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Brynn Hilder has only known survival. While her mom at least owns their small townhouse, she lives in a bad part of town and has to put up with Pete, the drug dealer her mom dates and who lives with them. Brynn works part time at night. In between her job and working hard in school, she runs small cons on rich kids to save up more money. Someday, she’s going to go to college and escape her situation.
Then she gets recruited to a very small, highly exclusive school called Vale Hall. This elite academy is definitely her ticket out; if she can succeed at the job she’s given there, she’ll get a scholarship to a good university. But she learns quickly that Vale isn’t a normal school for high achievers or students in need; it’s a school for con artists. And each student must pull their weight by running cons the headmaster assigns them. The headmaster (and owner of the mansion) assures her he’s doing what he can to root out corruption in their city, and he’s only targeting bad guys.
Brynn is assigned to get to know a senator’s son and find out secrets he may know about his dad. But as time goes on, she starts to question if the headmaster’s motives are completely just. Because he has secrets of his own he’ll do anything to protect.
The Deceivers is an entertaining story. It has the fun element of seeing smart kids pull off clever cons. It has mystery and romance. There’s a lot at stake for Brynn especially, so it’s got plenty of tension. There are two more books in the series, so I’ll probably read those to see how it all comes together in the long run. For now, though, it’s perfectly fine standing on its own.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes roughly five instances of moderate profanity, a handful of uses of mild language, and one or two uses of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes a couple of make-out scenes, one in which the teens are going pretty far and likely would have sex if not for being interrupted by something. Otherwise, there are references to sex and affairs but no details. Violence includes reference to a past death by a car crash; a young man is beaten badly but “off-screen” — his injuries are described afterward; it’s insinuated that a couple of men are domestic abusers; there is talk about how dangerous a drug gang is but not much detailed past the beating-up already mentioned.
