Believe Me by JP Delaney is a highly recommended deceptive psychological thriller.

Claire Wright is a British actor who has come to America to take classes and hopefully find an acting job. Unfortunately she is here without a green card and can't legally work, but she needs money to live so she ends up working for a law firm specializing in divorce. Her job is to act as a high price hooker and catch on film for female clients their suspected unfaithful husbands negotiating for Claire's services. When one of her clients is found murdered in a hotel room, the husband, Patrick, who turned down Claire's proposition, is the main suspect.

Claire ends up working undercover for the police to try and get Patrick to confess to his murder of his wife. She is forced to do this or risk being deported as an illegal immigrant, but she also felt a connection with Patrick when she was trying to entrap him, so she agrees to the plan. The police also suspect that Patrick is a serial killer.

This is a fast-paced thriller packed full of unreliable narrators, especially Claire. I will freely admit that the plot is preposterous and purposefully deceptive - vital information is held back from the reader in order to create suspense. Does Delaney mess with your mind, withhold vital information, and make you wonder what the heck is going on in this novel? Yup.... and it was simultaneously kind of fun and annoying. I didn't see the ending coming at all.

Claire is an over-the-top unreliable narrator obsessed with acting and her roles. Claire (and the novel) approaches almost everything as a role, a part she is performing, which can also make you wonder what is real. The thing is that the story is very compelling and even when you are shaking your head saying "Really?" you will want to keep reading to see what happens next. I need to note that Patrick is a translator for Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal (1857), a book of poetry dealing with evil and eroticism, which plays a major part in the novel and can be off putting.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House via Netgalley.
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Wow, what a wonderful read! While I enjoyed and liked The Girl Before, I loved this one! I was hooked from page one and totally engrossed until the jaw-dropping ending. So well-written, and the twists and turns were thrilling and kept me guessing. The characters were complex and intriguing. A must read for lovers of psychological thrillers! Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my review copy. This is my honest opinion.

Great read. Intense from the beginning. Plot twists throughout, constantly guessing who did it. Great ending

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book and provide my feedback. This was a crazy, suspenseful read. Full of so many twists and turns that I didn't see coming. Content was bit dark at times exploring the world of BDSM.

Claire Wright is a young actress that manipulates men working as a decoy for a law firm representing wives that believe their husbands are unfaithful. One of those wives ends up murdered and Claire becomes a suspect. Our was it the husband?

Quick read, but I thought this book was disjointed and all over the place. I enjoyed The Girl Before better.

This book was odd. The suspense seemed to ebb and flow throughout the story, but not in a a good way. Sometimes it felt almost like a "women's fiction" bordering on romance between Claire and Patrick. Added to all this were sections written like a play script. I get that it was because Claire was an actress, but it was rather distracting. The weird part was that as the story shifted in and out of the romantic relationship sections, the reader knows the mystery hasn't been solved (because the book hasn't ended yet) but it is as though the author has forgotten about it and is off writing another book. While I had a lot of issues with the flow of the book, the mystery and basic story line was a good one. I guess I just didn't like the presentation.

This was my favorite thriller of the summer! The concept is fun a little nuts. An out of work actor takes a job as plant for a private investigator, getting paid under the table as a Brit without a green card to snare straying husbands. This works fine for awhile until a wife of a client is murdered and the husband is the primary suspect. The police enlist her to work for them to gather evidence against him. But, they fall in love. Allow yourself to suspend disbelief and just go along with it. It's a fun ride. Trust no one.

Thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and JP Delaney for the opportunity to read and review her latest book. I was a big fan of The Girl Before and this was another twisty tale.

The title is very appropriate for this book - you have no clue who to believe in this book. Claire is an actress in New York without a green card and desperate for money. She works for a lawyer as a decoy trying to catch husbands in the act of hiring a prostitute. When one of the clients is found murdered, Claire finds herself working for the police to try to trip the husband into confessing. But soon, you begin to wonder just who is trying to catch who and just who you can believe.

I was less enthralled with the poetry sprinkled throughout (about S&M practices) even though that was a key element throughout the story. Some of the dialogue is written in the form of a screenplay, which was interesting because of the acting angle.

So very many twists and turns in this book - just when you think you have it figured out, you don't! A good read.

*3.5 stars rounded up. Can there be too many plot twists? Perhaps. This story is very convoluted. It is told from Claire Wright's first person point of view and she is a most unreliable narrator! A twenty-five-year-old English actress, she is trying to get a fresh start in NYC theatre but needs her green card to get work. So in the meantime, she is taking acting classes and working for a detective agency getting dirt on cheating husbands.

When the wife of the latest philanderer they are investigating is found dead in her hotel room, Claire is suspected because the woman has also been robbed of a great deal of cash and everyone knows Claire is in dire need of money.

But it seems the police really think the husband, Professor Patrick Folger, is the perp and enlist Claire's aid, with her excellent skills at flirtation, to get him to admit it. Buckle your seatbelts from this point on because there are lots of hairpin turns ahead.

A really fast read: I believe it could be gulped down in one long, relaxed day of reading. Claire is not especially likable but she does grow as a person by the end of the story--something I always like to see.

I received an arc of this new thriller from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review. Many thanks!

I’m usually all for psychological thrillers but this one didn’t keep me interested as much as I thought it would. The beginning started out awesome and I really thought this would be a great book.

It starts out with Claire who is a struggling actor with a troubled past. What really got me at the beginning was that this is a book about a serial killer! I love true crime so I was really looking forward to trying to solve the mystery on who the culprit was. The mind games are crazy in this one but around 86% percent of the book, it just got old. One too many twists for my liking. I actually stopped reading it and didn’t resume it until a few days later. Overall it was 3/5 ⭐️

What a awesome book! This is the first time that I’ve read J.P. Delaney but it won’t be my last time. This is a very intense story and written fantasticly. Thanks J.P.

Believe Me had more twists and turns than a roller coaster ride and was equally as thrilling and (a tad) scary. I was drawn to J.P. Delaney’s latest release primarily because I thought her previous book, The Girl Before, was a page turner based on an original concept.

I was not disappointed by this title which took on more of the psychological, and somewhat dark, side. It wasn’t without a few bumps- a couple of slow spots and an important scene that wasn’t nearly as intense as it should have been. This did not change my overall opinion but I did remove one star.

Claire is a Brit, without a green card, living in New York City. She is a struggling actress attending classes at a prestigious acting school here in the States after a bit of an unfortunate relationship with her leading man back home. To make ends meet, she works off book in the role of a decoy for a divorce lawyer. One such job lands her in the middle of a brutal murder and subsequent investigation. Woven throughout the story are connections to Charles Baudelaire, a nineteenth century French poet. Baudelaire’s work was considered scandalous to the point of being censored due to his themes of sex and death.

Believe Me will have you wondering exactly who and what to believe. Did she or didn’t she? Did he or didn’t he? Or, perhaps, the murderer was someone else?? You’ll have to read it all the way to the very end to find out.


FYI - I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was good. Not in my top 5 for the year but a very quick read and definitely had my attention. Started off kind of slow for me but picked up. When it picked up there were twist that I did not see coming. I will share this book
As one to read.

Interesting story and characters. Excellent follow up to The Girl Before. I can’t wait to read JP Delaney’s next book.

I loved how this book started out. It was fast paced and twisty. It had lots of twists and turns but at about the three quarter mark it fell flat and I struggled with the last part. I got tired of the main character. She just kind of annoyed me after a while. I gave this three stars for the beginning and middle. I just couldn't go higher.

I was sent this copy in exchange of an honest review. Claire is British living in America and is just trying to pay her rent. She works for a PI that finds cheating husbands and one of her jobs goes terribly wrong. She meets her target and the next day his wife is dead in her hotel room. Who killed her? Was it our Claire or the husband. Now Claire must choose to work for the police to find out the truth or be sent back to England. I loved all that this book did and had no idea what was happening towards the end. This one is definitely a must read if you like psycho characters and surprise endings!

After reading JP Delaneys last book I knew I wanted to read more. This book did not disappoint. I loved the characters and storyline. I can not recommend this book highly enough. Fantastic read!

This review will be posted to GoodReads and my blog www.bohananbabbles.wordpress.com on July 20th.

I would like to thank Ballatine Books for access to review this Advanced Reader Copy through NetGalley! Believe Me will be released on July 24th.

My Rating: 4 stars      

Overall: Sensual, Sexy, Psychological Thriller... loved it!

A Synopsis: Claire is an aspiring actress with big dreams and a shallow wallet. She also is missing a green card, the key to landing her a role to kickstart her career. As a last ditch effort, she agrees to become a decoy for a divorce law firm. The gig strings her along, until one of the wives that hired her is brutally murdered. This sends Claire into her most dangerous role yet... a decoy to try and lure the husband into admitting he killed her. But how far will her acting have to go to make him believe that she truly cares about him? And how is she sure she isn't the one being watched as well?

My Thoughts: Believe Me is such a thrilling read! "Sexy" and "Psychological" were the words that kept popping into my head while I was reading, and I think that carried through every last page of this book. The theatrical way Believe Me was written in was absolute genius, and I loved being able to see the play "come to life" in Claire's head. I am a theater nerd myself, so this really spoke to me on a personal level. Anyone looking for something that will keep you guessing from page one NEEDS to read this book!



My Critique: I really don't have much to say in this regard. I truly enjoyed most of this book, there were just small things that I felt like could have been tweaked.

Thanks to net galley for providing me with a free copy of this book.

4.5 Stars - this book was INSANE! I finished it in one day, flying through it trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

I loved the premise of this one, definitely different than what I’ve read lately - I thought the idea of using Claire as a “decoy” was fascinating and I couldn’t imagine doing what she did in that situation!

There were so many unreliable characters, which really left me wondering what would happen next. The beginning flew for me, I’d say once I got 65% of the way through, it did seem to drag a little in the middle & I wondered how they were going to keep going with this… but the last 15- 20% of the novel had me riveted. Several twists I didn’t see coming, and I was thoroughly creeped out as the book came to an end. No spoilers, but WOW - this one was not what I expected at all and I loved how it ended, and absolutely enjoyed this one. I would definitely recommend.

Believe Me is a mystery suspense book that follows the narrator, Claire who is an aspiring British Actor stuck in a tough position of needing a job, but have no green card to work while she is attending acting school in America. The way that the narrator see the world as a script in a movie is an original way of telling the story. The fear and confidence that she has while doing work for the police is felt through the pages. This is a one-sitting suspense filled book that the reader will not want to put down because they need to know if Mr. Fogler is the killer or not. The story takes the reader on a journey between right and wrong, black and white and into the land of grey. This ARC was provided by Netgalley and Random House in exchange for an honest review.