STEALING HIS HEART

A professional thief and the FBI agent tasked with catching her must collaborate to foil a kidnapping plot in DePaul’s romantic suspense novel.

Holly Bell is a thief. Her latest heist is interrupted by Jackson Kendrick, an FBI agent she finds foxy, even though he is her nemesis. She’s trying to steal a sword from a movie set; a huge explosion allows her to get away. In the chaos, Holly’s uncle, Liam, is kidnapped. The kidnapper, millionaire Darien Burton, demands a ransom: Holly must steal a device called the Infostrata Cryptix. Holly decides that the only person who can help is Jackson. She makes contact, and he tells her that the Cryptix contains a computer virus that can provide unfettered access to everything on the internet, including secure data. (It takes some doing, but he ultimately agrees to help.) Attraction zings between Holly and Jackson as they work together to find safe places to hide while they look for the Cryptix together. Tracking down a hacker to Saint Croix at a couple’s retreat, Jackson and Holly pretend to be a couple on the rocks, which only ratchets up the sexual tension between them. But in order to foil the kidnapping plot, Holly has to ask Jackson to compromise his values and put his job at risk, which he is reluctant to do—even for Holly, with whom he is starting to fall in love. The novel is a fun romp. There’s real danger, and Burton is a clever antagonist, but the dynamic between Jackson and Holly is the star of the show. The dialogue is zippy and the tension between the leads is thick enough to cut with a knife. (“If only Jackson hasn’t been living rent-free in my wildest fantasies. Working with him day in and day out has us discovering a sexy, unlikely obsession that can only lead to heartache since we’re on opposite sides of the law.”) There’s plenty of suspense to keep the story moving forward as Jackson and Holly have to wriggle out of various spots of trouble; overall, it’s a fun page turner.

A sexy, suspenseful romance.