We Live and Breathe Books: Blog Tour: The Con Code

The Con Code
Shana Silver
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

A teen forger and thief forms a criminal crew from her high school friends (and crush) to perform a series of heists leading to the location of her missing mother in this action-packed contemporary YA novel.

By day, seventeen-year-old Fiona Spangler runs small cons for her ritzy prep-school classmates: getting them out of tests and forging fake hall passes. But by night, Fiona joins her dad on riskier heists: stealing back the clue-filled forgeries her mom scattered across the country before she disappeared. Fiona desperately hopes that her mother will be waiting at the end of the scavenger hunt she left behind.

And they are SO close. Just three more heists remain, but then disaster strikes when Fiona’s dad is captured by the FBI. Desperate to finish the job and save what’s left of her family, Fiona assembles of crew of teen criminals: a master of disguise who can transform into anyone, a talented hacker who only communicates in glares, and a rival con artist with a vendetta against—and possible crush on—Fiona.

All they have to do is perform three nearly impossible heists, solve her mother’s incredibly complex clues, and evade the FBI. Easy, right?

REVIEW

Fiona has lived by the Con Code her entire life and continued to utilize it when making decisions. Then the unthinkable happened. With only three clues left to recover, her father is captured by the FBI. She isn't ready to give up on their search for her mother's clues, and therefore, assembles her own team of cons. But as she gets closer to the end of her quest, Fiona finds she may not have as much faith in the Con Code as she used to.

I don't know about you, but all these months in lockdown have me actively seeking out stories with the sole function of escape, and The Con Code came through for me. This book gave me a break from reality, and I found myself fully immersed in this fun, fast-paced tale.

THE CREW

Fiona was definitely a star. I was immediately drawn to her and wowed by the way she wrapped her mind around things. Her life was anything but ordinary, and her "norm" was quite interesting to learn about. I loved the rest of her crew just as much. Her "master of disguise" bestie cracked me up, and Tig was quite an enigma, but heck, I grew to adore her too. Her tech prowess was incredible, and I liked her quirks. Then, there was Colin. Colin entered the scene as the new kid at school, and he quickly challenged Fiona as the go-to con guy. I enjoyed watching their little school-territory battles, but loved seeing them work together even more.

THE HEISTS

Is it just me, or do other people also enjoy all those little details that go into writing about heists? Each plan was fun and creative and very involved. Watching all the moving parts come together was extremely satisfying for me. Thefts, forgeries, disguises, hijacking security systems -- all these things had to be coordinated in order to ensure a clean getaway, and I was pretty fascinated watching it all unfold.

THE STORY

The heart of this story was Fiona trying to find her mother, who had fled several years earlier. She was stealing back her mother's forgeries to uncover clues that were left to assist her in the search. Seems straight forward, right? Wrong. As with all the best laid plans, the story took some interesting turns as Fiona set out to track her mom. There were several rather wonderful twists which I hadn't anticipated and it just augmented my enjoyment. It's always fun when a story can surprise me as well as make me laugh and keep me throughly entertained.

Overall, I had a fantastic time tagging along on this road trip with Fiona and her crew. This was an action packed story, which also featured friendship, family, first love, and a fantastic ending.

* ARC received in exchange for an honest review.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shana Silver studied creative writing at Syracuse University. She’s been a computer animator, an e-book creator for a major publisher, and now works as a Project Manager in digital and TV advertising where she enjoys telling people what to do. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, young daughter, and the characters she dreams up. MIND GAMES is her debut novel. THE CON CODE comes out in Summer 2020.