✦✦✦✦½
Kristin Harmel once again proves why she’s one of today’s leading voices in historical fiction with The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau. This isn’t just a war story—it’s a jewel heist, a decades-old mystery, and a family drama rolled into one glittering package.
Colette Marceau has always lived by her mother’s code: steal only from the cruel and use the spoils to help others. But everything changed in 1942 Paris when a Resistance mission went sideways. Her cousin Annabel was executed, her little sister vanished, and the diamond bracelet sewn into a nightgown disappeared with her. Seventy years later, that very bracelet turns up in a Boston museum, forcing Colette to reopen the darkest chapter of her past.
Harmel is at her best here—balancing taut wartime suspense with an emotional modern-day thread about grief, resilience, and redemption. The WWII scenes crackle with danger and heartbreak, while the contemporary storyline offers a softer, more reflective counterpoint.
This is part heist, part family saga, and part meditation on forgiveness. In short, it’s vintage Harmel: rich, layered, and hard to put down. Fans of The Book of Lost Names and The Paris Daughter will want this one at the top of their stack.
** Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for a comp. Opinions are my own.