‘I can be anything you want me to be. Even if you don’t know you want it. Especially if you don’t know you want it.’

Café owner Kate is mentally drained after a tough two years; all she wants from her online chess partner is entertainment on lonely evenings, and maybe a little virtual flirtation.

She is unaware that Nico Lewis is a highly intelligent con artist who, with an intricately spun web of lies about their emotional connection, will soon convince her that he is The One.

Neither does Kate know that his schemes involve women who seek love on dating sites, as well as his small publishing business. A host of excited authors believe Nico is about to make their dreams come true.

Terry Tyler’s twenty-fourth publication is a sinister psychological drama that highlights the dark side of internet dating—and the danger of ignoring the doubts of your subconscious.

The reason this novel captured my eye was because of its blurb. I didn’t know how the author was going to bring the idea of a conman who preys on vulnerable women knowing that they are missing something that he can provide, make them believe they are desired by a younger more attractive man, and hand over stacks of cash but wow, the book really blew me away.

The reality was that, whilst I felt terribly sorry for Kate because she is such a care-free and kind-hearted woman, there were times when I truly wanted the fairy-tale of how she was seeing it to be true and there were points where I believed it was true seeing it through her eyes. There were other times when I simply wanted her to realise that it was all a ruse. The author has expertly shown it from Nico’s perspective realising what he has to go through in order to pull off the con, particularly with Polly, who he has nicknamed Polyp, a spoilt, entitled lottery winner. There were times when I liked Nico’s character and wanted to delve in a little deeper with regard to his true background and what had got him to this point in his life.

It’s page-turning stuff because Kate has fallen for Nico hook, line, and sinker and it’s not long before she’s more than happy to part with her inheritance that her friends are so fiercely protective of. With the main plot very much heading in only one direction, I was very much in for the ride because Kate is such a likeable character that you immediately want everything to work out.

When the author gives snippets of the background of the other three women who Nico is trying to scam, Penny, Minerva, and Heather, it’s Heather’s story that really hits. Having realised that she is still in love with her late husband and doesn’t want to leave the home they shared, it swings it around in terms of how outrageously cruel Nico is being with the plan to scam them out of around £150,000 but even crueller, that they had fallen in love and believed he was in love.

The introduction of Brett, who has also been conned into believing that his series of books could be as good as The Lord of the Rings and that he’d taken out huge loans to pay Nico’s fake company, Curlew Publishing for the privilege of publishing his work, is a wonderful addition and the price a wannabe author will pay to one of these vanity publishers, in the hope that their book will reap the rewards with royalties.

Bearing in mind we hear about this type of cruel scam more and more, the subject matter is approached articulately and with an emotional depth, and all of the characters and the feelings that you would expect under the circumstances are perfectly reflected and I was completely immersed in both the characters and the story.

This book has lots of twists and turns and a perfect ending, a superb novel that I would highly recommend.

Terry Tyler is the author of twenty-four books available from Amazon, the latest being ‘Where There’s Doubt’, about a romance scammer. Also recently published is ‘Megacity’, the final book in the dystopian Operation Galton trilogy. She is currently at work on a post apocalyptic series, which will probably take the form of three novellas. Proud to be independently published, Terry is an avid reader and book reviewer, and a member of Rosie Amber’s Book Review Team.

Terry is a Walking Dead addict, and has a great interest in history (particularly 12th-17th century), along with books and documentaries on sociological/cultural/anthropological subject matter. She loves South Park, the sea, and going for long walks in quiet places where there are lots of trees. She lives in the north east of England with her husband.