Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter (Heist Society #3)

When Hale's grandmother dies and leaves him the family business, he is stunned as is his family. But something is not quite right with her will and Kat is asked by Marcus, the butler, to look into it. Soon Kat and her crew are in deep as they go up against someone who has it in for the Hale family. But by taking on this task, will it mean Kat will lose her Hale?

This has to be one of my favorite series. I guess I just like a good heist story. Though this book features less of a heist story and more of a long con. Love it. It's also amazing that we still don't know Hale's first name despite this being a book about him and his family. Instead we get his family nickname which is ridiculous.

Perfect Scoundrels deals a lot with grief and the loss of a loved one. It also deals with the evolving nature of families and how no one lives forever. It also moves along Kat and Hale's relationship which felt very real. I enjoyed watching Kat and her crew work and she is one of the most brilliant thieves in the business even if she is only 15. I forgot she is only 15 actually. She and her friends just seem much older.

Heist Society
Heist Socity
Uncommon Criminals

Out of Sight, Out of Time by Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls #5)

SPOILERS for the series so far.
Cammie wakes up in the Swiss Alps with no memory of the summer but badly injured and with short black hair. Brought back to the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, she has to face her mother and her friends who are angry at her for leaving them behind. But Cammie just wants to remember the summer and if she managed to find the information on the Circle of Cavan that her father left behind. But some things are not worth remembering and something is wrong with Cammie. And now it seems that Circle has no use for her any longer.


Now we are cooking with gas as they say (Do they say that?). Anyway, here is the penultimate book to the Gallagher Girls series and it just moves the story right along. It was easy to feel Cammie's frustrations with her memory loss and her bewilderment at some of the things she now knows. And the music that she hears constantly. Why does no one think to mention that? But I guess that is explained at the end of the book sort of. I love how her friends love her and want to protect her but are also angry that she left them and left them behind.

I'm looking forward to the conclusion of this series. It has had its up and downs but I think it is going to end on a strong note. Cammie is very different from the girl the series started with and she has been through a lot for someone so young. That kind of character growth is wonderful to see in a series that started out about a boy crazy spy-in-training.

Gallagher Girls series
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy
Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover
Only the Good Spy Young

Only the Good Spy Young by Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls #4)

Cammie is the target by the mysterious Circle of Cavan, an terriost organization of spies. After her former teacher, Joe Solomon, risks his life to give her a coded message, she goes a mission to find out why the Circle wants her and what her father and Mr. Solomon have to do with the organization. With the help of her super spy friends and her sort of love interest, Zach, Cammie sets out to find the truth. But the truth is harder to find than she thinks.

It's been a while since I got into this series. The third book didn't do it for me but I enjoyed this one. I think the time off (and the fact that it wasn't following up a fantastic book) helped. Cammie and her friends really step up their game in this book which is good because the ending is drawing closer (it's a 6 book series) and all the players are being set up for the finale. We learn a little more about the Circle and who is in it and that makes for some surprising moments. We don't learn why they want Cammie and not too much more about Cammie's father though it is implied that he is still alive. But the story moves forward at fun pace and I'm anxious to read the next one to see what happens next.

Gallagher Girls series
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy
Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich

All Lizzy wants to do is lead a normal life baking delicious cupcakes. But her dreams are interrupted by Diesel who informs her that she has a special gift of sensing magical energy trapped in objects. Now the two of them are after  seven powerful stones each imbued with the essence of a deadly sin. This time it is the Luxuria Stone also known as the lust stone. Between Diesel's evil cousin Wulf and a crazy lady calling herself Anarchy, Diesel and Lizzy are going to have a hell of a time retrieving it. 


I am enjoying this series. I think Lizzy and Diesel make a good team and their adventures are pretty funny. I love how all these weird things happen and Lizzy just takes it in stride, for the most part. The scavenger hunt they go on to find the Luxuria Stone is pretty interesting and takes up most of the book. I really wanted there to be more when they did find the stone but it was still a good book. The addition of Anarchy is interesting and she makes for a better villain than Wulf because she is just crazy. Sometimes I get a little tired of Janet Evanovich's penance for ending a book on a cliffhanger or in the middle of interesting scene and that is what happened here. But I will definitely continue to read this series.


Second in the Lizzy and Diesel series
#1 Wicked Appetite

Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter

Katarina Bishop is now the girl that robbed the Henley. Following her successful heist of that museum, Kat has dedicated herself to recovering art stolen from its rightful owner.  When Kat is contacted to steal the Cleopatra Emerald, one of the largest every discovered, she concocts a scheme to steal it even though it is the one thing Uncle Eddie has forbidden.  But the emerald comes with a curse and all is not what it seems for Kat.

This was a great second installment of the Heist Society.  I really like Kat and her crew.  She is so clever that even when she is conned she still manages to come out ahead and in the simplest manner too!  I love a good heist story and this one has it all.  I love Kat's relationship with Hale.  They have the best chemistry.  And the rest of Kat's friends are pretty awesome too.  Gabriel is pretty amazing. 

The plot moved at a good pace.  It was nice not knowing how Kat was going to pull it off until the very end.  I liked how she got the better of her antagonist.  I am intrigued though by the lady's relationship with Uncle Eddie and I hope she makes another appearance.  She was a great foe for Kat. 

6 hours, 43 minutes

Angela Dawe is the narrator and she does an excellent job.  Her tone was just right for the story.  She doesn't really do voices but she does try to distinguish each character.  I liked her pace and her voice is appropriate for the story.

Wicked Appetite (Diesel #1) by Janet Evanovich

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Tucker is a cupcake baker extraordinaire.  But when she is visited by a strange man in black who brands her with his fingertip, she learns that she is something more: an Unmentionable.  Enter Diesel, best know from the Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers series.  Still tall, handsome and cocky as ever, Diesel needs Elizabeth and her enhanced ability to find the first of seven powerful stones.  But they are going to have to go around his cousin, Gerwulf Grimoire, to get it.

"Ordinarily, I like a woman with strong appetites," Diesel said, "but you're downright scary.  I'm afraid when you finish the doughnuts, you're going to start gnawing on my arm."  p.105

Let me just say this first. Diesel, phew.  H-O-T

Okay, that being said, I wasn't too sure about a series about him.  I think he is funny and enjoy his adventures with Stephanie, but I wasn't sure about where this series was going.  But I'm glad I read it.  Lizzie is a little Stephanie-like, but she is definitely her own character.  I like her dynamic with Diesel and it was nice to see him with someone who isn't hampered already with two love interests.  Unfortunately something is going to prevent the fruition of Diesel and Lizzie's relationship. 

I am assuming that this is going to be a seven part series since they have to find seven stones that each represent a different deadly sin.  This book focused on Gluttony with hilarious results.  I love the humor in this book.  Priceless.  But I'm with Diesel on one thing.  I can't wait to see what happens when they go after Lust.


Hogwarts: Divination
Cover Love - January
What's in a Name
Off the Shelf

A little something

here's not going to much here this week.  This actually might be it.  There's no real reason.  I've got stuff to read and I'm trying to read it, but I don't feel like speeding through.  I also can't settle on an audio book right now.  I want to listen to Oryx and Crake, but I'm a little daunted after the epic books I just finished.  Anyway...

Heist Society

Three months ago, Katrina Bishop pulled off her greatest con and got herself a new life at a boarding school.  But her old life has tracked her down.  It seems her father is the number one suspect at the top of a one name list who is accused of stealing the priceless art collection of a very dangerous man.  It's up to Kat and her band of light fingered friends to find painting and save her dad.  Even if the job is next to impossible.

The assembly of a crew is a monumental event in a young thief's life.  There are meetings and phone call.  Plans, and occasionally, a celebratory cake.  p.132

Ally Carter has style.  I'll give her that.  Her writing style is so distinct to me that the minute I opened this book, I knew it was going to be great.  Kat is like a reverse Cammie, having lived her whole life on the wrong side of the law.  Her family is a family of the greatest thieves in the world and Kat was following along until she decided she wanted to be normal.  The book picks up at the start of the action (thank God) when Kat is being expelled from the boarding school she conned her way into.  From there, it's like Ocean's 11 with teenagers and it is awesome. I know that it was optioned for a movie, but it would make a great TV show too.  I like crime shows where the criminal is sympathetic and I had to feel sorry for Kat.  Stuck with doing an impossible job to save her father from a very bad man, she really does an awesome job.  There was a bigger mystery set up too that wasn't really resolved and I can't wait to see what Carter has in store next for Kat and her crew.