Historical Fiction · Free kit
The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau
At eighty-nine, Boston jewel thief Colette Marceau has spent a lifetime following her mother Annabel’s code: take only from the cruel and unkind, give to those who need it. Across decades she has quietly redirected fortunes — including toward the Boston Center for Holocaust Education — while the world believes she is merely a glamorous eccentric. When twin butterfly bracelets from 1927 Paris surface in a museum loan, Colette and her protégé Aviva are pulled into a dual-timeline mystery that reaches back to Resistance work, a child lost in the Seine, and a sister who may not be dead after all.
“We do not steal for ourselves. We take from those who have taken too much — and we give where the law will not.”
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The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau Icebreakers
Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.
Personality Reveal
1. Are you more likely to return a wallet untouched, or mentally calculate whether the owner “deserves” to get it back?
Personality Reveal
2. When you learn a rule your family lived by, do you inherit it automatically — or interrogated it first?
Personality Reveal
3. At a museum, are you the person who reads every placard — or the person who goes straight to whatever sparkles?
Funny & Light
4. What’s the most “main character” outfit you’ve worn to something that absolutely did not require it?
Funny & Light
5. If your life were a heist movie, what mundane skill would improbably save the day?
Funny & Light
6. What’s a luxury you would steal back from the universe if karma worked like a jewelry vault?
Would You Rather
7. Would you rather have one perfect heirloom piece of jewelry with a story — or a closet full of forgettable stuff?
Would You Rather
8. Would you rather live in elegant Paris for a year with constant danger — or quiet Boston for a year with excellent bakeries?
Would You Rather
9. Would you rather be famous for generosity nobody knows you funded — or famous for taste everyone comments on?
Hot Take
10. Hot take: museums should return any object with a murky wartime provenance, even if the exhibit collapses. Defend or destroy.
Hot Take
11. Hot take: “found family” is just friendship with better PR. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
12. Hot take: it’s never too late for a first serious romance. True or false?
Personal Connection
13. Name a cause you would secretly fund if you suddenly had untraceable millions.
Personal Connection
14. What’s one family story you’re not sure is fully true — but you love it anyway?
Personal Connection
15. Have you ever felt like you were living under a name or role that didn’t quite fit? No need to share details — just yes, no, or “complicated.”