An eye-opening look inside the world of online romance scammers, who frequently pretend to be celebrities...hence the title. (You wouldn't think people would fall for it, but a quick peek at the scams subreddit proves otherwise.) It's often hysterically funny, because the author loves to mess with the scammers and provides screenshots of her conversations with them, but it's also deeply empathetic towards the victims. Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Becky Holmes knows a lot about romance scams. She's communicated with numerous handsome so-called pilots, oil rig workers, military men and celebrities on social media, effectively turning the tables and leading them up the garden path. But she's also delved much deeper, talking to women (of course men also get scammed, but this book focuses on women) who've been victims, finding out the tactics used, the support available (not much) and the often frightening reality behind the scammers. She's angry, and so will you be after reading this book.

Personally, I've never been approached by a romance scammer (should I be offended?) but then I'm not on social media very much. (I have had quite a few of those "Hi Mum, I've lost my phone, use this number" WhatsApp messages - another particularly nasty attempted con - and even replied to a few to string them along before it all went mysteriously quiet. Can't claim to have reached Becky's levels of creativity, though.)

Becky is a seriously funny writer and there are numerous laugh out loud moments here (the General Mark Milley stuff was one of my favourites), but it's also a sad and serious business for those who have suffered at the hands of these utter scumbags. It's easy to write victims off as foolish or naïve, but clearly some of the scammers (probably not the Keanu Reeves ones, in general) are very convincing and know exactly how to target their interactions to build trust and allay suspicion. She includes some in-depth interviews with women who've been taken in - one of whom was a police detective. It makes for sobering reading.

Not many people, I suspect, are really likely to believe that Keanu Reeves (or Brad Pitt or Liam Neeson) has fallen in love with them over Twitter and is therefore asking in poor English for Amazon vouchers or Steam cards. I feel that most people are not taken in by this. More alarming are the large scale, sophisticated operations in certain countries where scamming is a lucrative way of life for many, causing untold misery. And actually, it gets even worse than that, but that's all I'm saying. You'll have to read it yourself.

What comes over powerfully is the contempt directed at women who are victims of this - not only from the scammers themselves (although very much from them, they really are the scum of the earth) but from the general public who'd rather see people, especially women, as idiots than think it could happen to them. I think Becky's right in that we're all potentially more vulnerable than we think we are to a clever approach at a weak moment.

Actually, come to think of it, I did once get a message from Prince William, but my overly suspicious mind stopped our budding romance in its tracks. Who knows where that one might have ended up? 👑

This book is so good! What a fantastic book about a serious and awful matter but this book set it all in such a hilarious way that you feel ashamed to laugh when you read. I love the sense of humor the author put on it and I would love to read anything about her soon.

This book is fantastic. It’s almost shameful how funny it is, given it is about such an important and serious matter, but I was in absolute stitches the whole time. The Maine Coon description was spot on. Hidden amongst all the chuckles is some well researched, deeply analysed, serious stuff. The author has made a nasty, pervasive topic so accessible and entertaining that I hope it will reach its mark and save a lot of people from heartache and financial ruin. The case studies also added a great deal of useful content.

I’ve followed Becky on Twitter for the last year and she is doing invaluable work in raising awareness of romance scams (and raising a much-needed laugh too!). This book collects together my favourite DMs of hers, but goes further than that: it’s also a serious, well-researched exposé of the tactics that scammers use to hook their prey online. These important insights are communicated in Becky’s approachable, hilarious voice. This book will help many of us spot fraud before it goes on to cause harm - so it’s a big 5 stars from me!

This is a laugh out loud book although there are plenty of true stories of people who have been taken in by these people who spend days trying to con people out of their money. I loved the replies the author was sending to all these fakes though and wish I had thought of some of these.