Lynn Painter's TRUST FALL

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing for the digital ARC of Lynn Painter's Trust Fall. The book will be published on Tuesday, September 29.

Lynn Painter’s new YA book Trust Fall has a fairly complex plot resting on top of a fairly complex premise. At its heart, though, the novel is about two teenagers from very different worlds who—despite appearances—have a great deal in common.

The story begins with an inheritance. Julia and her family (Mom, Dad, and twin brother Liam) live in small-town Nebraska. They have a store, a nice house, a simple life. The main hiccup thus far has been Julia’s difficult breakup with her former best friend/boyfriend and his near-immediate attachment to a new girl. Otherwise, life is good.

And then Julia and her family learn that their dear friend Lou, an older man who moved to their small town and then adopted them as his own, has left them both a fortune they didn’t know he had and a wondrous house. In New York. And to keep the inheritance, they have to live there for six months, and Julia and Liam have to attend a particular, exclusive school.

Despite some misgivings, they move—temporarily—to NYC, the twins enroll in school, and they begin to adjust to a new life that somehow doesn’t seem quite real.

Sadly, the complications set in quickly. In order to earn her place at school, Julia has to bring around her unsatisfactory math grade. Her tutor? It is, of course, an unutterably rude boy with whom she had an unfortunate run-in shortly after moving. Damion is rich and mysterious and a complete jerk. But Julia has little choice other than to accept his help, or she’ll lose her place at the school . . . and, by extension, her family’s inheritance.

Damion, however, has some secrets. Lou is actually his great-uncle, the only person who really understood him, and Damion had always assumed that he would be the one to inherit the house. He and his lawyer father are convinced that Julia’s family perpetrated a scheme upon the unsuspecting Lou, and they’re determined to gather proof.

Painter always has a deft touch with characters, and I enjoyed the evolution of Julia and Damion, both separately and together. I don’t really love plots that require characters to lie to each other for large portions of the story, so that wasn’t my favorite facet of the book. I did, however, love Julia’s character and the way she navigated the array of challenges she faced after moving. It took me longer to warm up to Damion—while Painter effectively built up the reasons for his suspicion of Julia and her family, he is often just unkind, particularly at the beginning of the novel, and I thought that Julia’s attraction to him developed a bit quickly given the way he acted. Once they started getting to know each other, though, I appreciated the way they navigated each other’s vulnerabilities. And I loved Julia’s brother Liam.

Overall, Trust Fall is a compelling romance with a strong sense of place, engaging characters, and a fun, twisty plot that I’m happy to add to the list of Painter’s books I’ve enjoyed.

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