First of all, this book is a bad decisions book club book. I started it Friday evening intending to read just a couple of chapters and stayed up until 2:30 am finishing it.
Cousins Jared and Mia’s lives were hurt when their fathers were exposed as scammers, but their fathers hurt a lot more people financially who couldn’t afford it. Now that they’ve inherited trust funds from their mothers, they plan to commit a series of art heists to raise money to provide compensation to as many of their father’s victims as possible. They need a thief, a hacker, and an art forger. Jared has been flirting with a hacker, Data/Audrey, for months.
I love heist stories and the promise of 12 heists in 3 books is like catnip. The strategizing, problem solving, and strangers growing into a team is delightful. Double plus for stealing from the rich to give to the people hurt by the rich. I love that for all Jared and Mia have good intentions, all the characters are morally grey.
It Takes a Thief is a good, almost great, book. I’m not even sure why I don’t think it’s a flat out great book. There are so many things it does well. By the end of the book I was invested in all of her core characters, she built a world, she showed how Audrey, Nikki and London become a team despite Mia’s best efforts, and she made me want Jared and Mia to succeed in their revenge plot. There were some pacing issues, mostly around Mia, and some of the early scenes with Audrey. I expect, now that the 5 major characters are established, the next books will be more streamlined.
I am really looking forward to the next books. I plan to stay up too late reading them too.
I received this as an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
