A Heart Worth Stealing by Joanna Barker

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Book Review of A Heart Worth Stealing by Joanna Barker

My husband and I will celebrate our 25^th wedding anniversary next month! Sadly, we have never taken a vacation for just the two of us. We’ve done a couples’ trip with my family, and we went to one of his brother’s weddings out of state, but spent the whole time with family. We have taken a bunch of overnight adventures, but nothing more than that. With our 25^th anniversary coming up, we decided that we deserved to take a long trip. Where did we end up? We spent 11 glorious days in San Pedro, Belize. It was amazing! I wish I could sit and read on the beach every single day. I ended up reading six books! I’ll review them all eventually, but the first book I read was A Heart Worth Stealing by Joanna Barker.

Blurb:

Little Sowerby, England, 1802

Miss Genevieve Wilde—a magistrate’s daughter and independent heiress—is determined to meet life’s challenges all on her own, just as her late father had taught her. So when her father’s pocket watch is stolen, she will do anything to get it back, especially when the local authorities prove incompetent.

Upon reading an advertisement in the paper, she takes a chance and contacts a thief-taker to find the watch. It’s a choice Ginny regrets when former Bow Street officer Jack Travers arrives on her doorstep. He is frustratingly flirtatious, irritatingly handsome, and entirely unpredictable, and Ginny wonders if she’ll be able to resist such a man.

But after Ginny discovers that the missing watch is just a small part of a larger, more frightening plot against her, she needs Jack’s help more than ever. To protect her home and her reputation, the two enter into a risky charade—pretending Jack is her cousin so he can begin his investigation, starting with the household staff. As they work together to unravel the mystery, Ginny finds herself falling fast for her charismatic thief-taker, leaving her heart in just as much danger as her life.

My Book Review:

What a fun story! Have you ever heard of a thief-taker? Here is a description from www.historic-uk.com:

Before the introduction of the Bow Street Runners and anything of the like, policing took the form of privately paid individuals used to maintain law and order without a formal system connected to the state. This resulted in unofficial policemen who were known as ‘Thief Takers’ who would capture criminals for money and negotiate deals in order to return stolen goods whilst claiming rewards. People who partook in this activity, such as a figure called Charles Huitchen and his accomplice Jonathan Wild, were voluntarily policing the streets of London for big profits when in fact, these men and others like them were often behind much of the crime in the area.

Genevieve Wilde’s father had recently passed away, and she felt as if everyone around her was waiting for her to fail. Fail at running the estate. Fail at keeping at her responsibilities. Fail at living up to her father’s expectations. When an important family heirloom is stolen from her desk, she contacts the authorities, and her worries are quickly brushed aside. Genevieve (Ginny), knowing the authorities will do nothing, takes a risk and contacts a thief-taker named Jack Travers to help her.

I loved getting to know Ginny and Jack in this book! They are both great characters. They’re relatable, likable, well developed, and each have strong personalities. I enjoyed the twists and turns the story takes and found it very entertaining.

I love the uniqueness of this story! It’s fun to learn little-known facts about periods in history, and I enjoyed learning about thief-takers in A Heart Worth Stealing. Isn’t the cover photo beautiful?? The story is exciting, too! It’s well written with great character development, descriptions, and dialogues. For the adrenaline lovers there’s also quite a bit of action! Mystery, romance, betrayal, deception, danger, risk-taking, and some crazy plots! What’s not to love?