This chocolate-and-peanut butter book is either a romance with a heist in it, or a heist with a romance wrapped around it. I’m leaning towards the latter, for pedantic reasons, but regardless of your perspective, if you like romance and/or heists, you’ll find this very charming, literally AND figuratively, because this is a magical heist.
“Stealing Francesco’s Tears [Gorgeous Clown Take]” by Marc-Anthony Macon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 
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Dani grew up as part of a magical family of thieves, run by her mother, Maria. Maria raises Dani to use her magic to be a master thief, but Dani has a crisis of conscience at 17 (like you do) and rats her mom out to the FBI. Maria and the rest of the crew do not take kindly to this, and Dani is persona non grata, so she heads out on her own.
Ten years into a successful solo career as a grifter with a conscience (she only robs people who absolutely deserve it), Dani is approached by Archer, her mother’s former business partner, and offered a job stealing a particular painting from an almost impossible fortress. Dani doesn’t trust Archer, but she needs the money, and so back home she goes to face her past, accompanied by her trusty dog, Sunflower. Sunflower often steals the show from Dani, but that doesn’t make her any less of a Very Good Girl.
The pace of the book is thoughtful and measured, and a lot of the subject matter it covers is pretty grim/serious. It’s not fluffy by any stretch of the imagination, though it has a fluffy cover and might easily be mistaken for a rom-com. This is definitely a heist, though, and it’s a time-sensitive one, which heightens the tension even as Bond refuses to rush the story. Dani has about a week to pull together a job that should take months to properly prepare for, and there’s a lot she doesn’t know about her mother, Archer, and the job itself.
I like how much thought Bond put into the family backstory and Dani’s fractured relationships. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, and the reader learns right along with her as she figures out Archer’s secrets. I could’ve done without the love triangle aspect, but it’s kept firmly in the background and the HEA only appears as a minor accompaniment to Dani’s major victories. There’s a lot of longing, but virtually no spice, even after the HEA; it’s not quite clean, but the intimate scenes are tasteful. The bulk of the story is set in Kentucky, which was refreshing, as so much contemporary fantasy is set in larger cities. Finally, most of the characters are human, but there is definitely something supernatural going on in a Picture of Dorian Gray way that was pretty cool magic, when you get to the heart of it.
All in all, I found this refreshing and different enough from both typical urban fantasy and romance to single out for review. I would shelve it in general fiction rather than try to shove it into one genre or the other, but regardless of where your library or bookstore shelves it, it’s worth tracking down. Recommended for folks who can’t get enough magic in their fiction, and want something slightly off the beaten path.