The Accidental Mistress

May 15, 2018
A makeup artist finds herself involved in a massive fraud scandal after a case of wrong place, wrong time.Sisters Violet and Lily couldn't be more different. Violet left their small town in Trinidad as a young teen with a scholarship to a New England boarding school. From then on, she spent her time working to fit in as an American, to the point that now, as an adult, she's ready to marry into black American royalty. Lily, on the other hand, has all the things that could embarrass her sister: a stripper's body and the job to go with it, an outspoken nature that has led to the formation of a strippers union, and an accent that can't hide her foreignness. But Violet and Lily have to work together when an act of kindness leaves Violet the No. 1 suspect in a federal fraud case. With the help of several friends, including an old friend from Harvard who sparks new chemistry, Violet does what she has to do to get her name cleared. While the plot is compelling, de León (The Boss, 2017, etc.) prefers to bounce around in the timeline and between characters. This constant motion can take a reader out of the story, but the character development keeps things interesting. While the primary story involves an investigation and a minor heist that will feel familiar to readers of de León's Justice Hustlers series, the romantic elements may draw in new readers. The explicit sex is clinical and doesn't always add to the progression of the story. The book has a satisfying ending, though, and should leave most readers interested in the next step for the stripper collective, if not for any of the romantic pairings.A passable heist novel with elements of romance and intersectional feminism.

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May 1, 2018
Violet haserased evidence of her Trinidadian heritage from her speech and mannerisms after years of American boarding schools and college. She hasalso minimized her contact with her stripper sister, Lily, until their mother asks her to contact Lily, and Violet gets pulled into a criminal web that changes both of their lives, but not in the obvious way. The strip-club owner's wife thinks Violet is her husband's mistress, and the resultant scenes cost Violet her job and her fianc�. The wife eventually apologizes and offers to work with Violet and the employees of the Maria de la Vega Women's Health Clinic to track her missing husband and his mistress, who haveleft with thousands from the strippers' retirement fund. Violet learns that Lily is a resourceful advocate. A return to Trinidad to catch the fugitives helps Violet and Lily reconnect and change lifelong assumptions. De Le�n (The Boss, 2017) fits suspense, family drama, a team of very intelligent women, and, yes, romance into this terrific read. De Le�n is a rising star in romantic suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)