Books with Quirky, Cunning, Kinda Fucked-Up Heroines

Plus guys who are sexy, smart, and something special, but never the only thing that matters

What Thieves and Artists Know

Coming Fall 2025

Behind the flawless face is a girl who wishes she could go back in time...

Nineteen-year-old Mandy has plenty of options when it comes to her makeup; not so many when it comes to her life. In theory, she's stripping so she can save up to start her own beauty business. In reality, she has barely any money left after taking care of the bills, and her sick mom, and her sister in prison. Just when her hope is running low, she bumps into Grip, a small-time drug dealer she's known of for years. He tells her he has a plan for the two of them. If it goes wrong, they'll both end up behind bars. But if it goes right, they'll each walk away with enough cash to invest in their businesses and lift their families out of poverty once and for all.

His tattoos tell the story of a man racing towards a future that's nothing like the present...

Of course Mandy lusts after Grip's soft, unsmiling lips and the muscles shifting beneath his inked-up skin. What makes it even worse is the fact that he seems to understand her in a way that only another hustler could. Falling for him would be hard not to do, if Mandy didn't have a secret plan all her own.

All the women in her family have ended up broke and crying over some man.

She vows to be the first who isn't broke and crying, period. If heartlessly scheming is what it takes to get her there, so be it, she tells herself.

And then she goes and makes one bad decision that threatens to destroy not just her plans, but life as she knows it.

a poster-style image of a youngish white woman with long hair and glasses

Jozie Jewelz is the pen name of a Northeast Ohio-dwelling reader, writer, web developer, and mother of one cool young human (who would like to share the space-themed math game he helped design with any elementary school-aged humans you have in your life!)