Review: Double Exposure by Rien Gray

Title: Double Exposure

Author: Rien Gray

Length: 174 Pages

Category: Contemporary Romantic Suspense, F/NB Romance

Rating: 3.5 Stars

At a Glance: Double Exposure would have benefitted from more character backstory. Overall, a good if not perfect diversion.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Love always shows your true face.

Jillian Rhodes lies to everyone she meets. As one of the world’s best art thieves, a life of infiltration and con artistry has left her flying solo, which is exactly the way she likes it. When Jillian is hired to steal a collection of photos belonging to the late—and deeply controversial—Russell Key from the Art Institute of Chicago, everything should be business as usual.

Except she has two problems: first, fellow master thief Sloane Caffrey also has their eye on the photos. Second, Sloane is her smoking hot ex.

Three years have passed since a messy breakup, but Jillian and Sloane have been getting vengeance on each other ever since. When the Key theft becomes their latest competition, love and loathing ride a fine, shaking line.

Trying to destroy each other should be simple. But confronting past mistakes is hard, especially when the entire job is starting to look like a setup to put Jillian and Sloane behind bars…

Review: Double Exposure is a long novella that aspires to deliver a few things: criminal intrigue, former lovers turned bitter rivals, and finally, the reconciling of a past burdened by misunderstanding and the refusal to communicate.

Rien Gray writes a sexy story. I don’t mean that solely in the physical sense—although, that’s certainly part of it—but it’s the atmosphere as well that’s provacative. This is a high stakes race to commit a robbery with potentially higher stakes consequences. That it pits Jillian Rhodes and Sloane Caffrey against each other isn’t coincidence as much as it was simply a matter of time for it to happen. Jillian and Sloane are the best thieves money can buy. They deal in multimillion dollar heists. They travel in the same circles. When they’re both hired to steal a set of erotic photos with no small amount of controversy attached to them, it wasn’t a question of whether they’d succeed but of which of them would get there first.

Sparks fly as Jillian and Sloane compete to concoct the perfect plan to relieve the Art Institue of Chicago of the photos, which are scheduled to go on display imminently. For the museum, this is a matter of survival—the museum needs the money to thrive. I liked the cat-and-mouse of the heist, as both Jillian and Sloane work to thwart each other while simultaneously planning their own sleight of hand.

Double Exposure would have benefitted from more character backstory: how Jillian and Sloane got where they are, how and why they became renowned thieves, and why they gave up on each other so easily. It seems to me that the persistence, cunning, impersonation, and challenge of thieving valuable works of art from what should be impenetrable, secure locations would lend itself to more persistence in other areas of life. In keeping with this, the resolution to the side mystery that’s introduced through the photographs begs some suspension of belief, but it served to solidify Jillian and Sloane’s alliance, brought them back together again, and set them on a course for a new life together.

Overall, a good if not perfect diversion.