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Sassy Brit (97 KP) rated Deception Wears Many Faces in Books

Jun 5, 2019

A nerve-jangling read!

Deception Wears Many Faces by Maggie James is a fast-paced thriller that kept me reading through the night eager to reach the final conclusion.

When Lyddie Hunter’s sister Ellie, attempts suicide again, she flies back home to be with her only to find that some guy on a dating site conned Ellie out of all her money. With only a few clues to go on, Lyddie takes it upon herself to hunt down Ellie’s ex-boyfriend and con man through the dating site of which he uses to target unsuspecting women.

Pretending to be a customer looking for love herself, Lyddie dates a few men trying to work out which guy is the one which conned her sister. But the con man regularly changes his identity as to not get caught. Will Lyddie find out which man he and expose him for who and what he really is, or has she just put herself and her sister in jeopardy and made them both a target? Who can be trusted when dating sites are rife with people reinventing themselves? What better way to target vulnerable women by hiding in plain site.

What a stonker of a book! The cat and mouse chase to find out who the ex-boyfriend is without exposing herself or her sister, had me breathlessly reading this twisty suspense, but who exactly does Lyddie really need to watch out for?

Maggie James has created a terrific tale, full of lies, secrets and hidden agendas, but just who is actually deceiving who? I loved the final reveal at the end and how it all fell into place. A nerve-jangling read!

Thanks to #NetGalley and Bloodhound Books for my arc of #DeceptionWearsManyFaces. My opinions are honest, unbiased and all my own.

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Deborah (162 KP) rated The Wife Trap (The Trap Trilogy, #2) in Books

Dec 21, 2018

Oh dear. Not the greatest example of the genre I have ever read it has to be said. The Wife Trap is the middle book of a trilogy by this author; the first books seems to have dealt with the courtship of the twin sister of the 'heroine' of this novel, seemingly involving deception and machinations. You could read this book without having read the first one, but of course you don't know exactly what has gone on beforehand and why exactly Jeanette has been banished to stay with cousins in Ireland.

The hero of this book was called Darragh O'Brien. My problem with that was that I got an image of Darra O'Brien (chap who presents Mock The Week etc.) in my head, and I'm guessing that wasn't quite what the author had in mind! Obviously the character wasn't strongly enough written to dislodge said, disconcerting, image!

That though is a minor quibble when compared to my big issue with this book; the so-called heroine. Jeanette is shallow, vain, silly, selfish, self-centred, childish and utterly unlikeable! I can't for the life of me understand what the hero sees in her, except that she is apparently beautiful and quite good at painting... She seems to think she 'deserves' anything she happens to fancy and is willing to stamp her foot and pout until she gets her way. She thinks it quite reasonable to disrupt everyone else so she can have a lie-in (after refusing to abandon her 'town hours' and go to bed earlier!) If it were me, I would have left her stuck in the carriage in the mud in the first chapter and rescued the servants from her!