A twisted psychological tale is one thing ,but this is so convoluted that it is impossible to make sense out of the story. I finished it and that I felt was an accomplishment in itself. Would not recommend this book.

3.75/5 stars.

Believe Me was my first experience with a J.P. Delaney novel, though I’ve had his first book sitting in my To-Be-Read stack for several months. However, reading Believe Me first was reassuring – I will definitely loop back around to reading his first novel.

Claire is a theater student in NYC who does some freelance – for lack of better term – acting on the side to help pay rent. One evening during work, she interacts with Stella Folger, very wealthy wife of Patrick Folger. Shortly following, Stella is dead – and NYPD is furiously working to establish who killed her. Claire quickly becomes entangled with the investigation, despite her wishes. At the same time, suspicion falls on Patrick, and the two are quickly thrown together in a race to prove who is innocent – and who is not.

The plot for Believe Me is sound – it is marketed as a thriller, and I think that’s an accurate description. That being said – there are some more controversial topics brought to light throughout the story, and that’s the truthful reasoning behind my rating. It isn’t a reflection on the novel’s plot, the writing, the character development (or lack thereof, in some cases), or the standard “twist” that every thriller seems to have these days. Rather – it just wasn’t necessarily subject matter I was incredibly interested in, or my usual genre. There are some spinoffs into darker worlds that even I – who usually reads just about anything – tend to try to avoid. That being said.. I do think this was a good read. It was quick, and I didn’t anticipate the ending unfolding in the way that it did. I applaud Delaney for taking some subjects that aren’t often discussed and bringing them into the open – unfortunately, they’re just not topics that spike a huge amount of interest for me personally.

I have somewhat mixed feelings for this book, ultimately. I really struggled between 3.5 and 4 stars, which is how I ended up where I did. It’s more than average (my usual 3 star) or even above average (my usual 3.5 star) but not quite great (my usual 4 star). The storyline is strong, the writing is good, and the ending is reasonably fulfilling. It didn’t captivate me, but it held enough interest. I can say that I would recommend this to others – but with a warning for graphic descriptions and some violence. Overall, it was an enjoyable read that filled up most of a flight from Spokane, WA to Chicago, IL – which I can always appreciate!

Special thanks to NetGalley & publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If you are looking for a fast paced read with some unexpected twists and turns then this is your book.

Backdrop: A struggling British actress hops across the pond to America to escape some personal demons of her own and finds herself in a financial bind. To make ends meet she takes a job with a private investigator for wives willing to pay her to play the "role" of flirtatious barfly in order to lure philandering husbands into compromising situations. The story takes off when one such encounter ends in the murder of the wife of a wealthy target.

The book often switches from typical narrative to the use of screenplay structure to tell the story and for me this kept the pace flowing. The mixture of the protagonist's view of the world as a screenplay/role along with her own questionable mental state was a brilliant plot technique.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of Believe Me by JP Delaney.

Claire is a British actress, working in America, and struggling. She's not making enough to pay the rent, her temper keeps her from keeping a job, and she works for less than savory people in order to scrape by.

But then she gets an opportunity to work with the police to catch a handsome and charming psychopath who allegedly killed his wife, and it we plummet down a rabbit hole of deceit, lies, and love. Did he do it? Did SHE do it? Who is lying, who is genuine?

This book. Starts out strong, super intriguing, and then things flip and suddenly slow down a lot. It felt convoluted and disjointed, but keep going! It really does make sense at the end, which is why I gave this four stars instead of three. I really liked the ending, which for me, makes a huge difference.

Well-written and suspenseful. The cover fits the book perfectly. I never knew who was lying and who I could believe. There were real twists and turns. Often book covers promise those but seldom deliver. This book delivers. There's some creepy parts dealing with murder & sexual perversion so read at your own risk. It's not 'in-your-face' but still creepy.

Thrillers for me tend to be a bit formulaic but that is part of their appeal. I want to see who can make the formula feel fresh and new OR take it somewhere that makes me think WOW they mixed that up in a good way.

Believe Me definitely has some faults in a LOT crammed into the book where I feel it could have been a bit longer to help make more sense or a few things taken out but where I was expecting XYZ JP Delaney gave me QRS,.

Claire certainly makes you wonder...I had to scroll back a few times and go wait I thought...only to find what I thought was well not right.

Definitely a fun, want to keep reading to find out what happened Summer Thriller!

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC!

I honestly don't know how I feel about this book. The story sucked me right in and held my interest. It was well-written, but I can't help but be thrown by the ending. Why did it end like that? Why weren't we introduced to the killer of her co-star earlier in the book? Did the "killer" even do it, or was Stella's killer responsible for both? I'm unsettled by it, and it really is negatively affecting my rating. My 3.5 stars is deserved, but I wish the ending was less convoluted so that it could be higher.

Sadly, this was a disappointment. I did not feel any connection to the characters, and was confused by what was really going on in the story and what was going on in Claire's head. Maybe that was the point, but for me it made for a twisty story that didn't really capture my attention. I kept reading just to finish and move on.

I enjoyed the book, but there were parts that were too fast and other parts that were too fast. It was enjoyable and hooked me, but there was something with it that had me stalled on reading it on multiple occasions.

I liked the mind games that were put on me as a reader. I will recommend to my friends, but it's too complicated (emotions, sex fantasies, etc) to give my high school students.

I do admit this book has a lot of twist and turns. Sadly, they just aren't very believable. The main character is very unlikeable...to the point where you don't care what befalls her in the end.

In order to try and trick the reader they make Claire a very unstable narrator. We only ever see things from her point of view. At times, when she is playing her part...it reads as if it is real.

Overall, the book is a quick beach read.

I’m surprised the author was able to keep everything straight. The dialogue was off-putting at times. What a weird book!

I was completely immersed in the story line. The twists and turns were non stop all the way through the end of the book. I never knew what to believe or who to believe. Great read!

View my review on goodreads.com

I was given an advanced copy of this title in exchange for an honest review. This book was so very well written. It captivated me the entire time!

When I read the description for this book I was intrigued with the premise. Claire is a British actress who is unable to get work in England for reasons made apparent pretty early in the book. She is also unable to work legally in the US because she doesn't have a green card. So, to make ends meet, she works for a PI company as a "honey trapper" where she attempts to make cheating men hit on her while she secretly records their interactions to give to their suspecting partners. When one of the women she was hired by is found dead, in a very gruesome manner, she becomes a suspect, but not the prime suspect. As you might have guessed that honor belongs to the husband, who just so happened to resist Claire's trap and walk away from her that same night. The police decide to use Claire and her acting talents to continue the trap, but this time for murder not adultery.

The story progresses quickly, mainly focusing on the case as it is unfolding, but is interspersed with Claire in an acting class, which is the reason she is in the US to begin with, and her own "thoughts". Her thoughts are presented to the readers as if she were writing her own screenplay and while I understand why the author chose to present them in this way, so that you could see that Claire becomes very deep into character while she is acting, I don't think I liked it so much. Something it does well is present the reader with doubt about the truthfulness of the narrator, but I think she was fairly unreliable without it.

My biggest problem with the book was that there was a lot going on, I mean A LOT. Without going into too many details, I think that the initial plot of the book was essentially lost with everything else going on. The ending, when the murder is finally solved, came after so much other "story" that it was, in my opinion, kind of a throwaway. There was of course a twist at the end of the book and I think that was more intriguing, not much but more, than the actual solving of the murder and since I was intrigued by the initial murder plot, I was disappointed.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book.

I really liked this book from the very beginning. With all the twists and turns it keeps you reading and trying to guess what’s going to happen next . Overall I would definitely recommend this book and this author to others . A good author that can keep me reading into the night is a keeper in my book.

I loved this book! I read "The Girl Before" and enjoyed it, but "Believe Me" kept me on the edge of my seat. I would love to see a sequel to it. The story had many twists and turns and kept you guessing as to who the real bad guy was the entire time. I did not figure it before it was revealed in the book, which is rare for me. I would highly recommend this to anyone that likes a good thriller!

I like JP Delaney's writing and creativity. The first book I read by him, I was so engrossed and needed to know how it was going to end. Love that feeling when I'm reading. This book was just as good.

good book full of suspense and plot turn would recommend to other reader great new author would read more form the author

Claire Wright, escaped from Britain to New York City, but her secret no one knows. At the moment she is pursuing a career in acting. Claire has been working with a retired cop, Henry. Henry has now become a private investigator for a law firm, who catches adulterers. Claire uses her acting skills to catch these adulterers on tape, after they solicit sexual favors from her. The monies she makes working with Henry goes towards her acting lessons, and living expenses. The next job that Claire has accepted is to persuade a college professor to make a move on her. The wife, Stella Fogler, wants Claire to see if her husband, Patrick Fogler, will submit to her charms. However, Professor Fogler, doesn’t react in the way that she thought he would. He basically rebuffs her. She sees a book he has even reading, Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. She expresses interest and reads part of a poem to him. He’s impressed and leaves the book with her. She reports back to the wife, but the wife believes that they have scared him off, and that he knows what they were attempting to do. Little did they all know, that they next day, Stella Fogler would be found dead by hotel staff. When Claire was approached by the FBI to help flush out a murderer, she wasn’t too thrilled. Especially since they knew that she was in the United States illegally. She had no choice but to help them, or she would be sent back to London. The FBI had the Professor in their sights, and start to groom Claire to get the Professor admit on tape that he killed his wife. What a true psychological thriller this was. Just when the reader thinks that they have it all figured out, the plot turns in another direction. Will Claire be able to find out who the murderer is? Is it the Professor? What’s the motive for the murder? What are the dark secrets that have been hidden? The plot was genius and the character development was superb! I truly enjoyed this book. It kept me totally enthralled until the very end.

JP Delaney had me hooked from the first paragraph of Believe Me, which was like watching a game of cat & mouse in my head as I read. Just when you think you know who’s playing which role another twist will have second guessing right up until the very end.

Thank you for providing me with an arc via NetGalley