Lies I Told

by Michelle Zink

Overview

Grace Fontaine has everything: beauty, money, confidence, and the perfect family. But it's all a lie.

Grace has been adopted into a family of thieves who con affluent people out of money, jewelry, art, and anything else of value. Grace has never had any difficulty pulling off a job, but when things start to go wrong on the Fontaines' biggest heist yet, Grace finds herself breaking more and more of the rules designed to keep her from getting caught . . . including the most important one of all: never fall for your mark.

Perfect for fans of Ally Carter and Robin Benway, this thrilling, high-stakes novel deftly explores the roles of identity and loyalty while offering a window into the world of the rich and fabulous.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062327123
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/07/2015
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	HL730L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 Years

About the Author

Michelle Zink lives in New York with her four children. Her first novel, Prophecy of the Sisters, was chosen as one of ALA Booklist's Top Ten Novels for Youth of 2009 and as one of the Chicago Public Library's Best Books for Young Readers. It has also been listed on the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age and the Lone Star Reading List.

Editorial Reviews

03/02/2015
Seventeen-year-old Grace endured the foster care system for years until a pair of thieves adopted her, employing Grace and her older brother, Parker, for their cons. Ever since, Grace has spent four months in one place, five months in another, changing her name, personality, and friends in service of her parents’ schemes. Now the family has landed in Playa Hermosa, Calif., gearing up for their greatest con yet—snagging $20 million in gold bars, hidden in the house of a local family. Grace’s job is to get close to handsome Logan Fairchild to find out where they keep the gold, and Zink (the Prophecy of the Sisters trilogy) builds significant tension as Grace begins to fall for her mark and make real friends, throwing her loyalties and decision-making into flux. It’s a gripping, edgy thriller that’s driven as much by the internal conflicts of its sympathetic heroine as by the threats that the con will come crashing down around Grace and her family. A dramatic 11th-hour twist will leave readers eager for more. Ages 13–up. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Adopted by two con artists, Grace Fontaine moves with her family into a new city, where they case their mark, execute the job, and move on. Their newest job, to steal the gold stockpile of a mentally ill millionaire, is their biggest ever. Grace knows how to keep her heart out of the game, but when she begins making real friends and falls for the millionaire’s son, everything gets complicated. When a small slip puts the whole con at risk, she begins to question the realities of her life as never before. But the con has gone too far, and she has to see it through, which means losing the boy she loves and possibly her family. Zink has created a unique protagonist that allows her to explore a wide range of interesting problems. From the nature of true friendship to one’s family responsibilities, Grace delves into a lot of different emotions that will connect to many teens. The plot moves very slowly, however, retracing a lot of the same ground and resulting in a lack of tension and believability. Several plot elements, including a next-door neighbor and mean girl, come and go with little connection. In the end, too many things are left open for this to be anything but the first book in a series, even though there is no indication of more to come. It will certainly appeal to teens who enjoy characters placed in usual situations, but those looking for an action-packed thriller should look elsewhere. Reviewer: Rachel Wadham; Ages 15 to 18.

VOYA, February 2015 (Vol. 37, No. 6) - Rachel Wadham

01/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—Fans of romance and a good heist will fall in love with Lies I Told. Grace is a foster child who has been adopted by a pair of con artists, and they are the closest thing she has to a real family. Her brother, another adopted foster child, is finding the life of constant deception increasingly unsatisfactory. He's ready to get out, and he wants Grace to come with him. Parker's entreaties would be more successful if Grace wasn't falling irrevocably in love with their newest mark. Zink uses a fabulous vocabulary to build a tale of deception and mixed loyalties that effortlessly draws readers in and allows them to vicariously experience the tension of living a lie while trying to be completely transparent with a love interest. The victims of the graft are sympathetic characters, and Grace can be forgiven her deception since she must make an untenable choice between first love and familial abandonment or betrayal of a truly good person and an artificial family. Zink liberally includes the palpitating hearts and more mature, steamy love scenes that many young adult readers have come to expect in an action-packed tale, but leaves her readers dangling with an ending that will leave them demanding more.—Jodeana Kruse, R. A. Long High School, Longview,WA

School Library Journal

★ 2014-12-10
A girl struggles to hold onto her own identity within her family of thieves. Grace disobeys her parents by keeping mementos from her family's previous criminal jobs. She hopes she hasn't completely become the deceptive creature her parents trained her to be from the time they adopted her as a young teen. Now 17, Grace has moved with her family to an affluent area as part of a plot to steal millions in gold from Warren Fairchild, a wildly wealthy but mentally unstable man. Her parents assign Grace to get close to Logan, Fairchild's son, a task she finds only too easy, as she and Logan truly fall for each other. Grace likes her new friends in Playa Hermosa, making one truly good friend for the first time in her life, her family having moved incessantly to keep up with jobs and ahead of the police. She lives with the realization that she must lie to these good people constantly, and she knows she must betray Logan, whom she loves. Zink deftly weaves the story together, employing foreshadowing and symbolism to support the plot. Although readers know from the prologue that things will turn out badly, suspense ripples throughout the story. Grace's character blooms as she balances between the good person she hopes to be and the bad one she's forced to be. Highly readable, gripping and touching. (Thriller. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews