I was granted access by netgalley.com to an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was hooked my in the first few pages, and I had a tough time putting it down! An eerie, murder mystery that I'll recommend to all lovers of psychological thrillers!

Late to the party on JP Delaney, but now I'm a fan. As I said on my Instagram post in August: A total page-turner peppered with Baudelaire, BELIEVE ME by JP Delaney definitely has that je ne sais quoi... I'll be picking up THE GIRL BEFORE and eager to read whatever Delaney writes next!

Thank you Bellantine Books for the arc!

I was in the mood for a thriller with twists and turns and I got it! The beginning kept be flipping (or swiping) rather quickly trying to figure out what was going to happen next. There was a lot going on which kept it interesting, but I started getting a little lost around the areas that the main character, Claire, began acting in Patrick’s play. Other than that section, it was a good read!

This book is TWISTED... and kind of over the top/unbelievable. It's like JP Delaney watched an episode of Criminal Minds, thought it was too tame/boring/vanilla, and immediately started writing this novel

Claire is a British struggling actress in NYC who takes work for a lawyer trying to seduce cheating husbands for evidence in their divorce cases. When the wife of one of her targets is murdered, she teams up with the police and a psychiatrist to catch the woman's killer.

What follows next is a crazy amount of twists and turns which definitely held my attention and made this a quick, enjoyable thriller.

This story was crazy, super twisty, and a little challenging to follow at times, but every twist and turned that had me scratching my head, also had me turning the pages. The main character of the story, Claire, epitomizes the unreliable narrator leaving the reader unsure if she is the person helping the police or the actual subject of the investigation.

And the story goes...

Claire, a British actress without a green card or a permanent place to live, is struggling to be able to afford to live in New York and continue her acting classes, so when her agent hooks her up with a job a firm of divorce attorneys, she jumps on the opportunity. Hired to lure potentially cheating spouses into propositioning her on tape, while never directly hitting on them, Claire excels at her job. Coquettishly drawing in her targets and waiting patiently for them to take the bait, as they almost always did.... until the last one who walked away from her and who's wife is brutally murdered minutes later. Being a manipulative and perspicacious actress, brilliant at assuming the identities of the characters she portrays, the police hire Claire to lure him into a confession, who they believe is guilty, but also to shake the suspicion that hangs over her as well.

As she becomes more intertwined in the husband's life and dark obsession with Baudelaire's poetry, Claire's role becomes less clear... is she really just an actress or is she something much more sinister? And who is playing who?

My thoughts....

J.P. Delaney masterfully redefines the unreliable narrator, weaving a dark labyrinth of a tale that really leaves the reader gasping with each turn of the page and not knowing who the reader should believe or where they will end up (trust me, the ending does not disappoint!!) I really enjoyed this book. More often than naught, I can guess the outcome of a story (which I don't mind), but this had me questioning myself and everything I thought I had figured it out, leaving me unsure of my sleuthiness and deductive reasoning capabilities... a sign of a great storyteller. Believe Me will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew. It's already out on the shelves, so grab this book today! And a quick shout out to @NetGalley, @BallatineBooks, and @RandomHouse for the #ARC in exchange for my honest (and extremely delayed) review!

#JPDelaney #BelieveMe #NetGalley

I recommend going into Believe Me knowing as little as possible about it. There are so many twists and turns and over the top plot points, but somehow it worked. I was thoroughly entertained throughout the whole book. Yes, there were plenty of times where I thought “that could/would never happen,” but it was fun to suspend disbelief and go for a wild thrill(er) ride.

Believe Me was an interesting, fast-paced read. Claire is an actress trying to break into the business. She gets an offer by a lawyer to help bust men cheating on their wives by using her acting skills. But Claire has many secrets, one of which revolves around her inability to turn her acting off in every day life. Claire finds herself helping a detective and psychiatrist who are trying to catch a man they believe killed his wife--until Claire becomes a suspect herself. I could not put this down until I had read every last page. I loved it!!

This story was an okay read, with Claire agreeing to help the police with a murder investigation. She is an actress who works for an investigation company getting dirt on men for divorce proceedings. The police have her meet Patrick again since his wife is the murder victim and a divorce was close. Detective Durbin is also an major part of the story as he holds her green card fate. Parts of the story moved slowly when they get into the poetry reading segments. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Very compelling tale here - I went through this one pretty quickly & enjoyed the storyline & character development. Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity!

Claire is a struggling actress. Knowing that she has to either find a job or head back home she tries her hardest to land a gig that will keep her in the country. So when a law firm offers her a job she takes it without hesitation.

Claire's targets are men who cheat anyways. All she has to do is prove that they have the intention to cheat and she's done. Easy peasy right? She couldn't have been more wrong.

When the wife of one of Claire's marks is violently murdered her job changes. Instead she now has to head into the thick of the investigation. Seeking evidence for the police and tucking her feelings aside.

A twisting and turning read that will leaving you doubting who you can trust.

It took me a while to get through this book as I was contemplating not finishing it. I received an ARC copy via NetGalley so I felt obligated to finish and post my honest review.

Claire is a struggling actress who finds herself taking odd jobs to make money and hone her craft ... she finds herself working for a private investigator’s office trying to trap men into cheating (giving them the opportunity to succumb to her flirtations) but following specific rules to allow them to be loyal to their spouses if that’s their intention (STUPID). She finds herself in a bind when one of the wives is found dead after Claire has met with her to discuss her inability to “turn-on” the lady’s husband. She is considered a suspect, but given an opportunity to work on the case to find the “real” killer...

Reading this, I found myself on a long and twisty road. That would have been fine except for the fact that I did not enjoy the subject matter ... BDSM, entrapment, self deprecation... however I did feel sorrow for Claire after I learned why she was so destructive but I was relieved when the whole thing was over.

The story was well written, but I understand why the previous publication of this book was not successful...this stuff isn’t for everyone.

This is the most twisted story I've read in a long time! I got sucked into the story quickly and couldn't put the book down! Deeply disturbing...dark....and mesmerizing.

Claire Wright is a struggling actress. To fund her dreams, she works for a law firm. She isn't a paralegal. Or an assistant. Or anything run-of-the-mill like that. She is....a trap. Claire tricks men. With a hidden camera in her purse and her acting talent, she works as a decoy for Kerr-Adler to provide proof of infidelity in divorce cases. Things work out pretty well at first....until she is assigned to trap Patrick Fogler. When his wife Stella is found murdered, Claire knows she is in over her head, but she can't stop. Not only is she accused of stealing money from the dead woman's hotel room, but she's strangely attracted to Patrick. And it only gets worse.

So many twists. So disturbing and demented. But it works. All of the characters are completely unlikable. I wasn't sympathetic to a single one. But, I couldn't stop reading. Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any more strange and horrible....they always did.

Awesome psychological thriller! Very well-written and quite disturbing! Not, not, not for the faint of heart! J.P. Delaney is a pseudonym used by author Tony Strong. I will definitely be reading more by this author, as soon as I recover from the creepiness I'm still feeling from this one! I feel like I need to take about 4 showers and watch Disney movies for a week just to recover. ha ha :) A book that creeps me out this badly deserves full stars. Very well written!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Random House/Ballentine via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

There have been many excellent psychological stories out in the last year, Believe Me ranks with the best of them. Forced by circumstances to take a job most would call "sleazy" Claire tries to do her best. Then she's involved in a murder investigation where this reader often questioned her involvement and motives. If you are looking for a lazy Sunday read, this is not it. Make sure to read when you will have time to thoroughly enjoy this "movie of the week" type book. Loved it!

Claire is a struggling actor without a green card. She needs to work, but can't risk getting deported. Claire agrees to become a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers. She's hired to legally entrap straying husbands and record the evidence.

When the wife of one of Claire’s targets is violently murdered, the cops are sure the husband is to blame. They they enlist Claire to lure him into a confession.

There are several twists & turns in this story. Who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? Who can Claire trust? It's a very good read.

Review by 2shay..........

I didn’t want to write this review. I really don’t like writing negative reviews. Also, on that same note, I really dislike reading bad books, and this one is pretty bad. It’s a mess. Claire, the aspiring actress who is the star of this story is, among other things, glaringly stupid. She comes to America without enough funds to support herself and no legal way to get a job, having no green card. To make matters worse, in my opinion, she takes a job for cash luring husbands into making a proposition so their wives will have evidence against them. That’s just sleezy. I didn’t like her at all.

The rest of the story was awful. Even worse than the main character. The author, for some reason, decided to bless us with her knowledge of an obscure poet who use BDSM themes for his “art”. If the endless quotes weren’t bad enough, there is a play about his life in the works. Boring, at best, pretentious at its worst.

I knew, considering this author’s success with his/her first book, The Girl Before, that this book would get rave reviews. Fans are like that. I read and reviewed that book, and gave it 4 Stars. It was very good. I expected as much of this one and was terribly disappointed. I have heard that this book was written before The Girl Before, and was rewritten and released to, obviously, ride the coat tails of a much, much better book. I know from that first book that J.P. Delaney is a talented and imaginative author, and I hope to see more great work from him/her in the future. This one was just a mess. Forgive the repeat, but it’s the best description I have. My advise? Skip this one.

ARC graciously provided by Random House and NetGalley for an honest and voluntary review.

This is the kind of book one reads if you can't pay attention to serious books. I picked it up to read (I had read The Girl Before which was the same kind of book), because I wanted to escape into something that I didn't have to use my brain for. It is not particularly well written but it zips along. The narrator is a 25 year old actress and other than knowing she is beautiful, one finishes the book with no idea what cooler hair she has or anything else description about. She is British and she will do anything for an audience.

There are twists and turns after an initial murder. The plot is totally unbelievable but that's not the point of the book. It was written to thrill and for some it may. It's a page turner but I found that if I skipped 10 pages when I got bored, it made no difference.

If you like your thrillers to be intricately plotted, this is not the book for you. If you want good characterisation, this is not the book for you. But if you want to be entertained by unbelievable characters with an unbelievable plot and are willing to suspend your beliefs, you will probably love this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for making this book available to me.

This book is one of the most twisty books I've ever read. Will need to sue for whiplash! Kidding, but seriously. I found myself so lost and not sure of myself I didn't know who or what to believe anymore. The author does an excellent job of inducing written paranoia.

I know it is fiction, but just too many parts of it were so unbelievable that those moments took away from enjoying the story. The characters were interesting and written very well.

Ballantine Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Believe Me. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

As a student who is constantly short on cash, but unable to legally work outside of the college system without a green card, Claire takes jobs for cash that help her develop her acting skills. Working for a divorce attorney by catching cheaters on tape, Claire gets in over her head one fateful evening. With no choice but to work for the police, Claire quickly realizes that her acting skills will be strongly tested. As she helps the police search for evidence of wrongdoing, will Claire's deceptions leave her deceived? Will the search for the truth lead to a dangerous situation?

Believe Me is a psychological thriller with so much back and forth with regards to the plot that readers will feel like they are watching a tennis match. If the rating system would allow, I would give the novel three and a half stars. As the book is written in the perspective of an unreliable narrator, it is too hard for the reader to forge a connection with her. The "is he or isn't he" part of the plot was too repetitive and ruined some of the suspense for me. Overall, the author does a good job of keeping the reader on their toes, as the evidence points in one direction or the other. Believe Me is a quick read and is a novel for those who like psychological thrillers and suspense.

This book was very interesting. I loved The Girl Before and like it, this follow up book had twists and turns; kept me guessing. I never stay up all night reading a book, but I did with this one. Granted, it was a shorter and quick, easy read, so it was easier to do. I wanted to find out what happened. However, I only gave it four stars. The ending was not as exciting, but it was a good read, overall. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House for allowing me to read! Reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and BookBub!