Format: Hardcover

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.

Review:

Rich, absorbing, and affecting!

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau is a poignant, immersive tale that takes you into the life of Colette Marceau, an elderly jewel thief who, after spending the last seventy years since the war searching for the missing half of a precious bracelet, the answers surrounding the abduction of her sister, and the fate of a boy she loved with all her heart, suddenly has her life turned upside down when the past collides with the present and the long-lost jewellery appears in a local diamond exhibit.

The prose is eloquent and expressive. The characters are talented, strong, and courageous. And the plot, including all the subplots, intertwines and unravels seamlessly into a heartfelt saga of life, loss, secrets, surprises, separation, heartbreak, desperation, tragedy, survival, danger, friendship, the horrors of war, and enduring love.

Overall, The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau is an atmospheric, evocative, beautifully written novel by Harmel that grabs you from the very first page and does an exceptional job of blending historical facts with fiction that’s both moving and wonderfully captivating.

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