This book was featured on the GFY website, highly recommended by the Fug Girls, where it was touted as a cross between Alias and RuPaul’s Drag Race. That comparison alone made me take notice! As per the blurb: Teenage socialite Margo Manning leads a dangerous double life. By day, she dodges the paparazzi while soaking up California sunshine. By night, however, she dodges security cameras and armed guards, pulling off high-stakes cat burglaries with a team of flamboyant young men. In and out of disguise, she’s in all the headlines.
The action starts with a bang as we find Margo and her band of merry drag queens on a late night heist to steal some artwork. At this point of course you have no idea who these people are, or why they are into committing robbery and it does take awhile for the details to play out. Margo Manning is the leader of this group, and she is the daughter of a successful businessman who is slowly dying of a mysterious ailment. Her crew, made up of Axel, Davon, Leif and Axel’s younger brother Joaquin, all have their own backstory on why they need to be in this life of crime. They’re all fiercely loyal to Margo, and to each other, and the relationships between them was well portrayed.
Things were going well for them, but they take on a big heist with the promise of an enormous payoff and that’s when it starts to unravel. There’s also a big change for Margo’s personal life, and she has to deal with the fallout from that along with trying to stay one step ahead of the people trying to catch her for the theft. There’s plenty of fast paced activity but we also get to see some personal relationships that form along the way. Then there’s the romance between Margo and Dallas Yang, a young lawyer and they share a lot of witty banter and some serious steamy moments.
Overall, it’s a very diverse set of characters and races that we don’t normally see in books, and I really enjoyed it. The dialogue snaps, there’s a good combination of mystery and action, with twists to keep you guessing. It’s YA with a lot of positive messages about friendship and acceptance and showing sexual relationships and diversity that exists out there in the real world. And it’s all done with a good dash of humour and style that is a joy to read.