Spotlight & Giveaway: ‘Til Heist Do Us Part by Sara Desai

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sara Desai to HJ!

Hi Sara and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, ‘Til Heist Do Us Part!

I’m Sara and I’m thrilled to be here. I write romantic comedy and mystery books…
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

’Til Heist Do Us Part is part romantic comedy and part mystery and follows professional thief Jack and wedding planner Simi and their misfit heist crew from the first book in the series To Have and To Heist. If you haven’t read the first book, don’t worry! They are standalone stories so you can jump right in.

Simi and her crew are living off the spoils of their last heist when a Chicago mafia boss shows up and demands that she return the diamond necklace that went missing from his safe. Simi gets her crew back together only to discover that Jack’s ex-girlfriend has the necklace and needs Simi’s crew to pull off an impossible heist before she’ll agree to give it back. Unfortunately, Simi and Jack have broken up, her crew have scattered, and someone has wound up getting himself kidnapped. Simi also has a new socialite friend who wants in on the heist for a little excitement in her dreary billionaire life. Although Simi manages to patch together a crew, things don’t exactly as planned. Through twists and turns she finds herself in a billionaire’s secret hideaway, on a road trip through the mountains, sneaking around a container port, and kidnapped not once but twice! Do Jack and Simi get back together? Does the mafia boss get his necklace? Does true love conquer all? You’ll have to read to find out!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“Mrs. Jack Danger? Like I have no identity beyond being your wife?”
“Most women would dream of having no identity beyond being my wife,” Jack said with a smug grin. “What else is there in life? You’ve secured the most desirable male on the planet. Hashtag goals.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

Fun facts about ’Til Heist Do Us Part:

• The main heist takes place in the underground bunker of a billionaires’s mansion. I had to do a lot of research about underground bunkers, and I was absolutely floored by the cost (over $50 million!), size (over 10,000 square feet), and amenities (pools, wine rooms, hydroponic gardens, water filtration systems, art galleries, multi-car garages, libraries, fitness centres, media rooms, staff quarters, multiple lounges and kitchens etc.) of some of the bunkers. No expense is spared and many of the bunkers I researched could sustain entire households for over five years.
• I rewatched all my favorite heist movies before diving into the book for the inspiration, the pure joy of reliving all my fave heists again and to make sure there were enough twists and turns to keep readers on their toes. Of course, my list included all the Ocean’s movies, The Usual Suspects, The Inside Man, Reservoir Dogs, Baby Driver, Bandits, National Treasure, the Mission Impossible movies, Logan Lucky, Army of the Dead, Money Heist (a Netflix series), Now You See Me and maybe a few more…:)
• Jack’s nemesis, Mr. X, is my favorite villain and I’ve written quite a few! He was inspired by Fagin in Oliver Twist.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Simi and Jack first meet in To Have and To Heist. She is trying to save her friend who is trapped on the second floor of a museum and he is hiding in the bushes after casing out the museum for a potential heist. He is moved by Simi’s total lack of regard for her own personal safety when she tries to scale the brick wall with her bare hands in the pouring rain even as the police close in. He grabs her and pulls her into the bushes so she doesn’t get arrested. Simi is at first alarmed (of course) but over the course of their conversation, she discovers she has a lot in common with the mysterious thief. He is attractive in a roguish daredevil way and when he tracks her down to her father’s tailor shop and buys a suit just to spend more time with her, she is hooked.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

One of my favorite scenes is the road trip through the Appalachian mountains. They are desperately trying to get to New York before a ship takes off with the diamond they are chasing but discover the main road is blocked. Jack claims to know a short cut and turns off the road and onto a dirt trail. Simi is aghast. She can’t imagine how Jack would know a backwoods trail in the middle of nowhere and is more alarmed when he tells her there will be no cell service and she’ll have to direct them using a map.

The scene is based on a real-life trip I took with my sister and brother-in-law through the Rocky Mountains when my brother-in-law turned off the road and claimed to know a “shortcut”. At the time, it was an incredibly harrowing journey, but now, just thought of it makes me laugh. I promised them that one day that trip would find it’s way into a book, and now it’s pay back time! Here’s a little snippet:

“We have phones. Why do we need a map? I didn’t even know they made them anymore.” I pulled out the worn map, unfolded it, and was immediately engulfed in paper.” I don’t know how to use this thing.”

“There might not be any service in the backcountry, so you need to figure it out,” he said. “I’ll need a navigator. My entire focus has to be on the road. It’s a challenging drive.”

“I don’t like that word, Jack.”

“What word? Challenging?”

“Backcountry. We’re not backcountry folk. “We’re front country. City people. I don’t want to wind up in a ‘Deliverance’ situation.”

Readers should read this book….

Read this book if you love heists, mystery, romance, and lots and lots of comedy.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

’Til Heist Do Us Part is my newest release and right now I’m working on a secret project that will hopefully be my next release.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One print copy of ‘TIL HEIST DO US PART for a U. S. only winner.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Readers, what is your favorite part of a heist? The planning (includes recruiting the crew), execution (includes the actual heist, unforeseen obstacles, a betrayal and usually failure), or the aftermath (includes reuniting, pointing fingers if the heist failed or glimpses of the crew enjoying their spoils)?

 
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Excerpt from ‘Til Heist Do Us Part:

One

JACK

I magine you are a smokin’-hot dude. You have a new Ford F-150 truck, a great job traveling the world to steal and repatriate priceless art and antiquities, a collection of rare succulents that you have left in the care of your plant nursery owner / black market arms dealer cousin Lou, and money in the bank after pulling off an almost impossible heist with a bunch of rank amateurs. You have a girlfriend, Simi, who is not only beautiful but fiercely intelligent, and you have a new BFF, except you don’t call him that to his face because chances are he’ll punch you in the gut-Gage is all about repressed emotions. You’ve finally avenged your dearly departed grandmother, and your boss has promised that your next gig will be the chef’s kiss of heists. Life has not been kind to you, but finally things are going your way.

Or so you think.

It starts out small. What was supposed to be your last job ever-the theft of a collection of stolen Cambodian antiquities-is a bust when you discover that the antiquities are fakes. Your boss sends you to Colombia instead and you somehow wind up as the unwilling guest of some local drug lords who don’t care that your new girlfriend has been waiting for you to return to Chicago. After that, it is one country, one job, and one disaster after another that keep you and Simi apart. You are pushed out of a third-story window in Rio, and for two weeks you can’t remember your own name. Then there’s the remote hillside town in Italy where they don’t sell burner phones, but they do have thugs with automatic weapons who take issue with people who steal from their boss. The rural doctor who finds you in a ditch keeps you sedated while you recover, and you miss all Simi’s calls. Her messages become fewer and farther between. You just can’t catch a break. Who knew there would be no cell service underwater when you board a submarine to retrieve lost treasures from a sunken ship? Or that you aren’t allowed a phone call in an Afghan prison? Your boss seems determined to keep you away from home. You miss Simi’s birthday, her father’s sixtieth, her mother’s fifty-ninth, her cousin’s thirty-third, another cousin’s engagement party. You miss Thanksgiving, Christmas, Diwali, Easter, and Memorial Day. Simi begs you to come to a family reunion so she can introduce you to everyone, and you miss that, too.

Each time you do manage to connect for a video chat, Simi is a little less warm, her smiles a little less bright. And then one night after you outdo yourself in the sexting department-as you always do-she says the words you knew were coming but don’t want to hear: “I’m not getting what I need out of this relationship. Let’s take a break.”

You promise it won’t happen again. You’ll buy a new burner phone. She is the priority and screw your boss and national security and all that jazz. When she calls, you’ll be there with the sexy talk she likes so much, and hey, Thanksgiving is coming again and this time you’ll bring the turkey. But it’s eight months too late. You lose the girl of your dreams, and your so-called perfect life shatters.

To make matters worse, as soon as you are out of the picture, Detective Garcia moves in.

Garcia is Simi’s police friend. He’s been crushing on her since the day he tried to arrest her as an accessory to the theft of a $25 million diamond necklace. By the time the bad guys were caught, you and Simi had hooked up and Garcia didn’t have a chance. But he was waiting, watching, ready to pounce.

And pounce he does. In the history of time, no man has pounced faster and harder than Garcia when he finds out Simi has dumped you.

Deli lunches. Pizza dinners. Walks in the park. Every time you call her office-she blocked your cell number after the breakup-she is out with Garcia. Her receptionist, Janice, offers herself in Simi’s place. She tells you that she is freshly divorced, and fifty-eight is the new thirty, especially since she’s now on HRT and has the libido of a woman half her age. She doesn’t mind long-distance relationships, and she just bought a new phone with a giant screen.

You realize you have no chance with Simi if you continue in your current line of employment, but money is an issue. You tell your boss you are done with excitement, adventure, and international travel, but you are willing to do one last job before you leave the business for good. Horticulture has always been your passion and Lou needs someone to handle the plant nursery side of the business, so he can focus on the more lucrative arms dealing that goes on behind the flowering plants and shrubs.

Luck is finally with you, and your boss approves a juicy piece of work in your hometown. So, there you are in Winnetka, the most exclusive suburb of Chicago, after spending the afternoon casing a billionaire’s mansion with your BFF. Gage is ex-military. Black ops, or maybe even something more secret and sinister. He doesn’t talk about his past, but there isn’t a weapon he can’t handle. You’ve personally witnessed him beating six men in single-hand combat without breaking a sweat. He likes to break bones, noses, and spirits during torture times. He is over six feet of solid muscle and hard raw power, but he’s a big softie inside. You couldn’t imagine a better heist partner than Gage. He makes you feel safe.

Your mark, tech billionaire Peter Hearst, has managed to uncover the long-lost Florentine Diamond, which has an estimated value of $200 million and has been missing for over one hundred years. Through incredible skill and stealth while disguised as a waiter, you have just discovered that he keeps it in a secure museum in a bunker beneath his multimillion-dollar mansion and shows it only to his billionaire friends. Your mission, if you choose to do it-and you do because it’s your job and you need the cash to get out of the business and win Simi’s heart-is to liberate the diamond and repatriate it to Austria, where it rightfully belongs. You like the word liberate because it doesn’t have any criminal connotations, even though your life has been pretty much one criminal connotation after another.

But you digress. After this last heist, you will be a changed man-a man of whom your soon-to-not-be-ex-girlfriend will be proud; a man so straight-in all senses of the word-that she will be desperate to get back together with you and won’t be tempted by squeaky-clean police detective Garcia, who gave her a Boston fern as an office-warming gift when she opened her new event-planning business in the Loop.

A Boston fern. Even now it makes you laugh. If Garcia had done even the most basic research, he would have discovered that there is nothing a Nephrolepis exaltata likes less than a south-facing office with low humidity and an owner who is unlikely to appreciate its sensitive watering routines. Simi could do so much better.

You are laughing to yourself about Garcia’s total lack of plant knowledge when Gage decides to take one final look around as the high-society types stumble out of the party. You tell him to be careful. You had an unfortunate encounter with a former associate, Clare, at the party, and she was up to no good. He tells you to stay alert. You tell him you’ve been doing this kind of work for much longer than him and “alert” is your middle name.

You take off your waiter disguise and relax in the seat of your new truck. Too late you realize “alert” doesn’t involve resting your eyes. The rear passenger door opens and Clare climbs into the back seat. The same Clare you just outed as a thief at the party because she was after your score. The Clare you thought had been taken to jail. The Clare who was your shadow, and then your girl, and then your ex, and now your nemesis. That Clare.

You blame Clare for your mutual enmity because you can’t blame yourself. After all, you didn’t make her any promises. How could you? She worked for some people. You worked for some other people. Those people didn’t get along. Your paths crossed. One thing led to another, led to seduction in a hotel room in Istanbul, led to someone being handcuffed to a four-poster bed and robbed of a valuable antiquity that had just been stolen from a Russian oligarch’s Siberian mansion. Not Clare. Obviously. You are a gentleman and would only handcuff a woman if she gave her consent.

After you escaped the handcuffs, it was weeks of chase, seduction, cross, and double cross. You got your antiquity back. She followed you to Egypt. Totally ruined your Nile cruise. Instead of seeing the sights and retrieving a few antique necklaces along the way, you got to spend three weeks in an Egyptian prison. Then there was Vegas. Don’t worry. You shot to wound. Her bullet just missed your heart. After that fiasco, you and Clare called a truce. She even did you a favor when she was working a scam as a personal shopper at Bloomingdale’s, helping Simi find a glamorous outfit for a charity ball. Back then you and Simi weren’t together because she suspected you were a thief and didn’t trust you. You won her over once. You can do it again.

Do you know who doesn’t trust you? Clare. Not after you told the security guard at the billionaire’s mansion that you’d seen her stealing someone’s wallet-a wallet you had just dropped into her fancy designer handbag. All’s fair in love and thievery.

You turn and force a smile. Clare leans back in the passenger seat and crosses her legs, all cool and casual like she was just in the neighborhood and decided to drop in for a visit. Your skin prickles with warning. Maybe it’s her aura of menace. Or maybe it’s because she’s got a lit cigarette in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. Ash falls on your shiny new seats.

You extend a polite, pleasant greeting. She does not reciprocate. Instead, she says mean things like “you bastard,” “the truce is over,” “this is my score now,” and “if you don’t give up this job, I’m going to destroy you.” She drags her knife over your admiral blue multicontour bucket seats, slicing through the high-end leather like butter. Then she tells you she’s got a room at the Plaza and a fresh set of handcuffs calling your name. As if you would fall for that trick again. Your heart belongs to only one woman, and she doesn’t smoke.

You wonder where Gage is. Protection and security are his thing. Why didn’t he spot Clare lurking outside? With her long platinum-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, and heart-shaped face, she doesn’t exactly blend into a crowd. The short, tight white dress, gold stilettos, and show-stopping ninety-three-carat cabochon-cut Colombian emerald necklace from Bulgari’s Magnifica high-end jewelry collection are an unusual choice for a recon mission. You are pretty sure it’s the same necklace Zendaya wore for the Dune premiere. You are also pretty sure the jeweler who loaned it to Zendaya doesn’t know it’s missing.

Clare slowly uncrosses her legs. She pauses just long enough for you to suspect she’s not wearing underwear. Then she crosses her legs again. You are immediately reminded of Basic Instinct, a 1992 neo-noir erotic thriller featuring Sharon Stone as a psychopathic serial killer. You tell Clare she’d be perfect for the role.

Wrong thing to say. Clare stubs out her cigarette on the back of your seat, leaving an angry black hole. The acrid scent of burning leather makes your nose wrinkle. Before she opens the door, she warns you again to stay away from the billionaire’s mansion. This time when she uncrosses her legs, you look down at the floor mat, color coordinated with the carpet. You went all out on your truck purchase, paying extra for the limited edition. What a mistake.

“When I’m done, you’ll have nothing left. No job. No truck. No girlfriend named Simi.” Her sinister laugh sends a shiver down your spine. With a cold sneer, Clare climbs out of the vehicle and drags her butcher knife along the side of your truck, scratching the smoked-quartz-tinted clearcoat metallic-a $450 extra-as she walks away. The shriek of metal on metal twists your gut, but not as much as the fact that the truce is over, Clare is after your score, and she knows your greatest weakness: Simi.

Moments later you are burning rubber down the street. Gage can look after himself. If he could survive three months alone in the jungle living off rainwater and insects, he can find his way home on the Chicago L train. You text Simi and tell her you need to see her as a matter of urgency. You are shocked when she agrees to meet you the following day at Bloomingdale’s, where she’ll be helping her goddaughter find a dress for prom. It has been two months since the breakup. Ten months since you’ve seen her in person. Your heart pounds in your chest, and not just in anticipation of seeing her again.

Simi is in danger.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Diamond necklaces, billionaires, Mafia bosses, and student loans—it’s all in a day’s work for Simi Chopra and her ragtag heist crew in the next romantic-comedy caper from Sara Desai.

It’s been a year since Simi Chopra’s motley crew pulled off a high-wire diamond necklace heist with the help of sexy rogue Jack Danger. After living it up on the reward money, they’re back where they started, struggling to pay their bills. So when a Chicago Mafia boss demands they return the jewels—plus interest, or else—they need to get the team back together…and fast.

Unfortunately, Simi soon discovers that the necklace is in the hands of Jack’s nemesis, a highly-skilled and supremely vengeful master thief who is not above a little blackmail to get even. (Did Jack really have to piss her off?) Now, the crew is forced into her working her con in order to get the necklace back.

As if Simi needed any more complications while trying to rob a billionaire’s mansion, she and Jack are on the rocks, someone else is after her score, and a gorgeous detective is hot on her tail. Simi better be careful or she’ll end up in the less fun kind of handcuffs.
Book Links: Amazon |

Meet the Author:

Sara Desai has been a lawyer, radio DJ, marathon runner, historian, bouncer, and librarian. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband, kids, and an assortment of forest creatures who think they are pets. Sara writes sexy romantic comedy and contemporary romance with a multicultural twist. When not laughing at her own jokes, Sara can be found eating nachos.