Believe Me

by JP Delaney

[Leah]

Last year’s breakout author was, undoubtedly, JP Delaney, an anonymous pseudonym, with hit bestseller, The Girl Before. I personally couldn’t get into it, although I may go back and revisit it now that I’ve read Believe Me. However, I’m a firm believer in giving authors a second chance (and even third or fourth chances – sometimes, I never learn) and I really liked the premise of Believe Me, even more so when I realised a lot of it was script scenes, pretty much meaning this would be a fairly quick read regardless of whether I liked it or not. I’m pleased to say, this was actually a brilliant read.

I think what I liked about Believe Me is that I actually never knew where the plot was going – Claire is a very, very good actress and I couldn’t tell what was faked and what was real and so for a lot of the novel I wasn’t sure in the slightest of what was going on; even more so when the whole Patrick situation begins. Claire isn’t necessarily unreliable – if anything, I wanted to believe everything she was saying and I really liked her narration, but I just felt unsettled the entire time I was reading. I wasn’t sure, in the slightest, who had killed Patrick’s wife. Was it Claire? Patrick? A third party? It was so hard to pick either one because both had their times where I thought it was them and both had their times where I was sure they were both innocent.

I do wonder how believable the novel is as a whole – I mean, when you get to the end it’s a bit like WTF just happened, is that real kinda thing? But I cannot deny it was entertaining, I was thoroughly into this book throughout, the whole thing was crackers but a really entertaining crackers. It’s actually a re-write of an older novel of Delaney’s (published as Tony Strong) but you can see that the plot is so clever and unique. I gobbled it up.

I really loved Believe Me. The premise was unique and intriguing and the narrative and structure of the novel kept me hooked throughout. I really liked Claire, even if I didn’t trust her 100% and the ending was just spectacular. I thoroughly recommend this book and I can’t wait to go back and give The Girl Before another go because if it’s even slightly like Believe Me, it’s going to be amazing.