Failure is Not an Option

It's been awhile since I've posted, mostly due to craziness here, but my previous book choice is partially to blame. I picked "The Empty Glass" by J.I. Baker as my next book and I've been battling to read it ever since. Okay, that's a lie, I've been trying to read it, but I've been interspersing it with books that don't make me want to rip my eyeballs out.

With about two weeks notice I decided to pack up and take a trip to France, so life has been a tad crazy getting ready for that and I wanted books that were light, fluffy and European. In my time of great need I turned to the Kick Keswick series by Marne Davis Kellogg. I'll freely admit that I'm totally cheating owing to the fact that I've read these books multiple times, but since it's my game I get to bend the rules.

There are four books in the series; "Priceless", "Perfect", "Friends in High Places" and "Brilliant". The last book in the series came out in 2007 and it seems that Ms. Kellogg isn't writing anymore. :( It's sad when such a brilliant author takes a hiatus from writing (or quits entirely). That's not to say that these books are highbrow literature by any means; they are light and fluffy and decadent. These are the perfect summer beach reads (or summer in front of the tv reads) to get lost in another world.

The four books follow Kick Keswick, a middle aged woman who happens to be London's daring Shamrock Burglar. The Shamrock Burglar robs the rich and famous of their priceless jewels and leaves a bouquet of shamrocks in place of them. By day she's a mild mannered executive assistant at auction company Ballantine & Company (she leaves this position in later books) and by night she's pulling off daring and dangerous heists.

Kick is a woman who loves the finer things in life; fancy clothes and expensive food, and she has the money to afford them using her ill-gotten gains. She haunts the locales of the wealthy (they are the ones with the best jewelry after all) and lives the high life. The books are full of descriptions of the food she's eating, the clothes and jewelry she's wearing and the beautiful European cities she's traveling in. These are not books for someone who wants intellect, they are an indulgence. Since Kellogg has spent so much time traveling to these places and living this life (minus the whole burglary thing I assume) she is able to have descriptions that are rich and full of detail. These books do an excellent job transporting you into Kick's fantastic life and letting you imagine the possibilities. The only negative is that they can get a little tedious with the descriptions and sometimes plot is sacrificed in order to describe one more piece of jewelry or one more outfit.

Overall, I'm giving these 4/5


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