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An ID Book Club Selection • “It’s Dynasty meets Patricia Highsmith.”—The Washington Post
Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in L.A. alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: Her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet.
Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer—traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family’s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: a mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa’s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina.
Nina’s, Vanessa’s, and Lachlan’s paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.
This dazzling, twisty, mesmerizing novel showcases acclaimed author Janelle Brown at her best, as two brilliant, damaged women try to survive the greatest game of deceit and destruction they will ever play.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 21, 2020 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593210017
- File size: 464075 KB
- Duration: 16:06:49
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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February 17, 2020
In this mixed heist tale, Brown (Watch Me Disappear) pits two con artists against a socialite, but a shared history makes their job messier than usual. Nina and her boyfriend Lachlan prey on Los Angeles’s young, careless, and wealthy, taking largely unmissed goods from their homes that can be resold for small fortunes. When Nina’s mom learns that her cancer has returned and the police turn up investigating Nina and Lachlan’s crime spree, the couple decide to leave town and take a swing at an instant payday—the $1 million Nina knows is in a safe in the Lake Tahoe mansion of her ex-boyfriend, Benny, which is currently occupied by his Instagram-influencer sister, Vanessa. But their efforts to scam Vanessa turn up more surprises than they expected, and Nina’s attempts to hide her identity blow up. Despite a catchy opening, the stakes fade and the narrative flags during Nina and Lachlan’s overlong ruse, and long flashbacks and shifts in perspective drag out what quickly becomes a predictable storyline. There’s promise here, but many readers will find their interest waning. -
Julia Whelan and Lauren Fortgang perform a near-perfect duet narrating this utterly absorbing psychological thriller. Whelan's Nina is a grifter. She is bright and shrewd and is ready to go straight, but she needs one big score to pay for cancer treatments for her charming con woman mother. Nina's mark is Vanessa, a socialite media influencer, apparently all entitlement and vanity, whose family once did a terrible thing to teenaged Nina. Or so Nina believes. Fortgang gives Vanessa a slightly different timbre from Nina, somehow shallower and more helpless but not especially sympathetic--or so it seems. Somehow the worst people come across as most appealing, a hugely effective diversion as you unravel who the real cons and marks are. A winning production. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
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