The Sapphire Heist - Book Review

By Lauren Blakely

Synopsis

Keep your lover close and your enemy closer…

After giving in to a fiery night of passion, island adventurer Steph Anderson and bounty hunter Jake Harlowe are back to square one. With millions in stolen jewels at stake, it’s hard for Steph not to question her new partner’s true motives—no matter how sexy he might be. Jake is hungry for more of Steph, but he can sense her growing mistrust, which only fuels his own doubts. Worse, there’s undeniable evidence that someone else is now after the jewels—and that they are both in real danger.

Fighting against their magnetic attraction is a distraction these two can’t afford. In order to survive, they’ll have to pull off one more heist—and trust each other with something even more precious than jewels: their hearts.

Review

THE SAPPHIRE HEIST continues on from where THE SAPPHIRE AFFAIR finished, with Steph believing Jake stole from her after they spent the night together. As with the first book, a lot of the story revolves around their trust issues; Steph doesn’t trust Jake, which upsets him and then Jake doesn’t trust Steph, which upsets her. It’s hard to connect with characters or believe their chemistry when they’re always doubting each other. Steph is still struggling to accept that her stepfather could be a criminal, despite all the evidence that’s right in front of her. Ultimately, this book was pretty much the same as the first book, just with a bit more mystery, a few more bad guys and some scuba tours thrown in.

THE SAPPHIRE HEIST is told in dual POVs and cannot be read as a stand-alone; if you’re going to read this book, you need to read THE SAPPHIRE AFFAIR first. As with book 1, I wouldn’t call this a novella, but it is a fairly quick read and again I found myself skipping sections of the inner monologue. As I got towards the end, I was worried that we’d be going into a third book because the end was rapidly approaching and we didn’t have a conclusion yet. But the stolen jewels were recovered and the ending moves extremely quick after that. Overall, I thought these two stories were ok, but not great, and I probably won’t be reading any more of this series, should there end up being more books.