Rachel Koller Croft is an author and screenwriter in Los Angeles, where she has scripted projects for Blumhouse, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Comedy Central, among others. She lives by the beach with her husband, Charles, and their rescue pit bull, Juniper. Stone Cold Fox is her first novel. You can find her online at RachelKollerCroft.com or on Instagram and Twitter @RachKollerCroft.
Like any enterprising woman, Bea knows what she's worth and determined to get all she deserves—it just so happens that what she deserves is to marry rich. Filthy rich. After years of forced instruction by her mother in the art of swindling men, a now-solo Bea wants nothing more than to close and lock the door on that sordid partnership so she can disappear safely into old-money domesticity, sealing the final phase of her escape. When Bea chooses her ultimate target in the fully loaded, thoroughly dull, and blue-blooded Collin Case, she's ready to deploy all of her tricks one last time. The challenge isn't getting the ring, but rather the approval of Collin's family and everyone else in their 1 percent tax bracket—particularly his childhood best friend, Gale Wallace-Leicester. Going toe-to-toe with Gale isn't a treat to an expert like Bea, but what begins as an amusing cat-and-mouse game quickly develops into a dangerous pursuit of the grisly truth. Finding herself at a literal life-and-death crossroads with everything on the line, Bea must finally decide who she really wants to be. Like mother, like daughter?
The best thing about Stone Cold Fox is how addictive a read it is. I read it front to back in less than 24 hours, and every time I put it down, I couldn't wait to pick it up again. The narrative is fast-paced because Bea's voice is so strong, and it pulls you right into her head. However, she still maintains a distance between the reader, and you can't fully trust her. I love unreliable narrators, and because I never knew what she was going to do next, I wanted to keep reading to find out.
The story alternates between the present and flashbacks of Bea's childhood. These chapters are set up well to build suspense about Bea's background, and how she came to be where she is now. Since Bea hardly reveals anything to the narrator, it's interesting to get her childhood voice to cut into the narrative to share those details. In both the past and present, I love Bea's voice. She is sassy and snappy and knows exactly how to get what she wants in the present, which is contrasted nicely with her childhood voice, the girl she used to be always trying to gain her mother's approval.
I also enjoyed the commentary on female friendships and how women have to work twice as hard to get half as much as men, especially in the world that Bea is trying to penetrate. She has such a candid way of explaining her world view, and because it was so sharp, she pulls no punches about the sexism she experiences and the frustrations of being a woman. Bea, and Koller Croft, put to words a universal experience for women, which was refreshing and made Bea such a fun character to spend time with, reliable or not.
I wished the ending was more developed! I felt like it was rather rushed, and I wasn't as surprised as I wanted to be by the twists of the story because of that. The twists were also rather predictable as well, since there was only really one way out of the bind Bea was in. I also wanted to feel like the trouble for Bea wasn't past just because of what happened to Gale. Overall, I was a little underwhelmed by the ending, but it was such a fun reading experience.
I definitely will be keeping my eyes open for more from Koller Croft. This was definitely a bookstagram made me do it read, and I'm so glad that it caught my eye. I loved the cover, I loved the writing, and I'm curious about this genre of book now that I'm interested in trying some more. If you have any recommendations, send it my way!
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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