3-3.5 Stars

I really wanted to love this book, it kept me guessing throughout and I was caught off guard by the twists and ending. Claire is a struggling British actress in the US, without a visa. She is hired by a law firm to record/video men in hotels who proposition her to prove they are cheating on their wives. When a murder occurs, Claire becomes a suspect and must help in the investigation to catch the killer. Sounds great right? The part where I got lost was this obsession with Charles Baudelaire, an extremely dark and twisted writer. The poems and violence that are written about throughout the book along with the references to BDSM lost me a little. Without all of that I would have given 4 stars.

**Special thanks to NetGalley and Quercus for allowing me an advance read copy in exchange for an honest review. **

Lies, Lies, Lies. Is she acting ? Or WHAT is the truth ? This book has lots of twists and turns. You have to really wonder about the ending. Not the best by JP Delaney.

I was hooked quite early on in this novel. I found the characters well developed and the story/plot easy to follow. I'm usually a reader who can figure out the twist/ending of book way in advance. Surprisingly, the author kept me guessing. I really enjoyed the bits of Baudelaire's poetry.


I have also read the author's other book "The Girl Before" and enjoyed that! I look forward to reading more.

*I received a copy of this book for free, from NetGalley.com in exchange for my review. All opinions/thoughts are my own.*

Definitely a book that stays with you! Could not put it down!

Highly recommended if you enjoy suspense genre! Thank you for my review copy, which I received through Net Galley.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC.
4 stars - well-crafted story, main characters were flawed but fit their roles well. I wouldn't call the narrator unreliable, more like unpredictable which made for a fun read. There was one main event about 75% of the way through that I wish the author spent more time on rather than the swift conclusion that came out of nowhere. Other than that, the twists kept me guessing throughout and I enjoyed the ending.

This is a twisty, turny, full of secrets book! Claire is unreliable narrator at best as she has many secrets of her own. As I was trying to figure out who the murderer was, I was surprised many times by the twists. This was a book that kept me glued to my seat reading until the very end! I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine. All opinions are my own.

My Review of “Believe Me” by JP Delaney Random House Publishing July 2018

JP Delaney, Author of “Believe Me” has written a Psychological Thriller with suspense and mystery, twists and turns, lies and betrayals. This book deals with psychological mind games, and has the feel of a cat and mouse game, or the hunter and the prey. Literally, who will you believe?

The author describes her characters as complex, and complicated. Claire is British, and a struggling actress in America with no green card. To earn money, Claire uses her acting talents by working for divorce attorneys. Claire will go to a designated place with a camera and tape and start talking to a man she has targeted . The aim of this is to see if he is cheating. If he is not, then of course he can’t be baited by Claire. There are rules for this game.

Claire purposely seeks out her target by sitting at his table, while he has gotten up. There is a computer there, and a book of poems. Eventually the man allows Claire to sit there and they read some of the passages in the book, then tells Claire that he is married and leaves.

Claire reports back to the wife that he doesn’t seem to be the type to cheat. Soon after the wife is found dead in a hotel. Claire was one of the last people to see her while she was alive, as was the husband. The Police would like Claire to get the husband to confess.

Then the rules of this game change, and there is danger and this can be even deadly! Both Claire and the husband have deep, dark secrets. I would recommend this novel for readers that enjoy a twisty thriller with a psychological edge and danger to it. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.


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This is a twisty-turning tale which wants to lead you down a path and then rip all of the assumptions you had to something totally different. I followed it all, some believable some not so much... but the ride kept me interested.

If you want a thriller with an unreliable narrator that will literally keep you guessing from the first page to the last, look no further than Believe Me by J.P. Delaney (pseudonym). This book follows a actress from the UK who is living in NYC and attending an acting school. On the side, she works under the table for a law firm to try to catch cheating husbands in the act… on film… so their soon-to-be ex wives fair better in court. When one of the people she meets through this is found dead, the police enlist her help to try to solve the case. Claire goes completely undercover for the police while ultimately becoming this fictional version of herself. As the stakes are raised, the reader really does not know what is real or imagined in this complex web. It was fun as the reader to see the scenes set up like a script or play and it fit in perfectly with the rest of the book. There are countless references to Baudelaire, whom I was not familiar with prior to reading the book. I found it very interesting in the author’s note that the author actually completed all translations that were used in this book. I have some other spoilery thoughts on the book, so feel free to PM me if you’d like to discuss this further. This book comes out on 7/24 so be sure to add it to your TBR list if is sounds like your type of read!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my ARC of this book. All opinions are my own!

Believe Me by JP Delaney is a book that will take you on so many twists and turns. Just when you think you've got the whole plot figured out the book takes a turn that you never saw coming. Claire is an aspiring British actress who becomes entangled in a murder mystery as a result of her side gig as a decoy for divorce lawyers. She gets drawn into the mystery way deeper than she had anticipated. Will she make it out alive, though? Read and enjoy!

Thank you to NetGalley and JP Delaney for the chance to read this advance copy.

I absolutely love psychological thrillers. If it's in the description, I'm going to read it. This was a good thriller...until the end. The end was just kind of meh for me. I did enjoy this book, and I loved Claire's character but the ending seemed a bit over the top for me.

Beautifully flawed characters engaged in a macabre dance. Believe Me is a taught thriller, fast paced and twisted!

This book was fantastic. A true psychological thriller with twists and turns throughout. It is broken down into three parts. And at the end of each part, you think you know what is happening. But, as the next part starts, again more twists and turns, right till the very end of the book. It is an edge of your seat book. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. This is my second book I have read by JP Delaney. Her first, The Girl Before which was wonderful. I received this book, Believe Me, from netgalley.com as an ARC for an honest review. Claire, the main character in the book is from England, an aspiring actress but needs a green card. She does free lance work for a law firm, helping woman who believe their husband's are cheating on them. She meets them in a bar, tries to seduce them and gets paid whether they are unfaithful or not. Now, to the main plot of the book. She is asked to meet the wife first which is not the usual way this works. Anyway, she goes down to the hotel bar where her husband is. His name is Patrick Folger and he doesn't take the bait. She returns to the wife's hotel room and tells her he wasn't interested and than the wife becomes hysterical. She pays Claire her fee and the next day, the wife is found dead. Then it is a cat and mouse game as to who killed the wife. Three months go by and no suspect is found. Claire is approached by a detective and a FBI Profiler and they ask her to be a decoy and they feel that the husband Patrick is a serial killer, not only his wife but many others. From that point on you really don't know who is prey and who is the decoy. The twists and turns are incredible and again not to very end do you know what is the truth. No spoilers here. I recommend this book highly if you are a fan of psychological thrillers with an end you will not see coming. Also,I read lots of books of this nature and many times before the end of the book I know the outcome. Not with this book, which makes it a great book. Again, I highly recommend this book!!!

· see review

I have conflicted feelings about this book. I loved all the twists and turns of the main story. But I felt like none of the characters were fleshed out enough to make me truly care about what the outcome of the story ended up being.

Although JP Delaney's "The Girl Before" has been on my to-read list for quite some time I haven't gotten around to doing so. As soon as I saw this new book, it immediately caught my eye. This book did not disappoint. This book is about an actress who starts taking on work for a law firm to test suspected cheating spouses. While it is not the acting she wants to be doing she needs the money and enjoys that she can still "act" in a way. Then at some point she takes on an assignment that turns into more than she ever imagined. I really loved it from start to finish. I love when a book has so many twists and turns and surprises that you really don't know how it's going to end. This book made it very difficult to figure out who is lying and who is not. As the book reveals different endings you are still questioning how it doesn't quite make 100% sense but then there is another twist. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a mystery/thriller and I will definitely be picking up JP Delaney's other book ASAP!

2.5 stars. I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. It definitely was suspenseful and kept me guessing - I wanted to find out who killed Stella Fogler. But so much of it was so unbelievable and over the top. Neither Claire or Patrick was particularly likable - you weren't really rooting for either one of them to be the good guy. I had really liked The Girl Before but this wasn't of the same caliber.

There’s not a lot I can say about this fast-paced thriller, except Delaney will take everything you assume and turn it on its head so many times. There is a special talent to misdirection, clever plot twists, and big reveals. I am tricked almost every time by Delaney. Even the things I thought I knew for certain, there was all this doubt thrown on top of it. Believe Me completely captivated me. I binge read it a day, which says a lot, but also I basically was late to an event because I had to finish it.

Claire is an actress that supplements her income by doing freelance work for a lawyer, who is investigating husbands who cheat on their wives. When one of Claire's clients is found dead, the police hire Claire to become involved with the husband, who likes to quote from Baudelaire's poetry. Claire enters a very dark world while trying to know the husband better. Claire works with a psychologist who is profiling psychopaths, but Claire starts to wonder if she is the one who is a subject. There are a lot of twists in this novel!
Tense and surprising, this is a really great psychological thriller. I was quite surprised by the ending!
Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
#BelieveMe #JPDelaney #NetGalley

Believe Me is a dark and twisted thriller that managed to snag my interest from the very beginning and never let go. It's a game of cat and mouse where you're not always sure of who is the cat...and who is the mouse.
The format took some getting used to but considering the main character - Claire - is an aspiring actress, it works.

What I enjoyed most is that Claire is an unreliable narrator. This is something I love when reading psychological thrillers because it keeps you guessing. Given what we know of Claire's past, you're constantly questioning her sanity or wondering if she's even capable of separating reality from the 'roles' she plays.

Personally, I feel as if this would have benefited from being a bit longer. So much happens toward the end that it felt a little rushed and after the pacing of the middle, maybe drawing things out just a tad would have made the ending even better. The ending by the way, was phenomenal!

This was probably one of the first thrillers I've read in a while that actually had some surprising twists. That is, twists I didn't see coming from a mile away.

I loved this book. Couldn't put in down. I was going back and forth between Patrick and Claire to figure out who was the killer. I was surprised at the end. This is my second book that I have read by JP Delaney and I will be looking forward to the next release.