Harmless Women

 

Some thieves steal more than money. They steal identities, freedom, and second chances.

I picked up Harmless Women by Rebecca Sharpe with high hopes. It has multiple POVs, a morally gray FMC, a heist, a cross-country escape, and twists. On paper, this book had everything I love. The execution didn’t quite do it for me.

Avalon is a skilled thief. Prim is her mark. Their lives collide after Avalon steals Prim’s identity and drains her accounts. Then by a twist of fate, they’re suddenly on the run together. I was genuinely hooked. They form an unexpected bond as they run from the police. Their dynamic crackled with tension and the momentum of their escape. 

Then there’s Bianca, a grieving mother searching for her missing daughter. Her pain and loneliness are palpable and real. But for most of the book, her story exists in a completely separate orbit from Avalon and Prim’s. And those chapters kept pulling me out of the momentum. Her storyline doesn’t meaningfully connect to the main plot until the very end. It’s like two different books that only briefly touched.

Sharpe is clearly exploring something interesting here: survival, female friendship, moral ambiguity, and desperation. The bones are good. I just wish the structure had been tightened to let Avalon and Prim’s story shine the way it deserved.

Thank you Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC! Harmless Women publishes April 7th.

QOTD: Do you prefer books with multiple POVs or a single narrator?

About the Author

Rebecca Sharpe wanted to write novels from the moment she read her first Stephen King book, aged eight, and soon graduated onto the works of Susan Hill, Shirley Jackson and Wilkie Collins, with a healthy sprinkling of The Babysitters’ Club along the way. After reading her way through the entire classics section of the school library, she went on to study English Literature at university, which cemented her ambition to become an author.