REVIEW: The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel

OUR REVIEW:

This is the first time I've ever read a Kristin Harmel novel and I can see why she has a huge following; she clearly loves her characters and treats them with as much care as the world she's building allows. In The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau we get to know an octogenarian jewelry thief--words I never thought I'd type. lol. Of course it's not that simple. We come to know Colette and her family history-one that sees justice in theft--and it's with that in mind that we find her contemplating one important heist. In order to really understand this, we have to know the history and in alternating chapters we learn about her life in France during WW2 and her life in America after. Lots of grief and fear and tragedy that also includes hope and contentment and love. 

As we learn more about Colette and her history, we get to know the people in her life now--and how all of this impacts them. It's an interesting intwining of past and present and found family. Love and loss and grief. And while all of that seems grim, I left feeling satisfied and content with the ending.

While this novel isn't breaking new ground, it's definitely engaging and would be a great book club read. I enjoyed it and I know others will too. 

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SYNOPSIS:

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.