*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of NETGALLEY arc Stolen Pieces by S.K. Golden #BrainfluffNETGALLEYbookreview #GoldenPiecesbookreview

This rather chirpy blurb caught my eye – and wanting something a bit different to my usual diet of science fiction and fantasy, I thought I’d give it a go.

BLURB: Ex-con artist Bee Cardello is going legit. Divorced from her mafia boss husband, she is determined to stay on the straight and narrow. So, when ex-hubby Charlie steals $37. 5 million from a dangerous kingpin, who puts out a hit on Bee and her ten-year-old son Oliver, she finds herself pulled back into the life she’s worked so hard to escape.

Part of that old life being one Adam Gage – an old flame and all-round sexy badass who Charlie’s now employed to keep her and Oliver safe . . . well, that’s what he tells her. Bee has been in this game long enough to know that everyone is in it for themselves, and she’d be stupid to trust Adam . . . again.

When Oliver is snatched from right under their noses, rather than risk losing him forever, Bee gathers her old team, dusts off all her old grifting tricks, and comes out of retirement to get her son back!

REVIEW: The blurb very nicely sums up the premise for this story. Bee is getting on with her life now she’s no longer married to Charlie – when his disastrous decision to steal an insane amount of money from his crime overlord boss suddenly puts Bee and Oliver in the firing line. Literally.

I really like Bee and Golden does a good job of presenting us with an apparently indomitable heroine who is at her very best when up against it. Her ex certainly misses her street smarts, for starters and would take her back in a heartbeat. We also gather, from the reaction of others around her, that Bee is also very good-looking. When a book is in first-person POV, that’s difficult to pull off without either having the dreaded check-in-the-mirror scene, or having the heroine coming off as a bit conceited. Golden managed to let the reader know without either of the above, which is a neat demonstration of her evident technical skill.

I also like the fact that Bee isn’t as Teflon-coated as we initially are led to believe. She’s had a tough upbringing. But early on, she decided that she didn’t want to live poor and struggling, so single-mindedly went after the people who would help her achieve the level of luxury she was aiming for. There was a cost to that – a very high cost. And when she thinks that Oliver will be added to that list of costs, there are times when she is overwhelmed. I appreciated that insight into her character. We need that, because when the adrenaline’s flowing and she’s in the middle of a scam, she’s got ice flowing through her veins. Not unlike Adam Gage, the only man she’s ever really fallen for…

The tone throughout is snappy, with lots of snark and humour in amongst the death and violence. The story trips along at a good pace, which is necessary in this genre, yet the characterisation of our main protagonist is sufficiently detailed that I really cared for her. The baddie’s were nicely nasty – and the one thing I appreciated was that despite being divorced, Bee and Charlie have managed to remain on reasonably good terms. Until Charlie messes up, of course… All in all, this is a thoroughly enjoyable heist adventure, filled with incident and plot twists and recommended for fans of this genre. While I obtained an arc of Stolen Pieces from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10