michael Forrester, a self-made billionaire and philanthropist. When her charm wins him over, Leo is rewarded with an invitation to his private island off the California coastline for a night of fabulous excess. She eagerly anticipates returning with photos that can be sold to the paparazzi, jewelry that can be liquidated, and endless stories to share with Summer.

Instead, Leo disappears.

On her own for the first time in years, Summer decides to infiltrate Michael’s island and find out what really happened. But when she arrives, no one has seen Leo—she’s not on the island as far as they know. Plus, there was only one way on the island—and no way off—for the coming days. Trapped in a scheme she helped initiate, could Summer have met her match?


i'm so late on reviewing this, but this one helped me get out of a slump. i love the con artist vibes more than i thought i would in a book. this was great to read while my kids were swimming and i was laying out watching them. i love that they were besties and that they were up to no good!

i received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

initial thoughts: a “just okay thriller” that kept me company during morning dog walks.

the first half of the book kept me listening and setting a great scene - those first few chapters of Leo & Summer’s lifestyle in LA drew me in.

about 70% in though, the book went a bit off the rails and was pretty unbelievable. I like a stretch, but this was a bit too much

i got this from netgalley back in february and finally got around to reading it. i wish i read it sooner!

a lot of time when i’m reading a romance book i ignore the red flags in the love interest since it’s fiction and i know they’ll have a happily ever after, but sometime i think that if the book was not a romance, then the female main character would probably be getting murdered. this book is like that.

neither of the main character die thankfully! i was on the edge of my seat the entire time reading and was so interested to see how things would turn out and worried for the characters.

this book did a good job of not making the villain too obvious or cartoonish and made him realistic. this also didn’t make me think leo was too stupid to see his red flags or how dangerous he was. as summer described her, she just had her eyes on the prize and wanted to pay her back. i liked summer and leo as characters.

You Can Trust Me had an amazing start. I was hooked and felt as though this was a great thriller that took me by surprise. However, as the chapters went on, I had a hard time enjoying the last part of the book. It seemed as though the author put information in that did not really need to be inside the book. It turned to almost a YA novel. Not that it was bad, it just did not seem as adult as I would like it to have been.

3 stars

Thank you to NetGalley as well as the author and publisher for giving me an EArc in exchange for my unbiased and honest review.

A very different type of thriller than I expected, I enjoyed watching these strong women grift their way out of tough situations, even though their lifestyle was pretty reprehensible, it was fun to root for them in the end.

Such a good quick read!
I liked the premise of 2 “found” sisters working together, living off the grid, and conning people.
It took me a minute to figure out the twist but definitely got it before the big reveal. But honestly at this point I’ve read so many thrillers it is difficult to not get it.
Overall, I would recommend it as a quick beach or bath read.

The plot ended up being too far fetched for me. The book also switched timelines too often for me. Thanks for the review copy.

This is a fun read revolving around two con artists - Summer and Leo. This has great pacing - I liked the way the narrative shifted between Summer and Leo's points of view to tell the story. At it's heart, this is a story about friendship and that really worked for me.

Not quite a five star as I found some of the twists just a little too unbelievable to work for me, but overall this is a fun read and I recommend it!

This was a fun thriller, but it did not wow me, if that makes sense at all. It was just fun in the moment. I want to read more by the author though. I think I would give her other works a try. I give it 3 stars. It was good, not great.

Leo and Summer both alone and trying to survive became near sisters as they traveled the country in a Landover. Summer families were hippies and she doesn’t exist as far as the government goes but she learned to create her own identity’s with her pick pocket skills. Leo doesn’t have a family either. Leo has her sights on a rich billionaire Michael. When he spontaneously invites her to an island research center as an exclusive getaway she can’t turn it down. Summer the next morning realizing her friend is missing seduces an employee of Michaels to get an invite to the island as well. When they get to the island things may not be what they seem.

This was a unique thriller that kept me wanting to know what happens next. I will say that some of the skills the main characters possess are a little convenient to the plot but boy was it entertaining. The writing was easy to follow and fast paced. I really enjoyed the writing as well and hope to pick up more from this author in the future. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bantam for access to an eARC of You Can Trust Me in exchange for my honest review!

Summer has spent her life living off the grid and traveling through California, first with her mother and her collection of nomadic friends and then by herself. But after years spent traveling alone and learning not to need anyone else to get by, she meets Leo, young and hungry and living on the streets. They forge a bond quickly and Summer welcomes Leo on the road with her, teaching her to get by the same way she always has. Years later, they're like a well oiled machine, Summer frequenting crowded areas where she can pickpocket to her heart's content and Leo setting herself up with new wealthy targets to steal money and secrets that can be sold later. It all seems like business as usual one Wednesday night when the girls go to a party being thrown by Leo's latest target, wealthy tech mogul Michael Forrester. Leo and Michael leave the party early, and Summer even secures herself a date with a friend of Michael's before calling it a night herself.

But when Leo doesn't make it home the next day and Summer can't manage to get in touch with her, she has to use every clue at her disposal--especially her date with Alan from the party--to follow Michael's trail to a closed off weekend event on his private island in the hopes that finding him will bring her back to Leo as well. Full of a host of stressful twists and turns, You Can Trust Me is all about the ways our pasts can come back to haunt us, the strength and resourcefulness that drives a woman to keep going against any odds, the lengths a person will go to to protect their loved ones, and the unfailing power of friendships between women.

This book took me a shamefully long time to get to on my list, and that feeling of shame is only worse now that I've finished it because honestly, Wendy Heard is an auto buy author for me after this one. I fell in love right away with the bond between Summer and Leo and the way that Wendy Heard wrote each of their outlooks on the world around them and how they each go about their individual...jobs. Summer's process of picking out targets in a crowd and knowing how to take advantage of her surroundings and Leo's way with people and understanding of what the people around her are looking for and what they might want from her in a given scenario. The twists and turns this story takes you on were fun to read through and managed to keep me on my toes. I guessed at a few of the twists that were made a bit more obvious, but it almost felt like those were put there to mask the deeper, more sinister layer of the twist hidden underneath, and my gosh, I wish I could read it over for the first time again on a day off to just devour it all in one go.

I will say, though, that there are some CONTENT WARNINGS to keep in mind going in such as murder, parental abandonment, physical assault, strangulation, gaslighting, manipulative behavior, and drugging/sedation of a character.

This was such an interesting story! I really enjoyed the unique plot and the characters. I look forward to the author’s next work!

I really enjoyed this unique premise! Two women con artists are working together on a large scale con against a tech billionnaire, but one of them goes missing in the middle of the con. Summer must set out to find out what happened to Leo, and has to get access and travel to a private island where an ultra-private tech meeting is happening. This book was fresh, exciting, and the pacing was perfect and kept me immersed the entire time. Highly recommend for something new and different if you're in a thriller slump!

I personally did not enjoy this book like I thought I would. At the beginning it was interesting as we were learning about the characters and how they got into the situations they were in. But after that I thought it was a little boring at times and felt quite juvenile. I felt like it kinda mirrored the whole Jeffery Epstein stuff and that gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I also thought the writing was sub par.

A really good suspenseful book, kept me guessing and was surprising overall. I would recommend to others

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard.