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Confidence Tricks

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Asprey Charles has always assumed he would one day take his place in the family art appraisal and insurance firm. “His place” meaning he plans to continue to enjoy his playboy lifestyle, lavish money on his Cessna, and shirk every responsibility that dares come his way.

But when a life of crime is thrust upon him, he is just as happy to slip on a mask and cape and play a highwayman rogue. After all, life is one big game—and he excels at playing.

Poppy Donovan vows that her recent release from jail will be her last—no more crime, no more cons. But when she learns that her grandmother lost her savings to a low-life financial advisor, she’s forced to do just one more job.

It’s all going smoothly until the necklace she intends to pawn to fund her con is stolen by a handsome, mocking, white-collar thief. A thief who, it turns out, could take a whole lot more than money. If she’s not careful, this blue blood with no business on her side of the tracks could run off with the last thing she can afford to lose. Her heart.

Warning: This book contains masked crusaders, a remorseless con woman, and plans to boost a ten-million-dollar painting. Expect high speeds and fast hands.

265 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 12, 2013

6 people are currently reading
405 people want to read

About the author

Tamara Morgan

39 books216 followers
Tamara Morgan is a contemporary comedy romance author. Ninety-nine percent of her information comes from television, movies, books, and all other pop culture activities that limit the amount of time she has to spend in polite company.

Her long-lived affinity for romance novels survived a B.A. degree in English Literature, after which time she discovered it was much more fun to create stories than analyze the life out of them. She lives with her husband and teen in the Inland Northwest, where the summers are hot, the winters are cold, and coffee is available on every street corner.

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5 stars
18 (22%)
4 stars
26 (32%)
3 stars
29 (36%)
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5 (6%)
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1 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Profile Image for Naz.
99 reviews4 followers
September 9, 2022
This was going to be a 4 star review so why'd it end like that. I mean it was implied but... doesn't mean I have to like it
Profile Image for Lillie.
155 reviews219 followers
January 29, 2016
This was just flat-out fun. Asprey was pure entertainment from the first page as he lay in the dirt wearing a black mask while Poppy’s spiked heel was at his throat. He’s a rich playboy, the baby brother, the guy who never had to take anything seriously until he had to clean up the mess his family left behind. Now he’s living in an old hanger and convincing his cranky older brother that they need the hot ex-con Poppy to help them with their final job.

Poppy is not the average romance heroine. She’s a con woman and quite happy with that title. The thrill of the con always excites her and she has no intention of turning her life around. Every scene with her and Asprey sparks with sexual tension and they are the perfect foil for each other. Full of dry humor with an ending I didn’t see coming, I recommend Confidence Tricks to any romance reader looking for an unusual hero and heroine that will keep them laughing.
Profile Image for Karen.
30 reviews5 followers
March 24, 2013
I'm a HUGE fan of witty dialogue and this book has it in spades! Both the dialogue between characters and internal dialogue is snappy and funny. Found myself laughing out loud several times. I also loved the relationship between the siblings. I do have a few quibbles with the heroine and the ending. Heroine's emotional/background issues seemed unresolved at the end. I don't know that she would have been able to commit without closure. The ending also seemed rushed and unresolved. Things I felt readers should have seen occurred off-page or were never discussed. The resolution of the relationship between the two main characters seemed hurried as well.
Profile Image for FV Angela.
1,451 reviews137 followers
July 10, 2018
Review originally posted at http://fictionvixen.com/joint-review-...

The beginning:

Jen: Confidence Tricks starts off right in the middle of the action. Asprey and his brother Graff are in the process of relieving Poppy of her very expensive necklace. Poppy is pretty unhappy with them because this is a mark she has been working on for a long time. From the start it is clear Asprey is going to be fun.

“Who are you?” she added
“Some call us highwaymen. Some call us gentlemen thieves,” Asprey said. He turned eve more and managed to smile up at her, just inches away from a glimpse at the goods. “But if you move your leg a little bit to the right, you can call me anything you want.”
“Oh, gross,” she muttered, shifting her body just enough to close off his view. “Your kidding, right?”
“I never joke about woman’s underwear.” Wait. That didn’t come out right.


Poppy and The Charles family (Asprey, Graff and Tiffany) agree to pool their resources to pull off two heists. Poppy needs revenge for money stolen from her grandmother. She needs some help to pull off the final coupe. The Charles group has some family business they need taken care of but they have hit a wall. Together they all agree to help the other party get what they want.

Angela: Confidence Tricks starts off with a bang. So funny, I was cracking up at the back and forth between Asprey, Poppy and Graff. Asprey doesn’t take anything seriously and has a come back line for everything.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Asprey cried, bending awkwardly to try and reduce the amount of pressure. “Spork! I cry spork!”
She released some of the tension on his arm but didn’t back away. “You cry spork?”
“It’s my safe word,” he managed. “You know — functional yet innovative? I hate to brag, but I’ve been told I’m a little of both.”


Poppy plays off Asprey so well, her seriousness to his playfulness. She’s a tough girl from the streets to his spoiled, rich boy. I just knew they were going to be a fun couple from the start.

The middle:

Jen: Things started to change in the middle of the book. For me, the tone became more serious and a little heavier. At the beginning of the book the relationship between Graff and Asprey was funny. Graff came off as the condescending yet lovable older brother. Their interaction was funny and it seemed that Asprey did things just to bug Graff.

His brother could talk for hours, driven by the sound of his own voice and the accumulation of spittle at the corners of his mouth.


After a while though it seemed like Graff really was a jerk and he thought Asprey was all fluff. I am not sure what changed but Graff became mean and nasty? Did you feel that way or was it just me?

Angela: I absolutely agree! I enjoyed the dialogue between the brothers at the beginning and then Graff started to seem more like an asshole rather than the stern older brother. Asprey starts out as the flighty one who took nothing serious, while Graff was trying to keep their con and family business together. Then it all changed, and not in a good way for me. I started not to like how Asprey was treated by both his family and Poppy. While I understood why people thought he was flighty, it started to get on my nerves how everyone talked to and treated him.

Jen: The middle of the book was mostly for setting up the two cons that each group would play. The Charles family would help Poppy con Todd and get her grandmother’s money back and Poppy would help them get into the apartment in order to steal the remaining painting. It was also about Poppy and Asprey falling for each other. But even while falling for each other they pushed each other away. And they didn’t push in a nice way. Poppy truly believed that they came from different worlds and those two worlds would never meet.

Angela: I enjoyed the setting up of the cons and watching these characters work together to figure out how to play them. While Asprey can’t seem to stay away from Poppy, and doesn’t really want to, Poppy plays it cool and tries a little too hard to stay detached. I wanted there to be more sexy times between the two of them. It seemed just when they were coming to an understanding Poppy roughly pushes Asprey away. To be honest I didn’t think their relationship issues were ever completely resolved.

The End:

Jen: Oh, the end. I have one question. What happened? Things didn’t turn out at all like I thought they would. Suddenly, it wasn’t funny anymore and I almost thought I was reading a different book than the one I started with. The resolution to the conflict was surprising and not what I wanted. It is hard to talk about it without mentioning spoilers so I am not sure what to say?

Angela: I’m still not sure why this book went in the direction it did. As much as I enjoyed the beginning, I disliked the ending. After all the work and effort these four went through, the conclusion came out of left field. It did seem like a different book. Certain characters were taken in directions I didn’t care for and I didn’t enjoy the resolution to either con. It wasn’t the comical, light-hearted read that it was in the beginning. After thinking I knew who Asprey and Poppy were as people, I was surprised at the choices they made in the end.

Overall:

Angela: I don’t think I would have enjoyed reading Confidence Tricks as much if it weren’t for Asprey. He was the best part and I don’t think I would have liked half as much if it weren’t for his humor and general awesomeness. I can’t tell you how much fun I had reading at the beginning. I just wish the overall feel hadn’t changed halfway through. Final grade- C+

Jen: Overall, I loved Asprey. He was a wonderful, cheeky, funny hero and he provided some serious lol moments for me. I really wish the ending would have been different though. I still enjoyed the book but I had to take the grade down some for how things played out. Final grade-B
Profile Image for Simply Love Book Reviews.
7,046 reviews870 followers
February 13, 2013
Slick's review posted on Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

4.5 Stars

I love authors who can make me smile and laugh when I’m reading and Tamara Morgan seems to always do that to me. What I love most is she doesn’t go for the slapstick easy laughs. She writes smart, witty dialog that keeps you on your toes much like the two key players, Asprey and Poppy, in her latest book, Confidence Tricks.

I don’t even know how to classify this book. There’s some intrigue and suspense, a lot of verbal foreplay and one quite luscious sex scene, and it definitely has a Robin Hood vibe going on. It’s really quite different and I found myself very entertained and at times dumbfounded by the twists and turns in the plot.

Asprey Charles is from a very well off, high society family. Lately though he’s turned in to a criminal of sorts, but for the greater good. He’s known as a playboy and a jet setter with no real work ethic but there is so much more to him than meets the eye.

Poppy Donovan is fresh out of jail after serving two years on a breaking and entering charge. She freely admits she’s a con artist and she gets a “high” from doing the work. Now out, she’s out to get the con man that lifted 80k from her now deceased grandmother. She just never expected to run into the likes of Asprey while doing just that.
From the beginning these two have some serious chemistry and their verbal sparring sets the tone for this book. Despite growing up in two very different situations, these two connect on a higher level. The both try to fight their attraction, especially Poppy, but it just proves too much for them.

Tamara lets us get to know these characters in the most interesting way, throughout the book they play a game of twenty questions and thus they learn about each other and in turn we learn so much about these characters. Some of it is superficial but a lot of it lets us see right into their psyche, something you don’t always get in a book this size. The questioning was interesting and I love how Asprey kept taking Poppy by surprise by asking what seemed like meaningless questions. Despite the ridiculous situation these two were in together, I felt their bond was strong and there was in inherent trust between them which in truth was odd, but none the less it was there.

From beginning to end I enjoyed this book but I’ll admit; I want to know what happens next. It’s quite obvious that Asprey and Poppy will remain together, but I know there is more to their story. Confidence Tricks is an entertaining and enjoyable book that will have you questioning your morals. If you are a black or white person who has trouble seeing gray then this book may not be for you because there is a lot and I do mean a lot of gray in this book. The thing is once you meet Asprey and Poppy, you’ll understand the gray and I have no doubt that you’ll fall in love with them and this book just as much as I did.
Profile Image for MaggieReadsRom.
956 reviews117 followers
April 7, 2015
3,75 stars

When I asked for light, fun contemporary recommendations on Twitter to cleanse my palate after two heavy emotional, dark and gritty reads, this Tamara Morgan book was one of the recs.
I've read quite some Tamara Morgan books but this one, for some reason never made it from the TBR to the reading stage.

I'm so glad it was recommended and put back on my radar as it was so incredibly hilarious. I had a smile on my face every other scene as the humor was so spot on and witty. I even laughed out loud at several brilliant one-liners.

But next to the humor it's also a well-crafted story with several intersecting plotlines that were carefully set up and slowly revealed. I really liked the characters, both main and secondary. And yes, it was a fun, humorous read but it definitely wasn't light or fluffy. The plotlines and backstories that lay behind the humor were deep and emotional but regardless I loved reading this book.

As I'm used to by now Tamara Morgan, the romance builds up gradually and there's no insta-lust or insta-love. Just a slow development from an initial sensual chemistry to something more meaningful. In this book I would have liked the pace to be a little quicker as it would have helped the execution of the plot just that bit more yet this didn't really lessen my enjoyment of the book.

This being said the pace changed significantly in the last few chapters which made the end kind of sudden and in contrast with the slow pace the rest of the book was set in. This sudden wrap-up, especially of both major plotlines, did influence my overal enjoyment of the book but still, as always, Tamara Morgan didn't disappoint.
Profile Image for Helen.
Author 7 books275 followers
April 15, 2020
This is one of those serendipidous stumblings on a wonderful book without expecting to find it. I found the opening scene on a friend's blog, and I was so hooked I had to buy the Kindle version that very day. True to the opening, the book delighted me.

I'm a great fan of the TV series LEVERAGE, so right away the idea of con artists with honorable intentions appealed to me. And the voice of the hero Asprey hooked me in the opening scene. He's definitely sigh-worthy in the grand tradition of the charming, seemingly inept thief who is much deeper than anyone else imagines. The heroine Poppy is both a highly competant "warrior" woman and a complex, sympathetic human being. Character development of all the characters, plus a complex plot full of surprises keeps the reader engrossed throughout.

Went back and read it again. Still love it! Great fun.
Profile Image for Tellulah Darling.
Author 10 books370 followers
September 8, 2013
Want to have a flat out fun time reading a book? Then pick this one up. Con artists, heists, kick ass female lead and a witty guy who isn't totally overbearing. I had a blast reading it.

My only issue was there was a point towards the end when suddenly the con stopped making sense to me. If I missed something glaringly obvious, let me know. :)

And I thought the end was a bit rushed in how it was wrapped up but really, that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this book.
325 reviews8 followers
May 15, 2014
I don't know what to feel about this one after the unexpected, abrupt ending. The author has great talent writing diologues. You could hardly find funnier/sexier banters from anywhere else. However, the plot leaves a lot to be desired. The author decided to put a twist at the end that first looked to be very intriguing, then she didn't know how to run with it and just pulled the plug, cut the cord, whatever you'd call it. The conflicts between h/h itself were solved in the laziest, most unsatisfactory way possible. 3 stars
Profile Image for Nicole Helm.
Author 308 books498 followers
March 2, 2013
4.5 Light and funny. There were only two things I didn't like. One, I felt Poppy never gave Asprey credit for being anything more than carefree and I wish she would have. Two, things with the brothers wrapped up kind of weird. Otherwise, I loved every part of the book. The fact that the heroine is doing the butt kicking saving and the hero is fun and doesn't mind overmuch. This was quite a bit different than what I'm used to, so reading it was a nice breath of fresh air.
Profile Image for Alexia Reed.
Author 2 books21 followers
February 10, 2013
This book, in a word, is fun. I think this is my favourite book by Tamara Morgan so far. I loved Asprey. Loved loved loved. Both he and Poppy are such unique characters that I couldn't stop reading or laughing. Tamara has a way with words that make them seem like they come so easy. There's an eloquence to them that hooks the reader in.

This is a must read.
Profile Image for Has.
288 reviews172 followers
February 19, 2013
Full Review posted at The Book Pushers:

http://thebookpushers.com/2013/02/19/...

Fun, sexy and filled with humour, I highly enjoyed this heist style romance. I especially loved the sharp and snappy dialogue between Asprey and Poppy which reminded me of old classic movies from the 30s and 40s.

Profile Image for Brandi.
423 reviews57 followers
September 21, 2013
Cute book with a plucky heroine and a charming hero. Loved the banter, the setting, the pacing, and most of the plot. I didn't love the ending - it felt forced - and there wasn't a whole lot of growth with either H/h. That lack of growth dropped this down to just a 3 star rating for me; it was a disappointing end to a promising, fun book.
Profile Image for Karen.
1,451 reviews110 followers
February 18, 2014
This book was a lot of fun. Morgan has become one of my must read authors. I just love her blend of humor and how she mixes up tropes just enough to give you a twist on old favorites.

I wish it was a little longer or maybe a series with Poppy and Asprey so I could see how their relationship develops better. I would love to see them in a working on cons together. That would be fantastic!
Profile Image for Mandi.
2,355 reviews733 followers
January 27, 2013
A really cute book about a hero and heroine who are both cons/thieves who end up kind of forced to work together. I laughed a lot. Very sexy too.

It was a five-star read up until the end...didn't love the end. But otherwise I highly rec this one. Review coming closer to the release date.
Profile Image for Natalien.
106 reviews19 followers
May 10, 2014
Fiction rom-com, but managing to hold interest due to 'are they going to get caught?' element and fun protagonists. Themes include the clash of social classes, exploring the issue of trust and morals of con artists. I hate misleading covers, this book wasn't steamy enough to warrant it.
Profile Image for MARQUETTA.
1,189 reviews140 followers
dnf
March 18, 2013
Will revisit later (maybe). Couldn't get into the story. So DNF for now.
Profile Image for Katherine.
5,317 reviews42 followers
March 10, 2014
I liked this one. It was part romance, part madcap caper, part ...everything else.

Bought from kobo.
Profile Image for Coco.V.
50k reviews132 followers
Read
January 29, 2019
🎁 FREE on iBooks today (1/29/2019)! 🎁

Blurb:
Asprey Charles has always assumed he would one day take his place in the family art appraisal and insurance firm. "His place" meaning he plans to continue to enjoy his playboy lifestyle, lavish money on his Cessna, and shirk every responsibility that dares come his way.

But when a life of crime is thrust upon him, he is just as happy to slip on a mask and cape and play a highwayman rogue. After all, life is one big game--and he excels at playing.

Poppy Donovan vows that her recent release from jail will be her last--no more crime, no more cons. But when she learns that her grandmother lost her savings to a low-life financial advisor, she's forced to do just one more job.

It's all going smoothly until the necklace she intends to pawn to fund her con is stolen by a handsome, mocking, white-collar thief. A thief who, it turns out, could take a whole lot more than money. If she's not careful, this blue blood with no business on her side of the tracks could run off with the last thing she can afford to lose. Her heart.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews

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