The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.

• The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel
• Published: Gallery Books on June 17, 2025
• Genre: Historical fiction, mystery, romance
• Pages: 384
• Dates/Time Read: 11.17.25-11.24.25 (7 hours 9 minutes)
• Format: Hardcover (Once Upon a Book Club Edition)
• Add on Goodreads
• Purchase on Amazon
• ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

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I’ve fallen pretty behind on my subscription books. I just now got to the July box for Once Upon a Book Club, and I have August, September, and October to catch up on still. This was such a good book! I’ve never read anything by Kristin Harmel, and this book will definitely not be the last. If you enjoy historical fiction or authors like Barbara Davis and Kristin Hannah, then you should definitely check this one out.

This book has historical nods to World War II and the Holocaust, which may be difficult for some people to read about. This story was beautiful, heartbreaking, but also uplifting. It has mystery, murder, romance, and happily ever afters for all involved. Well…almost all. It’s told with a dual timeline, where we meet Colette in the present, as a 90-year-old jewel thief, who has been searching for the answer to what happened to her sister 76 years ago after the Germans raided their home and arrested their mother. Convinced that her sister’s disappearance and death were her fault, Colette has dedicated her life to upholding their family tradition of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.

We return to the past, in 1942 Paris, France, where a 14-year-old Colette has been taught the family tradition of thieving. As the Germans invade Paris, Colette meets a young Jewish boy, who shows her a secret hiding spot to keep the stolen jewelry safe. They begin exchanging letters with each other at the secret spot, and a young Colette falls in love for the first time with the boy she knows only as “Tristan”. Thousands of Jews are rounded up and deported to concentration camps, and Colette never hears from Tristan again. On the night that Germans break into their home and arrest her mother, Colette’s world is shattered with all that she has lost.

But please always remember, my dear, that there is a difference between a life that honors the past and a life dictated by it. When you let your history shape your future, you relinquish the ability to choose a better way forward.

The dual timeline of the story is told so well in this book! There have been times in the past when a book with a dual timeline can confuse me a little. It doesn’t flow seamlessly. But Harmel did an amazing job of revealing just enough of the past and the present to hook you into the plot, and you never get lost. There are twists to the plot, and they were a tiny bit predictable and on the far-fetched side, but who cares!? It was still such a wonderful story. My only complaint was that I didn’t really like the way that Colette handled the whole situation when she discovered who the missing bracelet belonged to. Sorry for being vague, I’m just trying to be careful with spoilers here because I definitely think this book is best without any.

As for the gifts that came with this box, they were pretty decent. There was a pretty cool tube of red lipstick that has a “secret” way to open it, which is cool. There’s a very nice-smelling reed diffuser, a nice notepad with a matching pen, and a replica of the famous bracelets that you will hear about all throughout the book. The ones in the book had more diamonds on them, though! haha As for the book, it was a special edition hardcover. I tried to find a nice representation of the book, but wasn’t able to find any. It also has very pretty spayed edges, which I’m a sucker for. So the book design gets a 5 ⭐ from me! 🙂