Stealing Mr. Right

January 23, 2017
Penelope Blue begins this lighthearted romantic crime drama tucked into an air duct, ready for her part in a jewel heist. It’s foiled in the same way many of her schemes have been: by the presence of her husband, Grant Emerson, who not-so-coincidentally is the FBI agent tracking her team. The story jumps back and forth between the present day and the history of their relationship, which started as mutual recon and grew into something neither of them expected. The tale is lighthearted and wry, with the implied danger not actually adding much sense of threat. The intrigue and strong cast of secondary characters make for a fast read, and readers will be pleased with how the story plays out. The reader is left with a solid romance and a tease of mischief to come, though the loving relationship and the promise of further criminal activity are hard to reconcile. Agent: Courtney Miller-Callihan, Handspun Literary.

February 1, 2017
A marriage between a jewel thief and an FBI agent is an unconventional match made in heaven.Twenty-five-year-old Penelope Blue's funny and irreverent narration as "the world's most claustrophobic jewel thief" begins in an air duct above a jewelry store in Manhattan on the night of a big heist. The object of desire is a $2 million diamond necklace that Penelope's father, a notorious thief known as the Blue Fox, attempted to steal 10 years earlier. Unfortunately, Penelope's heist is foiled by an FBI agent, Grant Emerson, who happens to be her husband. Of course, Grant has no idea his wife is in the air duct; he thinks Penelope is a dance instructor. The story of their not-so-coincidental meeting, courtship, and engagement is told in alternating chapters, while the primary timeline follows the cat-and-mouse game their marriage has become as Grant gets closer every day to catching the culprit of a series of robberies he's been pursuing for a while. Alternating timelines can sometimes weigh down the plot of a novel, but in this case, the two are so closely related that the structure doesn't detract from the story. This is a fun romantic caper, and Penelope is a refreshingly sarcastic heroine. There is a lighthearted chemistry among all the characters, including the rest of Penelope's thieving gang: Riker, the mastermind, Oz, the getaway driver, and Jordan, the detonation expert. They have all known each other since they were homeless teen runaways on the streets of New York. While there is relatively little explicit sex for a romance novel, the relationship between Penelope and Grant still manages to be sexy. Morgan (Model Behavior, 2015, etc.) has superbly revived the pairing of romance and jewel heists.

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February 15, 2017
Cat burglar Penelope Blue is a master at getting into heating ducts and other tight places in the midst of jewel heists. She is thwarted only when her FBI agent husband, Grant, gets in her way. Her father was a master thief; after his disappearance, young Penelope was forced to learn how to live on the streets. She was used to the FBI tracking her, certain that she held the millions from her father's last job. But she and Grant were drawn into a flirtation that neither wants to end, even as they try to get information out of each other. Although trust is not on the table, plenty of affection and heat are, as they try to outmaneuver each other to do their jobs. Fast and fun, this refreshing cops-and-robbers romance will delight both readers new to the popular heist trend and those who have always loved a good romantic caper. Not since Suzanne Enoch's excellent Samantha Jellicoe series has such a successful blend of love and law hit the shelves. Watch for future novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)