Review: Pretty Things
My rating: 4.25 of 5 stars
Author Janelle Brown's latest novel Pretty Things is a cerebral thriller that is full of twists and turns. We first meet Nina, a disillusioned art history graduate who, after trying to eke out a living as an interior design assistant, returns to the grifter life her mother had long schooled her in- stealing from the distracted wealthy. Never taking the big and obvious, never stealing from people who would miss what was taken right away. She's doing this because her mother is ill with recurrent lymphoma, and she needs to pay mom's medical bills. When a job that she and her beau Lachlan have run goes south and their fence is arrested, they have to skip town, lie low, and work on an alternate source of funds. Nina thinks she has just the job. It involves the heiress of a family that wronged Nina as a teenager- the Liebling family, namely Vanessa Liebling, who lives in a huge mansion called Stonehaven at Lake Tahoe. But Vanessa, who's lost both her parents and whose brother is in a mental institution, isn't quite the mark that Nina was counting on.
This was a diverting thriller, with well-developed characters that you end up feeling like you know personally. One of the things I most enjoyed is that Brown has taken all the reader's doubts about the scheme and exploited them as part of the plot. (To say more would be to give away too much of the story.) I couldn't put it down and finished the novel in less than a day. Sure to be adapted for TV or film, readers will be mentally casting the roles by the end of the book.
I listened to the excellent audiobook, narrated by Julia Whelan as Nina, and Lauren Fortgang as Vanessa. At about sixteen hours in length, you won't believe how fast the story flies.
I received a Digital Review Copy along with a paper review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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