Hooray it’s Friday! Do you like fiction that mixes history and contemporary timelines and spans decades? If so, Kristin Harmel’s upcoming release, The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, is for you. Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio for the ALC.
Colette’s mother taught her to be a thief from a very young age. Growing up in Paris during WWII, a teenage Colette and her mother use their skills as jewel thieves to help fund the French Resistance. Then Colette’s mother is arrested and her little sister disappears during the raid along with a priceless bracelet. Decades later, the bracelet turns up in a museum exhibit. If Colette can discover who owns the bracelet, she just may finally find out what happened to her sister 70 decades ago. Here’s the full summary from the publisher:
Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.
But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.
Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.
Whew! There is a lot going on in this book. This is the first Harmel book that I’ve ever read, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I really enjoyed the book and her writing style. But are her plots always so over the top? My suspension of disbelief had to work overtime right from the jump. A 90 year old Colette still has the quickness and dexterity to be a pickpocket? You go girl! That Colette is a descendent of Robin Hood and generations of her family only stole from cruel and unkind people to give to those in need? Not one greedy person in that family tree? Ok. There are two other major plot points that wrap up with big bows on top. I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but my brain was like what are the chances? But the story pulled me in and had me riveted. I really enjoyed the book and will definitely recommend it. I liked the dual timeline and Madeleine Maby’s narration is absolutely terrific. This sweeping mix of historical fiction, mystery, and romance comes out June 17. Don’t miss it!
Any fun plans for the weekend? The only thing I have going on is my book club meeting on Sunday.
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About the Author
Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels including The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Book of Lost Names, The Room on Rue AmΓ©lie, and The Sweetness of Forgetting. She is published in more than thirty languages and is the cofounder and cohost of the popular web series, Friends & Fiction. She lives in Orlando, Florida.
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