Note: This review will be absolutely filled with spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book yet, please don’t read this!
Anyone who knows me, knows that I absolutely adore Anne Stuart. If a genie gave me 3 wishes, one would 100% be to be physically transported into one her books and live out an immersive romantic adventure – probably one of the books in the Ice series, which is hands down, my favorite series of all time! I’ve read each book more times than I can count. So, when I heard Anne Stuart was coming out with To Catch a Thief, like any good fan, I was beyond excited! I was also a bit confused because the title sounded familiar – I was confusing it with It Takes a Thief.
When the book finally came out and I started reading it, I was confused again by the prologue because the name “Rafferty” sounded familiar. I looked that up and realized another one of her characters from a different book, One More Valentine, shared the main character’s name. Once that was all sorted out, it was time to dive into the book and suspend all other life activities until the book was finished.
Right off the bat, I was not a fan of Georgie as a character. Her desire to beat her sister by bringing a “dreg of society” to the party she was attending and further, making this clear to the main character, was quite icky and juvenile. But it turned out, that this ended up being one of the central themes of the entire novel – that Georgie was too young for Rafferty and her crush was juvenile. Had this theme been more subtle and had Georgie had some actual substance to her, I think this theme could have worked. Unfortunately, neither was the case. The fact that Georgie was young was brought up every few scenes, and worse than that, Georgie truly had no substance to her and was indeed, very juvenile. She had nothing going on in her life, no hobbies, no personal endeavors, she was just instantly obsessed with Rafferty and that was what the whole book was essentially about.
What was funny to me was that Georgie calls her mother “useless” for not doing much else other than going out and partying, but then Georgie is in comparison painted as not useless even though she does even less than her mother. She can’t cook, she can’t clean, she doesn’t help out in any way, and Rafferty even takes away her occasional caring for her alcoholic brother. Of course she’s going to moon over the first man she encounters, she has nothing better to do! I don’t want to be too unfair because a lot of it is her family’s doing, but nonetheless, compared to other Stuart female-leads, Georgie is by far one of the weakest.
Another thing that irks me is that none of the relationships were fleshed out. The primary romance was an endless loop of “he loves me, he loves me not” while the secondary romance barely got any attention. I was also disappointed that in the end, all Martina gets is to be a mistress to Georgie’s brother. Their romance reminded me of the secondary romance in Hidden Honor, where in contrast to this book, Joanna and Adrian’s romance was actually fleshed out quite well and the outcome of their romance was also far more satisfactory. Even apart from the romances, Georgie’s relationships with her other family members are not developed enough in my opinion.
What I did enjoy was the setting and I really did like the whole butler dynamic and how Rafferty went above and beyond to make her life more comfortable. I also enjoyed the whole “hidden treasure” in the house aspect – I would have actually loved if the treasure-hunt side of things had gotten more attention. I also really liked Martina and Bertha as well.
To summarize, for me personally, this book really just didn’t land. There were definitely components that I liked and I think this story had plenty of potential, but ultimately, I felt that that the characters and storylines were underdeveloped and didn’t hit the mark for me.
Nonetheless, it’s always a treat to read a new Anne Stuart book and I’ll be on the lookout for whatever is next!
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