Beautiful Criminals

A Novel

By: Eric Tipton, Susanna Rosenblum

Narrated by: Madeleine Maby

For fans of the Spellman Files comes an irreverent family drama about love, crime, and the ties that bind as three generations of women attempt to go straight…or not.

When Amanda Cooper steps foot out of jail, she’s determined to never go back. Two years behind bars means she’s missed her daughter, Taylor, turning into a teenager, and she doesn’t want to lose another moment with her. But as a convicted con artist, Amanda has few options for getting out of Los Angeles and securing her dream life: predictable, boring, and bordered by a white picket fence. The trouble is Amanda’s not the only one with a con. At every step of the way, someone is trying to pull her back into the game.

In her first attempt to go straight, Amanda takes a dead end retail job. But she soon discovers that her boss, Russ, is stealing from his employers by the truckload—and wants Amanda in on his crooked plan. Then Amanda gets roped in by FBI Agent Stevens, who reveals another startling truth: Amanda’s mom, Joyce, and her lover, Bruce, are involved in a scheme that smuggles military arms to a cartel. If Amanda can get the FBI agent the information he needs, Joyce will get off scot-free…but if she doesn’t, they’ll all go to the cooler.

As Amanda maneuvers and manipulates her way towards some semblance of freedom, she can only win the game by changing the rules. But along the way she takes her eyes off the prize: Taylor. Given her family history, Taylor can’t help but get into her own brand of trouble. Just as Amanda’s new life is within reach, she realizes that her final gamble might mean losing everything.

Lazy writing

At first I wasn’t sure if it was how the speaker was saying certain things or if it was the actual writing; but the more I listened the more I realized that it was just lazy writing. Literally nothing happens in this story until 2/3 of the way through and even then it’s anticlimactic. The descriptions of characters and the protagonists narration is unnecessarily sexual and its extremely cringy to listen to. You know you’re in for a poor description of characters and plot when a love interest is first described as looking like a “lumber-sexual” without any other context or physical description.

Every element of the story seems like it was all thrown together without and context or explanations. If the plot doesn’t go anywhere for the first TWELVE CHAPTERS then it’s not a good story.