YOU CAN TRUST ME
Wendy Heard

Pick-pocket Summer is friends with free spirit con artist Leo.

When you combine Summer's short game with Leo’s long haul these women together do their best to float above the system, and live a life no one can make up for them all the while conning men and women out of their IDs, their credit cards, and hopefully their riches.

It’s not a bad life.

Until one day they make a mark that will land Leo an invitation to a private island by billionaire businessman Michael Forrester. It sounds like the ultimate game and Leo and Summer are ready for big gains.

Except Leo doesn’t show up where she is supposed when she was supposed to which sends Summer on an independent quest to find Leo on Michael Forrester’s private island.

YOU CAN TRUST ME is bad but fun. Pointless yet soul-enriching. I need these characters and I need these books every once in a while.

YCTM is the perfect summer read and I didn’t want to put it down. The pacing is quick and the writing is cheeky but smart. I read most of it while working in the garden and around the house doing chores.

It made the tedious tasks fly by in a snap.

YOU CAN TRUST ME reminded me of the Netflix movie The Weekend Away starring Leighton Meister.

If you’re looking for a quick, can’t put it down beach read consider YOU CAN TRUST ME by Wendy Heard.

I gave YOU CAN TRUST ME four stars. It’s out now where books are sold.

YOU CAN TRUST ME…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Random House Audio, and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for the advance copies!

What a twisty ride!! Highly recommend this one, it was the perfect summertime thriller and kept me guessing. Looking forward to much more from this author!

I wasn't sure I was going to like a story about 2 young women who live in a van and travel around making their living by stealing and cheating rich people. But you soon learn to like both Summer and Leo and are fascinated by their lifestyle. Until that lifestyle gets one of them in a very bad situation. How the other one figures out the mystery and tried to help the one in trouble will keep you turning the pages until the end.

Thelma and Louise would have loved to hang out with Leo and Summer, the main characters in this book. They all have that free spirit, yet tough as nails, attitude. Their imperfection is what makes them so fascinating and makes you want everything to turn out OK for them.

Well, well, well! If this isn’t a surprise hit for me!

I LOVED this story of two girls, grifters, cruising the California coast in a decked out Land Cruiser, living life on their own terms.

Each girl has a past life story that’s led them to this existence of high-end pickpocketing and conning but they’ve got each other, best friends forever - truly.

There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other so when Leo goes missing, Summer will stop at nothing to find her.

You Can Trust Me is a fast-paced, thrilling adventure ride that I think is THE book of the summer. This is one I’ve been recommending to everyone.

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for this gifted DRC.

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 4.25⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Mystery/thriller📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
Not the most original plot but the characters hooked me in from the start.

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Suspenseful reads
Fast paced thrillers
Interesting ending
Action packed
Super secluded private island
Daul POV
Loyal friends

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
Learning about pickpocketing
All the California scenery

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
Was a little OTT and predictable

4.5 stars. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the E-ARC. This was such a solid fast paced read. While the twist was easy enough to figure out that did not make me loose my reading stride there was not a moment where I was bored. There is 2 POV Summer and Leo and I was just mesmerized by the life that they live.

Looooved this! What a perfect summer read. I read this in one sitting by the pool, it was a wild ride, a super compulsive read. Loved the quick alternating chapters. 4.5 stars

Summer and Leo are grifters. Summer has been on her own since her mom abandoned her at 16. After the death of Leo’s sister, she no longer feels welcome at home. When she met Leo on the streets in the Bay Area, they quickly become a pair. Quite the pair, they make a living together, Summer pickpocketing while beautiful Leo scams the opposite sex. Leo’s newest mark is billionaire, Michael Forrester. After setting him up and going on a date, Leo is missing and hasn’t checked in with Summer, something she’s never done before. Summer knows there is something terribly wrong. Finding out that Michael took Leo to his private island, Summer sets her sights on getting there as well. Closed door after closed door doesn’t stop Summer, nothing is quite adding up, but is she already too late to save Leo? Somewhere along the line this one went off the rails and turned completely implausible, still entertaining, but nothing to write home about. Thank you to Bantam and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Summer & Leo are friends with a sister-like bond, spending their lives traveling together as nomads and finding creative ways to support themselves. for Summer, it’s through her expertise at pickpocketing; Leo takes a more tedious approach, finding successful men to prowl on for their riches.

Leo meets her best catch yet, landing the attention of tech-billionaire Michael Forrester. when Michael invites Leo to accompany him to his private island, she thinks this is her ticket to many fortunes; but then Leo disappears. desperate to find her, Summer charms her way onto Michael’s island under the pretense of someone’s date. but upon arrival, Summer quickly realizes that finding Leo will be harder than she anticipated.

i enjoyed this book so much!! told in alternating viewpoints between Summer and Leo, we get both of their perspectives in real time & flashbacks as the suspense of the story’s events unfold. the story begins with introducing these two as con-artists, developing an initial distaste for them; but I grew to really love and appreciate both characters as I continued to read about their pasts, as well as how they handled themselves and protected each other in the present.

i really wasn’t expecting the twist in the story, but it was foreshadowed so early on that readers could piece it together way before the characters became aware (it reminded me of the feeling you get when you’re watching a scary movie & you know that the killer is there before the victim does) 🙈

a few parts of the story may have been a little far-fetched, but I think it did a good job of playing into the novelties that rich & successful people have, and how their power can make them virtually immune to societal standards, laws, and consequences. a few aspects of the story gave me vibes comparable to ‘Pretty Girls’, so do with that what you will 🫣

overall, I thought this was a super solid suspense, and definitely one of the better books I’ve read this year! thanks to @netgalley, @randomhouse & @wendydheard for my #advancedreaderscopy! this one’s out everywhere now!

3.5 stars rounded down

What started off as a promising, fast paced con-artist/grifter thriller quickly turned sluggish and disappointing for me. Summer is a true nomad, born to a teenage runaway, who has lived her entire life off the grid in the wilds of California. Without a legal identity, she finds herself truly alone when her mother abandons her when she is a teenager and of the age to "spread her wings". She is able to get by with her pickpocketing skills and one day comes across Leo, another homeless runaway, and takes her under her wing. Leo is running from her past and guilt she feels over the death of her older sister, for whom she covered on the fateful night she went out to meet a mystery man. Together, Summer and Leo form a grifting team, where Leo acts as a sugar baby to rich men, and Summer relieves their surroundings of their wallets and designer watches. Leo sets Michael Forrester, a tech billionaire and philanthropist, as her latest mark after he likes an Instagram photo of hers, and all too easily reels him in and is invited to an investors weekend on his private island. When she doesn't show up at their designated meeting spot, Summer wrangles an invitation from an unsuspecting flunky, and finds no trace of Leo on the island, though suspects the shifty employees are hiding something. At this point the pace slowed and I started to lose interest, and it also became abundantly clear in this game of cat and mouse, the tables were turned and nothing was actually a coincidence. It was far fetched for sure, but a pretty fun ride, if you don't mind the sort of subversive feminist story where women are aware of their bodies as currency and use it to their advantage.

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my.

I really enjoyed You Can Trust Me. It started off a little slower, and I actually forgot it was a thriller for a little bit, and then when the story actually picked up it seemed to move pretty quickly. I generally liked Summer and Leo, but I didn’t love them, and I wonder if that’s just because I couldn’t personally connect with either of them. I also liked how the timelines weren’t synced up (they were a couple days off until the ending).

Would recommend!

4.5 for this fun, fast, action driven summer thriller. Summer and Leo are sisters by choice and when Leo goes missing, Summer is not leaving her behind. The grifter, free spirit storyline was done so well and you’re actually rooting for Summer and Leo despite their very morally ambiguous way of life. (Is it even ambiguous or just straight wrong, but I liked them so much I can see the gray?). This is a great pool/beach read and a fun way to spend an afternoon as this turned into a one sitting book for me. I will be checking out this author’s backlist.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy and a chance to read this early. All opinions are my own.

I DEVOURED this book! This is the first book I have probably read within the last year that I actually read in just one single day!! Once I started reading I just could not stop. I had to find out what was going on and what had truly happened! This book never had a dull moment and the relationship between summer and Leo is the kind of relationship I've always wished I had with a friend. And the way everything connected towards the end was just chef's kiss! This book was full of surprises and gasp moments for me, and I would 1,000% recommend to everyone!

This book pulled me in right from the start. Leo and Summer are grifters who live out of Summer's truck and steal their way through life. When Leo goes after her latest mark she ends up on a on his private island fighting for her life. What starts out as a passionate idyllic affair turns into a situation which Leo is on unsure footing. Because of the tight bond between the girls Summer finds a way to the island to look for her friend. This book is fast paced, has a few twists and turns, though I figured out the end before it came, it was still a satisfying and fun read.

SUPER fun twisty thriller! Fast-paced - which enticed me to keep reading to see how it would all resolve. Love the characters of Summer and Leo.

"Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer's tricked-out Land Cruiser. It's not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they've left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist--and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.

Eager for a big score, Leo catches in her crosshairs Michael Forrester, a self-made billionaire and philanthropist. When her charm wins him over, Leo is rewarded with an invitation to his private island off the California coastline for a night of fabulous excess. She eagerly anticipates returning with photos that can be sold to the paparazzi, jewelry that can be liquidated, and endless stories to share with Summer.

Instead, Leo disappears.

On her own for the first time in years, Summer decides to infiltrate Michael's island and find out what really happened. But when she arrives, no one has seen Leo--she's not on the island as far as they know. Plus, there was only one way on the island--and no way off--for the coming days. Trapped in a scheme she helped initiate, could Summer have met her match?"

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for the free ARC (even though I didn't finish it before publication) in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

3.5 Stars

Summer is a free spirit, born and raised on the streets, making a living by unscrupulous means. She meets Leo and finds the sister she never had. They become a team. But have they met their match when Leo focuses on a certain billionaire.

Such a different type of story and lead characters. Quick paced and full of action till 3/4 of the way thru, then it became a little stagnant and predictable for me. But, it was nice to see Summer evolve, her nurturing side come out and how Heard allowed her to grow. The bond between the two was well defined.

Thanks to Random House Publishing/Ballantine and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.

Oh Boy! Heard smashes all expectations with her new adult book.

I was so impressed by this story that I'm super hesitant to mention anything that might ruin the experience for others.

Just go out and buy it already.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for an honest review.

You Can Trust Me is a high-stakes, hot-weather thriller with a lavishly described SoCal background and a pair of protagonists to fall in love with. Summer and Leo, two con women each adrift in their lives for different reasons, have found sisterhood in one another, and that close friendship drives both the dramatic plot and the emotional heart of the story. They go together like peanut butter and jelly, but are different and developed enough as characters to make switching between their POVs clear and distinct. I did think one of the more dramatic revelations was telegraphed too broadly, too early, so it felt more frustrating watching the characters fail to get a clue than exciting when they finally did. But the blend of LA glamor, isolated/trapped thriller vibes, eat-the-rich scams, life-or-death chases and, most of all, the deep, genuine friendship between Summer and Leo make this a delight to read, whether by the pool or on the beach of your own private island.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance review copy.

This was a quick and fast read. The concept of Summer and Leo being con artists sounded like a fun premise. However, I felt the characters weren’t well-developed. Also some of the twists weren’t surprising.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.