Review: The Art of Stealing by Sandi Perry

The Art of Stealing

by Sandi Perry

Pages: 278

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Valentina Philips is a respected Decorative Arts curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is also a thief. Growing up in Italy as the British ambassador's daughter, Valentina never felt she fit in. Her classmate, Luca, stepped in as a mentor introducing her to Florence's exquisite artwork and encouraging her to refine her artistic skills. He also taught her how to steal. As an expert forger, she replaces the masterpieces she steals with her spot-on reproductions. Her warring conscience ultimately wins over, and she sets about trying to legitimize her talent. If only it were that easy.

Luca appears at the Met as she's preparing their Fabergé egg collection for loan to the Bargello museum in Florence. Valentina knows his visit to New York can’t be a coincidence. Temptation plays many forms as Valentina relives the thrill of thieving, and Luca tries to charm her back into his bed. She has to decide which world suits her better, and how much she’s willing to sacrifice to make the right choice.

Kritters Thoughts:  Valentina is a young woman who has left a shady past and has set up a life for herself in New York with a great job at the Met and her sister living close by, but when Luca shows up she knows that everything she has just done will probably become undone.  

The reader meets Valentina after she has been in New York for awhile, but there are a few moments in the book where we get to see bits and pieces of her and Luca's past - I loved being able to dip into and out of those moments, it worked perfectly.  Another thing that I loved was the two time jumps.  At two moments in the book, the author jumps the story ahead 11 years and I didn't feel like I was missing anything when those jumps happened - instead I got to skip what could have been mostly boring moments.

The one thing that made me cringe was the back and forth with Luca and Valentina - it went back and forth quite a lot, maybe too much.  By the end it felt overdone and it almost made me not even care if they would end up together or not.  

The character of Valentina won me over and I loved her family and her childhood that was so different from mine - it was fun to read!  


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Ebook 2015 Challenge: 5 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from the author.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.