A Heist Story by Ellen Simpson
$9.99 / E-BOOK
Availability: In Stock
Description
Everyone has their own agenda in this intricate suspense thriller.
Life gets weird for Marcey Daniels when art thief Charlie Mock dies and leaves her a curious and much sought-after book.
Suddenly a determined Interpol agent, Wei Topeté, is sniffing around. Everything’s gone sideways for the agent since Mock’s death – a man she’s been chasing for half her career.
Enter the mysterious, flirtatious, Kat Barber, a slow-moving accident who has been bargaining for her freedom with things that don’t belong to her. She expected she’d have the pick of the estate of her criminal mentor. Now Kat desperately needs that book and will do whatever it takes to pry it from Marcey’s hands.
Surrounded by a diverse cast of queer and lesbian women, and with double-crosses piling up, will Marcey see the trap in time?
Additional information
| Publication Date | January 2018 |
|---|---|
| Formats | epub (for Kindle Reader/Kindle Apps, for iBooks, Nook etc.), mobi, and pdf |
| Length | 112,000 words |
| Language | English |
| ISBNs | 978-3-95533-959-3 (mobi), 978-3-95533-960-9 (epub), 978-3-95533-961-6 (pdf) |
| Publisher | Ylva Publishing |
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Rocío Toboso – :
Marcey Daniels receives a book after her unknown father’s death. It seems to be about his last job. Marcey gets in contact with five different women who have the same enemy, a DA. All this makes the story brilliant, interesting, twisted and intense, a little too intense for me.
The characters are very well defined. They all have their own struggles but with a common obstacle to pull down, the hateful DA. Each one has their own reason to see this woman go down and they don’t mind what they have to do.
I liked the story but being the sucker for romance I am, I missed that in the book. But then again, this is not a romance story.
I gave it four stars not because it is not a good book but because it is not my kind of book if I’m looking for romance.
I received an ARC from Ylva Publishing, in exchange for an honest review.
Karola Meyer – :
***free ARC
All in all the story is really twisted. Sometimes I had a hard time to follow, although the characters are very special. To read this book was a little hate/love to go on. It was just not my kind of book.
melanie_czarnik – :
This was my first book by Ellen Simpson. I will definitely come back for more. A Heist Story is not a book to be read on the side, the storyline and the multitude of characters are far to complicated for that. It is not a romance, after all… But it really deserves your full attention. I really liked Simpsons style of writing, she has a great eye for detail. And, this may be just me, I loved the naming of the chapters.
lobster – :
Oh my. What a lovely, entertaining summer read.
I know, I know, this sounds like I’ve just finished another “lady’s easy read” off the 50% discount table. And it’s definitely not what I mean, and it’s definitely not what this book is.
It’s a heist story, boys and girls (gosh, look at the title…what a coincidence) and it’s MASSIVE FUN to read, and I wouldn’t mind at all seeing it turned into a film. It has all the right ingredients to make for a great, entertaining read: a troubled past, a revenge mission, a mysterious book handed down from a deceased heistmeister to his unsuspecting heir apparent, a very diverse bunch of protagonists, there’s scheming and plotting and turns and twists.
It made me turn the pages at near lightning speed but didn’t make me bite my nails. It held my attention from beginning to end but didn’t traumatize me. See where I’m getting at?
The characters are relatable – some I liked (Marcey, Darius, Kim, Shelly), some I loathed (Linda Johnson, obviously), some I couldn’t make up my mind about (Kat, Wei, Le Page). There’s stereotypes all right but not of a deep enough impact to be annoying, more of the kind to make a point without adding 50 pages of soul-searching (e.g. the mother who means well but does the worst imaginable thing).
I enjoyed the changes of scenery; quick but smooth and I never lost track of who’s talking to whom and where they are at this exact moment. I never felt yanked around like I have with many other books where the author seemed torn apart between wanting to write a book and wanting to direct a video clip.
The character development was interesting to watch; I think Marcey’s development and learning arc is very well written, how she turns from vaguely revengeful and deeply upset into cunning and heistmeister-in-training was much fun for me to follow. Kat remains pretty much a mystery throughout the whole story and I liked that, too – it’d have been a horrible tropey thing to throw her into a redeeming arc and change her from scheming and inscrutable into remorseful and do-gooder. I liked her in one scene and hated her in the next, and that makes for a fascinating character for me because it leaves room for speculations of my own. (As opposed to Johnson who remains a cold-hearted witch throughout the entire novel but hey, what’s Robin Hood without the Sheriff of Nottingham, right?)
Ellen Simpson’s writing is quick-paced and smooth but luckily, it’s not been polished to average facelessness. Her sentences are well-crafted and fit into each and every scene. I love, love, love the opening of the book! Look at this: “The first drop fell quietly, then another, and another. Falling from long-pregnant clouds, bursting forth into downpour in the gray of dawn. Through a crack in the window, the steady fall of rain filled the room, only to be drowned out by the shrill beep of a phone.”
Hearteyes, big, sparkling hearteyes! For me, that’s pretty much the perfect opening. It lets you snuggle into your cushions, sip on whatever beverage you have near you, take a deep breath and get started. I don’t like openings in which the author yanks you around by your hair, hurls you out into the streets and hunts you down until you get the most horrible stitch. Please, give me at a couple of sentences to allow me to get into the story, yes? And therefore, this very poetic opening almost felt like a welcoming embrace. “Here I am, dearest reader, I’m about to tell you a story. Sit back and enjoy.”
Well done, Ellen Simpson, well done indeed!
And that leads me to the only thing I really, truly dislike about the book. It’s not in the story itself but on its back, as part of the teaser summary: “Surrounded by a diverse cast of queer and lesbian women”. The HELL is that? Now, I get that representation matters. It does, and there’s no mistake about that. But this makes it sound as if anybody’s sexuality plays a part in the story. It does not. Yes, there’s lesbians and a trans woman, but their sexuality has nothing whatsoever to with the heist they’re planning. It’s not a romance, it’s not erotica. It’s a classical heist story with the protagonists being women. Who love other women. But that’s not a driver here, not at all. It’s not about coming to terms with one’s sexuality, it’s not about finding your sexual identity. It’s a heist story. With women. Yes, there’s romantic entanglements and a few well-written bedroom scenes, but if you took those out, you’d still have a heist story.
Throwing the “diverse cast of queer and lesbian women” into the reader’s face like that may well raise false hopes in an LGBT+ reader hoping for affirmation and it almost certainly will put off straight readers thinking this is a ‘lesbian book’ and thus missing out on a great story.
Again: representation matters, don’t get me wrong, but I think this bit is very off-putting and misleading, and I’m taking off a whole star for it because I believe it will cost the book readers, and will result in less favourable reviews by readers who feel cheated one way or the other.
It is a good and thoroughly enjoyable book, and if you love a good heist story, then this is the book for you!
Note: I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Thanks, Ylva!!!