Claire
   O'Sullivan

Catherine Cade is chaos in lip gloss—and she has a problem. Several, actually. An amnesiac, identity thief, and a sudden born-again amateur sleuth, she’s discovering that uncovering small-town secrets might involve more running than seasoning—and an alarming number of baked goods.​

 Cade's convinced the small-town police department is up to something shady when a homicide detective shows up for a death certificate--super shady. So if she can’t remember her past, she can at least rewrite her future—preferably without handcuffs.

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Homicide detective Rick Calhoun has problems of his own. His new murder suspect keeps breaking into the evidence locker. Catherine Cade. She’s tangled in a high-profile investigation, knows far too much, and has a habit of baking her way into places she definitely shouldn’t. He's one migraine away from retirement.

 

Did she do it? Or is someone staging the perfect sugar-coated setup?

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Catherine needs a plan: hide, run, or charm Rick with enough cinnamon rolls to buy leniency. Rick needs a plan too—figure out whether to arrest her, work with her … or somehow keep her close long enough to see what she’s really hiding--or what she knows.

When the case explodes and bullets start flying, they’ll have to decide what they’re willing to sacrifice--their safety, their secrets, or the unexpected spark igniting between them.

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In Whiskey River, falling in love can be a crime all its own.

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"How to Steal a Romance" is the author revised version, edition two under One Candle Press, with first edition as Romance Under Wraps, edition one.

 

Review:

This was the most memorable and moving novel I have read all year. The plot took me through a whirlwind of emotions - laughter, tears, sorrow, and anger.

 

The heroine, Catherine Cade, cannot recall a thing about her life prior to an automobile accident. What she can recall all too vividly is the abusive relationship she endured at the hands of a thief and con artist. This man, who convinced Catherine that she was his wife, taught her how to work a con and change her identity.

 

With no real identity of her own, she became adept at changing her persona during frequent moves. Things changed for Catherine Cade when she moved to the small town of Whiskey River. Not only had her surrounding changed, but Cade developed friendships, a career, and a handsome love interest.

 

Her attraction to a detective spurs a great deal of conflict, not only because she is a con artist but because Cade’s personality and values change throughout the book.

 

Eventually, I realized that Cade was running away from both evil and good. She was running to a void, a continuous life of nothingness. The author has crafted engaging plots. No one is what they seem.

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No one seems to be trustworthy. For crime mystery lovers this is a fiction that you will enjoy with plenty of action, gun play, good guy and bad guy moments, murders, assaults. For mystery/romance lovers you will feel involved in the plot development of what appears to be a hopeless love between a con artist, Catherine Cade and a no nonsense ex-Marine, detective, Rick Calhoun.

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For the cozy mystery lovers you’ll enjoy how the plot develops to encourage the heroine to develop her interests in solving a murder and in opening a bakery. For me, I loved how the plot developed to show the ways in which God may choose to act in our lives.