I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley.

I feel this is a really important book and one most people should read. It’s about the murky online world of romance fraud. I knew thought I knew a reasonable amount about this but some of what the author delves into is absolutely terrifying and far more organised than I’d realised.

This book is quite lighthearted in tone and I actually laughed out loud at one point at one of her comical responses to a scammer. She often sends scammers absolutely ridiculous responses to their attempts to get money out of her and she’s very imaginative and funny. However for all there is some comedy particularly at the start, this is a really serious and scary subject.

The book talks through different types of romance scams and the approaches scammers will take whilst also telling the stories of some people who’ve been through harrowing experiences at the hands of scammers, losing thousands of pounds and having their trust betrayed and experiencing vast amounts of stress and suffering. The author also explores the motivations and lifestyles of some scammers and this is where the book gets really scary. I had no idea at the scale of what goes on to facilitate these scams.

I feel it would benefit a lot of people to read this book and understand how prolific these scams can be and how sophisticated they often are.

Well, keanu reeves is not in love with you , is a brilliant Insightful read absolutely loved it .
I have been following becky on twitter for a while and i really enjoyed her tweets always cheered me up .
I was so looking forward too this book and it did not disappoint .
To hear the stories of people be scammed was so heart breaking , but you can see how these people fall for it because the scammers are so good at what they do . I just hope this gives an insight to people and they will think twice about any famous or not so famous people sliding in their dm's .

Intensely relevant, relatable, riveting stories and background to life-changing scams.

The author navigates breezily between chatty background, personal history and observations, to her own hilarious interactions with scammers, and then the upsetting and soul-baring stories of people conned by promises of love and commitment into handing over their money.

A hard path to navigate, but I found myself crossing my legs in merriment at screenshotted conversations of silly place names and murders one minute, then in tears at the heartbreak and loss of victims the next.

Holmes started a deep dive into Twitter with pandemic lockdowns in full swing (well we all had to do something), and it wasn't long before "a sudden DM deluge and I had military men falling out of every orifice. Well, sadly that's not true, but you know what I mean."

With a lot of research in this, all cited, this feels like a thorough examination of the recent history of online romance scams, the psychology used in them, some social commentary on where and why, and the (often rubbish) reactions and assistance available.

My eyes feel opened after reading this. I've many times deleted friend requests from international strangers, deleted Nigerian prince-type emails, and feel fortunate not to have been at a vulnerable place in my life when I've used dating sites and been more open to suggestion and convincing stories.

Holmes' interactions with scammers are just perfection, and the perfect antidote to the real stories interspersed between them, which show a range of long and short cons carefully designed to ruin lives.

A timely reminder to everyone out there to keep your personal details safe, to have your wits about you when chatting to strangers, and to not take Keanu Reeves' (or in my case Taron Egerton's) deep admiration for you at face value. Shame that.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

This book is compulsively readable and extremely quick. I got through it in about 4 hours over a couple of very stressful work days, and it was a nice little respite from the horrors happening on my computer.

This is much more a comedy book than one where you’re likely to learn anything. The author isn’t a journalist (as she’s quick to point out), and it’s made up of about equal parts research and interviews with experts, stories from victims, and screencaps of humorous exchanges with scammers. The latter started getting a bit old by the end (the humour was very LolRandom), and the research was sometimes patchy (she perpetuates some myths about human trafficking, and misuses some terms like ‘deepfake’). But the testimony from victims was powerful and really helped to illuminate the mindsets of the victims. I confess that I’ve often struggled to empathise with victims of romance fraud, but this book definitely helped.

This book was a unique, unorthodox look at a serious and underserved topic, and I would recommend it to people who are curious about romance fraud and scams in general, or who are curious about how a scammer will react when his mark says that she’s got on a boat and she’s going to sail to his oil rig.

(I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review!)

Sensationally great. Truly revelatory. This is a book about sweetheart scams, in this case, from the UK. This book is both hilarious, touching, scary, frightening, insightful, and depressing due to the topic. It is the best book I've read on this topic. I know something about sweetheart scams since, as a CPA, prior the 2017 Tax Act, these scams led to deductions for the amount of money lost to the scammer. I taught this topic nationwide for years and had clients who were scammed. I know the stories and the people and the tax law and was able, though the law, to provide them relief accorded to them under Internal Revenue Code Section 165. When I taught this I explained that no one has the right to steal money from anyone for any reasons. Yes, I ran into some people who thought sweetheart scams were "deserved" and only impacted "sad and lonely people" but this author makes clear that this is not the case, and I know that from personal experience. This is an astonishingly good and informative book. There are laughs, but there is also much serious discussion and this author, who is new to me, is a fantastic writer. I would recommend, honestly, that everyone read this book, and take it to heart. It is easy for someone to take advantage of you. Education, knowledge, skepticism, and more knowledge could help. Highly and absolutely recommended. A revelation.

I read this book in a couple of days. I couldn't put it down, some of the stories were so uncomfortable to read but I needed to know how they turned out. I enjoyed how the author managed to offset the upsetting subject matter with the right abound of humour, highlighting the ineptitude and downright ridiculousness of the scammers at times. Some of the interactions had me in stitches.
She is knowledgeable and clearly empathetic but with a hilarious way of wording things. Romance scams are a serious, life destroying problem that needs highlighting and the author managed to do this in a really human and entertaining way.

This book reads like Take a Break or Chat magazine - stories of women who have been duped for money by cruel men on dating sites. The advice given may have been good for these women, but it is too late for them as they have often lost everything financially and can be too embarrassed to tell friends and family of their plight. The humour comes when the author engages with online scammers, with many of them blocking her. A light-hearted fun read, although sad for the women who fall for these awful scoundrels.

This is funny, informative and terribly sad in equal measure . a well written and brilliantly researched look at the world of online scammers, her wonderful and witty responses to these losers, and hopes that one day something will be done about it. Thought provoking and well worth reading.

Made me laugh out loud quite a few times. Perceptive and informative and a sad indictment of the times we live in. Some of the stories were so sad. Look forward to more from this author

Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. It has completely changed my perspective of people who have been victims of scams. I read this book in two sittings, completely addictive, I just couldn't put it down. Such an important and informative read.

This is a timely book. I know several several people who have been victims of romance scams, and this book really rang true. There are pages so funny they had me laughing out loud -- the author includes screen shots of how she has "played" the scammers, and they are clever and hilarious. Yet the loneliness and heartbreak of those who are scammed is eye-opening. Recommended reading for anyone interested in this subject. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I rarely read non fiction but I’ve seen quite a few of Becky’s posts on social media so was really interested in reading this, she has a really approachable writing style which made a huge impact on my enjoyment of this, she’s witty but also self depreciating and has clearly spent a lot of time investigating the different aspects of relationship fraud. Whilst there’s a nice mix of her own experiences there’s some brilliant individual stories and professional input. The lack of help and support is highly depressing but this is a fantastic way of highlighting the issue to help prevent more people suffering in the first place.

Apart from being incredibly informative regarding the many variety of scams that can affect people, this book manages to be both laugh out loud funny (Becky is incredibly witty and her responses will have you howling) as well as being really sad reading the stories of those who have been personally affected by these types of scams.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this digital copy.

This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, even while dealing with something so infuriating and heartbreaking as romance scams. Becky Holmes joined Twitter to fight the loneliness of the pandemic lockdown and soon started finding love in all the wrong places. From pilots, military men, oil rig workers and even celebrities such as Keanu, Liam Neeson and even Prince William. This book is her hilarious account of her efforts to expose these evil fraudsters. From the distressing stories of the victims to laugh-out-loud funny screenshots of her exchanges with scammers, this book offers an illuminating account of this recent phenomenon. Becky dives deep, trying to find out how it works and why. She talks to psychologists, law-enforcement officers, people who have been subjected to this abuse, and even to the human scum behind these schemes. A close family member was a victim of this, and the implications were not as bad financially, but caused a lot of strife that’s still felt to this day. This read helped me put it in perspective, understand my loved one better and how it was not a question of being stupid, but a good person. I recommend this book to everyone who uses social media, because of the scary fact that we are all targets, and it doesn’t take much to be manipulated.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Unbound.

Have been following Becky's escapades with romance scammers and the infamous coke can Greg on Twitter for an age and whilst this has many elements of the humour of her Tweets, it also has some serious research on romance fraud which blends seamlessly into a funny, moving, thoughtful and impassioned call to arms. Highly recommended

Becky Holmes is a lucky lady,not only has Keanu Reeves decided that he'd like to know her a lot better on social media........several of them have. Sadly, but a tad predictably, none of them are the great man himself, he famously doesn't "do" social media of any kind. What these people are is not particularly inventive examples of the massed ranks of romance fraudsters, disgusting,manipulative and immoral people who entice others into online relationships purely for exploitation ,mostly through fraud or blackmail. The victims,all women in the book but the internet is also rife with female scammers targeting men, are often very intelligent people at a low point in their life who can fall for totally ludicrous tales of woe from experts in mind games and coercion. Tales that in a better frame of mind they'd believe no more than anyone else.

A lot of the book is very funny,consisting of Becky Holmes' baiting and ridiculing some of the desperadoes who contact her online. Much of it is very sad,personal tales from some of the women sucked in by these parasites and left psychologically and financially battered. She also manages to interview some of the predators,who are quite mind-blowingly frank about what they do.
Just as bad is the facade of the Police and Action Fraud, leading people to believe that they will actually do something while encouraging victims of online criminals to report them.

A very important book about a crime whose victims often keep quiet about out of embarrassment, or fear of exposure depending on how these criminals have got their hooks into them.
It's funny,it's tragic and it will make you angry.

The book is about romance fraud, and many of the different types of scams, and what can be done about it.
The first couple of chapters, and Becky's replies to the scammers are so funny. The stories about the ladies who were scammed are very moving, and show that it could happen to anybody, The stories about the double-scammers were eye-opening.
Some of the chapters were more informative, and gave lots of helpful advice. I found it shocking that social media companies, dating websites and governments aren't taking this type of fraud seriously.
Very timely.

funny, fabulous book about romance fraud. stuffed full of comedy while at the same time being deeply informative. thanks for the arc.

Keanu Reeves is Not in Love With You by Becky Holmes

This book is amusing yet also full of stories of women who have been conned into parting with sums of money in the hope that the person they are sending it to is genuine and wants to be in a relationship with them.
I like the way Becky plays the scammers at their own game often replying with preposterous text that goes completely over the head of the ( often ) non English speaking scammer who is pretends to be a hollywood star or having a well respected profession.
The book goes someway in exposing the many ways the scammers use be they after cash , or product gift cards.
An excellent read.

This book has everything, It is both absolutely hilarious as well as quite sad. Reading the stories of those who were scammed broke my heart. I hope more awareness of romance scams happens as a result of this book.