Welcome to Vale Hall, where teenagers learn to be con artists and nothing is quite as it seems. The Deceivers is a dramatic YA contemporary that is very loosely based on Norse mythology and took some turns I wasn't expecting.

Brynn Hilder has had a rough upbringing with a single mom and her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend. Her low-level cons to get money for college get her noticed and recruited by the exclusive Vale Hall school where dangerous secrets are currency. Brynn is drawn into a dangerous world where morality comes in shades of gray, while still being tied to the life she left behind. Oh, and there is a boy. Because isn't there always? But it's complicated because "school for con artists," remember?

I expected The Deceivers to be fun sort of fluff, but while it has those moments, it has a much darker tone to it. The reader is left to wrestle with uncomfortable questions that don't have easy answers. Like what do you do when the justice system is corrupt? And how far will you go to ensure your own future? Also, the love interest is Asian, which is nice to see since Asian men are often underrepresented as male leads!

I generally enjoyed this, although I had hoped there would be more actual learning about cons. There is a bit, but it's heavier on the drama. In general though, a pretty solid start to a potentially interesting series. I received an advance copy for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I only read Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons, but I have a great memory of it, that's what motivated me to read her new novel.

Someone need to explain to me why this book is classified in "fantasy" on Goodreads, because even if it is inspired by the Nordic myth of Valhalla, there is not an ounce of supernatural in this book. Moreover, it was only after reading the author's note that I noted this connection. So, I thought about what I had just read with new eyes. There are indeed big clues, like the name Odin coming more than one time, the name of the school "Vale" which is a big reference, but I want to reassure everyone who do not know the myth of Valhalla, you do not need to know it to understand the book and it's a point that I really like.

The book will follow Brynn who has a difficult life, her mother goes out with a drug dealer, she works and cons some people to get money and be able to go to university in a year. She is a young girl who does not let herself be led by life, but who takes things in hand and I really liked this character trait. She will also take the first chance to leave her neighborhood and her toxic father-in-law. She is really a heroine who is thoughtful and able to get out of bad situation, she sometimes doubts herself, but she is a rather autonomous and resourceful girl.

For the plot, the book has no down time and this is perhaps it fault, indeed the elements are linked very quickly, especially the romance and in the end, I had the impression that neither the heroin or the reader really had time to assimilate what was happening. We have enough elements to not be lost, but I felt that everything was going a little too fast. However, the book remains very entertaining and gives a very good foundation for the trilogy, I am curious to see how our heroine will evolve in this school.

Teaching kids to be con artists is a favorite plot of mine. The main character goes through cycles of trust and mistrust of others and herself. Secondary characters are mostly very interesting and become more complex as she gets to know them.

Awesome book. Loved the characters and the story line. Great read. I’m glad I read this. The cover made me want to read this book

She has brought to the Modern world this contemporary version of the Valhalla story. We have Brynn Hilder who is surviving as well as she can grow up in the rugged Devon Estates. She has learned to become a good con artist to raise money to go to college as her job cleaning the libraries won't get her there as fast as she planned. Her mother's current boyfriend Pete is the local drug dealer, and when he steals her savings, Brynn needs a new plan quickly. This leads her to follow a boy who has been casing her the last few days, and she stumbles upon a private game where the prize is the prestige entry to Vale Hill Estate. If she gets in, she will be set for life and have her pick of any college. With nothing to lose, she enters and has a fun night out. Not thinking much of it, since she gave a fake name and all she heads to bed. Only for the next morning, she is awoken and told she has an interview at the mysterious Vale Hill. Brynn arrives, and it's like a dream come true, the thing is that this isn't any ordinary school but a school where they teach you to become con artists, spies, and thieves. A school where collecting secrets is their currency. Brynn has been given a choice - gather all she can on Grayson Sterling and be part of the school or turn it down and go back to her life as she knew it. Brynn agrees, and her life is changed as she is thrown into a world of secrets, lies and not knowing who she can trust? Is Brynn as she digs deeper and falls into the world of Valhalla Academy cut out for this lifestyle? Knowing the truth of who Dr. Odin is and why he picked Brynn at the end of the book - will she continue to study at Vale or will she take the knowledge she has and her existence wiped as Margot's - the girl before hers was?
Find out in the first book of The Valhalla Academy - Deceivers by Kristen Simmons. This series fans of Gallagher Girls and Heist Society by Ally Carter will enjoy.

After my last read, what I really wanted was a fast-paced book I could dive right into with a main character that I would love rooting for. In The Deceivers, I found exactly that.

What do you do when you're barely getting by, trying to balance school, a job, your side-job as a conman to make an extra buck, and your mother's drug dealer boyfriend who likes to assert his dominance and take things that don't belong to him? Well, you accept the invitation to Vale Hall, of course! Vale Hall, the elite academy that grooms the next generation of con artists. And they want Brynn. There's no question of whether she should trade her old life for this new one in a mansion with a fantastic group of friends and a bright future ahead. But how will she know if and when she's gotten in too deep?

This book got off to a quick start and drew me in immediately. I found myself attached to Brynn from the first page and couldn't help but root for her. I can't wait to see what else Kristen Simmons has up her sleeve for the students of Vale Hall.

When Brynn gets recruited to Vale hall, she sees it as a way out of her crappy life and away from her mom's crappy boyfriend. But, Vale hall brings her into a situation, she's not sure she can handle. I am not a fan of writing spoilers, so I will avoid it.

I enjoyed this book, though I wasn't caught right away by the blurb. I was worried that this wouldn't be a book that I could finish, but I did! The underlying nordic mythos was pretty awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cannot wait to see what the next in the series has to offer!

4/5 stars!

**I received a copy of this book from Tor Teen, in exchange for an honest review***

<b>5/5 stars!</b>

<i>The Deceivers</i> was such a quick-paced, enjoyable read! The summary for this sounded interesting enough, but when I received this ARC over a month ago, I held it off. Boy, I really should've read this earlier! I absolutely LOVED this book! I was hooked from just the first chapter when Brynn is doing her con. All of my questions were answered in a very impressive way, and the twists and turns were ones I never saw coming. I fell in love with the chemistry between all the students, but especially that of Caleb and Brynn. Everything was paced perfectly, with some intense moments and more humorous ones.

This has definitely gone on my preorder list! I highly recommend this to everyone looking for a more reality-based heist/con type scenario. Nothing here disappointed me, which even I'm surprised about! Give this a shot!

<i>Thank you to TOR for providing me this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts, opinions, and comments are my own.</i>

Brynn is saving up to go to college - by pulling "Robin Hood" scams - stealing from the rich. She is recruited to Vale Hall school as a result of her larcenous gifts. There, she meets Caleb, who may not be all he seems to be. This is a twisted ride of a story, which is very well written and will keep you interested right up to the end. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Deceivers is nothing like Kristen has ever written before in the best way possible. I was hooked from the second I started reading and I couldn't put it down. A boarding school for con artists? Count me in.

This is definitely more than meets the eye and nothing and no one are what they seem. Our MC comes from a horrible background and finally escapes it. It finally seems like she'll be getting a better life and a bright future. But did she trade one prison for another?

The characters in this one are likable and lovely, each hiding something from the whole crew. There's a sort of mystery happening throughout the book and each revelation brings more and more questions. There's a swoony love interest that you're not sure is a good or a bad guy, an enigmatic, secretive director, and an assignment that is more than appears on the surface.

The only reason that this didn't get 5 stars was because the big reveal wasn't was twisted as I wanted. It was a bit of a letdown and I really wanted to be more shocked than I was. I'm really excited to see what they get up to in book two and how the revelations of book one mess with everything.

This is like no other plot I've seen before. Trust me, you want this book.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*

This book is already one of the best surprises of 2019.

Honestly, when I requested this from NetGalley on impulse months ago, I didn't have the highest of expectations. I'd never heard of Kristen Simmons and I figured there was no way the blurb would be as deliciously Ally Carter-esque as it sounded.

Well, more fool me, because it was. I tore through this book in a couple of hours and I'm already dying for the sequel.

It's essentially a more adult (though still YA) version of the Gallagher Girls series, only one where the students skirt the wrong side of the law. My favourite thing about this book is how morally ambiguous the characters are. With a few slight exceptions, every single character is portrayed as a balance of good and bad - not even people like Brynn's drug-dealer ex or the manipulative Vale Hall headmaster were vilified. Plus, it's always refreshing to see a YA novel where the heroine isn't stubbornly convinced of her moral superiority.

The pacing also reminded me of an Ally Carter novel, all tight and fast, just ever-so-slightly grittier. The book opens with Brynn running a con on a bunch of rich socialites and never once slows down. Honestly, I couldn't put the book down. We even got a cute, diverse romance - Brynn is half Colombian and her love interest Caleb has Japanese ancestry. This is where Simmons outshines Carter, whose Heist Society and Gallagher Girls series were awesome but almost exclusively white.

I knocked off a star for some slight issues, such as Brynn's mother seeming remarkably open to letting her only child permanently disappear with a man who claimed to be a school representative. But on the whole I'm very pleasantly surprised by this dark horse.

This was incredible, and I wrote a mini review for Village Books that will go in the store, displaying the book on the end of the shelf in a special YARC Recommendation location.

Look no further for your next con artist school obsession than Kristen Simmon’s latest novel, The Deceivers. These con artists are so clever and their schemes will have you flipping through the pages until you reach the end, and then you’ll be so happy there are going to be more books (I know I was). With all the thrills, twists, and romance you could ask for, The Deceivers is the clear successor to the Gallagher Girls series, and I cannot wait to see where future books take us.

I sadly wasn't a big fan of this one. The writing felt rushed & the characters unoriginal. It didn't live up to its potential, which was v sad! However, there was lots of action and the plot never stopped charging forward, which was nice. I would recommend to anyone just starting with this genre or interested in a quick read.

Full review to come on my blog!

The Deceivers is a story about a girl named Brynn who gets recruited by a school for aspiring con artists. She decided to give it a chance because she's desperate to get out of her rundown neighborhood and the promise of a full scholarship is too tempting. She quickly finds herself in a situation she's not sure how to control. I won't go into details because it's was so fun to experience as you read it! This story is ridiculously fun! It's fast paced, interesting, unique and full of quirky characters. I loved this book! I can't wait to see where this series goes from here!

A school for aspiring con artists?  That's all I needed to know before requesting this title from NetGalley.

Right away, Brynn tugged at my heart strings.  With a rough home life and a less than promising future, she's committed to her education, works a part time job, and is determined to claw her way out of Devon Park.  Running cons on unsuspecting victims supplements her meager income.  All the supporting characters are exceptionally well-developed, with their own complicated backgrounds and various reasons for being at Vale Hall, but as the comic relief, I think Henry is probably my favorite.  

Nothing in this novel is black and white, and I loved that.  Nearly every person, action, and circumstance is colored in differing shades of gray, and I found myself, along with Brynn, being surprised how actions and behaviors can sound logical and necessary after weighing the positives versus the negatives.  For me, books like that are few and far between.

These characters are put into some tense situations where there's little to no wiggle room for escape, and I plowed through the pages, excited to see what they'd do next.  The final con is a carefully orchestrated, and intricately layered work of art, and will delight fans of Ocean's Eleven.    

Although The Deceivers didn't end with a cliffhanger, it's the start of a series, and I'm anxious to see where it goes next.  If you're a fan of heists, cons, morally ambiguous, determined characters, and hold-your-breath life-threatening situations, this is your book.  I loved every minute of it.  

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

First, I’d like to thank Tor Teen via Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is different from the other Kristen Simmons books I’ve read, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I absolutely loved it. It was fast paced, and I never got bored. I fell in love with the characters and never once suspected how it all played out in the end. I can’t wait for the next book!

Brynn Hilder will do whatever it takes to get out of Devon Park, including cleaning at the library four nights a week and conning rich kids out of their parents’ money. She saves every penny she can; however, Pete, her mom’s abusive drug lord of a boyfriend, accuses Brynn of stealing from him and takes all of the money she has hidden and then grounds her from her job and from attending school.

Enter Vale Hall: a small, elite private academy with no more than 20 students at a time. Brynn faces the opportunity of a life time. She is chosen to attend this school which promises her the a scholarship to the college of her choice upon graduation. It’s a dream come true - or is it? Vale Hall isn’t an ordinary school and Brynn wasn’t chosen because of her grades. In order to attend, Brynn must continue conning others in order to report their secrets back to the school’s headmaster. Brynn jumps at the chance for a better life. She is soon assigned to find out information about the senator’s son, Grayson Sterling. Should be easy enough, but after the betrayal of a classmate, Brynn starts to question everything. As the lines between right vs wrong and what’s real vs what’s pretend begin to blur, Brynn has to decide if the payoff is worth the price. #TheDeceivers #NetGalley

Disclaimer: I received this ARC courtesy of Tor Teen through NetGalley. I am grateful for the opportunity to review an ARC for my readers, but this will not influence my final rating. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and based solely on the book. 

A book about a school for teen con artists. I might have squealed internally when I saw the summary, I definitely squealed externally when I saw I was approved for a review copy, and it's up for debate how many times I paused in my reading to praise favourite moments to my co-blogger. The Deceivers sucked me in from the start, with Brynn conning some ballet students into purchasing fake tickets to a theatre show and then heading home to confront her mom's drug dealing boyfriend. 

Brynn is street-wise heroine who has long-since learned that fortune doesn't favour those who grew up in the wrong part of town and definitely not those who don't try to make more from their situation. Throughout the book, her wits get her out of tricky situations, and prove again and again that book smarts aren't the only useful intelligence. I adoooored her personality, and her character arc on "who am I when I'm not conning people" was extremely well-written. 

Brynn is able to see the grey area in society's laws, but that is tested when she joins Vale Hall, an extremely exclusive school that teaches its students how to extract secrets. Its director, Dr. Odin, assigns her to befriend a politician's son and find out his secrets. This is one of the major plot threads in the story: what is the secret? Can Brynn actually con someone? Is she made out for this new lifestyle? At the school, Brynn makes good friends and also starts a romance, but what I loved the most was the entire air of "can I actually trust this person?" that circulated with every chapter. Everyone at the school is nice and welcoming to Brynn (minus one), but everyone also has their own motives, which gave the book depths I didn't expect. 

The other major plot in the story is based loosely around her mother's boyfriend, Pete, and Brynn's efforts to free herself from his control. As I said before, Pete is a drug dealer (a pretty major one in Brynn's hometown). His emotional abuse of Brynn and her mother is very well depicted in the book. In one scene, Brynn sits beside Pete and relates how his commands to "sit" make her feel like a dog, but that she fears acting out against him. Both plot lines are resolved by the end of the novel, and are given an equal amount of page time to develop. I had no clue how they would wrap up, because so much was happening, but Brynn was absolutely brilliant once again and solved everything and wow she's my personal hero.

The writing in this book was a shining glory. (It was definitely better than that metaphor.) Simmons provides an accurate representation of emotional abuse that alone marks this book as a must read. But I cannot forget to give praise to the subtle commentaries on power dynamics we see once Brynn starts at Vale Hall. I hope to see so much more of that in the sequel!!

This book gets a 4.5 crown rating for me. I highly recommend you pick this book up because seriously there are teenagers learning how to be con artists and Brynn is an amazing heroine that you will want on your team. SO so glad this book came my way, and I hope it passes yours too!

Goodreads review [Jan 30] : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2633245021
Blog [Jan 30] : https://bookprincessreviews.wordpress.com/

I received a free copy of THE DECEIVERS by Kristen Simmons in exchange for an honest review. Brynn Hilder wants out of Devon Park; it’s a drug-ridden slum, and the school only offers substandard education. To make matters worse, her mom’s live-in boyfriend, Pete, is the local drug lord. So, Brynn will do anything to get away-to go to college; she’ll clean businesses at midnight and run scams at mid-afternoon. Brynn suffers a huge setback when Pete steals her college fund, puts her on lockdown to keep her from taking her school finals, and pressures her to start dealing for him. Unexpectedly, Brynn is offered a way out. If she would do this one thing, she could get a scholarship to an exclusive boarding school and to the college of choice once she graduates. When she finds out she’s expected to continue running cons to keep her scholarship, Brynn second guesses her good luck. Will Brynn be able to escape her past or will she let fear sabotage her chance at a new future?

This was an intense book; at times, I had to stop myself from flipping ahead. Though many of Brynn’s problems at home could have been resolved with a call to the police, the victims of abuse rarely see the easy and obvious way out; if they do, they don’t believe it will work for them-it’s too easy.

#TheDeceivers #NetGalley

Welcome to Vale Hall, the school for aspiring con artists.

When Brynn Hilder is recruited to Vale, it seems like the elite academy is her chance to start over, away from her mom’s loser boyfriend and her rundown neighborhood. But she soon learns that Vale chooses students not so much for their scholastic talent as for their extracurricular activities, such as her time spent conning rich North Shore kids out of their extravagant allowances.

At first, Brynn jumps at the chance to help the school in its mission to rid the city of corrupt officials—because what could be better than giving entitled jerks what they deserve? But that’s before she meets her mark—a senator’s son—and before she discovers the school’s headmaster has secrets he’ll stop at nothing to protect. As the lines between right and wrong blur, Brynn begins to realize she’s in way over head.

___________________

The Deceivers is a fun read with plenty of substance. Brynn has lived on the wrong side of the tracks for too long. To get out, she perfect the art of a con until she herself is conned. Vale Hall seems like it is too good to be true and maybe it is. Brynn will have to decide if it is worth it to get out and have the chance for a decent future. I loved the nods to Norse mythology and cannot wait to see how these threads pan out for future books. Simmons has a gift for writing elevated fiction for teens that is entertaining as well as thought provoking.

I enjoyed this read about a con artist beaten at her own game. Brynn thinks she's tailing the cute guy she keeps seeing around their rundown town, but he leads her to a group of kids apparently vying for a scholarship. Desperate to get away from her mother's drug dealing boyfriend, Brynn throws everything she has at the contest. When she realises everyone was in on it - and what the point was - she's not sure whether to continue, but anything's better than running drugs for Pete, isn't it?

So. The main characters were well drawn; Brynn, Caleb, Dr O, Pete and Marcus, Caroline and Henry. Pretty much everyone else is a cypher...I'm still not sure I know the names of all the students. That doesn't really matter, though, as they weren't important to the story.

The descriptions of the cons, and the unraveling, layer by layer, of Brynn's, were fascinating. I'm glad this is the start of a series; I look forward to learning a lot more about these characters.

(Please Kirsten, don't break them up in the next book and get them together in the third! Let them be stable or break them up forever! I think Henry would be good for Brynn...)



Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.