Honeymoon Heist by Anna Jones Buttimore

I'm going to say straight off that I'm biased about Anna's writing. I think she really brings something special to LDS fiction (there's something about the way British writers use language), and she's really done herself proud with this book. While it's a fun read, it's also a nail-biter since someone is clearly after this innocent young married couple who are on unfamiliar turf.

Although to say Honeymoon Heist a fun read and a nail-biter doesn't quite do it justice either. It's also a book with a lot of depth. Anna shows us two young people who have a lot to learn about love and about each other. I love how Anna balances the urgency of what's happening now with the history of each character and what has made them who they are. (And I'm betting readers will find the somewhat stuffy and proper Rodney as brilliant and sexy as I did by the end of the book.)

Anna has a terrific gift with humor. Somehow in the taut cat-and-mouse chase, she manages to slip in the kind of sly and subtle humor that just made me shake my head with admiration.

While I love the kind of suspense that sucks me in, and that this book has plenty of, what I think I liked most is that it is a beautiful love story. Claire and Rodney are two people who think they know each other enough to marry each other, but they find out how little they know each other and just how much they do love each other.

For readers who appreciate a good love story, heart-catching suspense, complex mystery, characters who act and think and speak like real people, and the kind of storytelling that keeps you reading in spite of everything else you need to do--run, don't walk to a bookstore for this book. Get two copies--one to read and one to lend to your friends, since you won't want to give up your own. Even after you've finished, you'll want to keep it close by so you can check in on Claire and Rodney,who will feel like old friends to you. After all, you did go on their honeymoon with them.