A high-stakes romantic thriller wrapped in luxury, loss, and deadly secrets…
A glamorous, unabashedly sentimental spy novel set in the glittering ski resorts of St. Moritz, Sloan’s third installment of The Chasing Cleopatra Chronicles offers danger, desire, and a heroine whose purple eyes have seen both luxury and trauma. At the heart of the story is the elegant, complicated Cleopatra Gallier—mother, former spy, and reluctant romantic—who reunites with not one but two men from her past: Jake, the father of her daughter and now a CIA agent, and Sergei, a devastatingly handsome Russian polo player with a tragic secret. One reunion is fraught with unfinished business; the other ignites a love affair as swift and intense as a black diamond descent.
Sloan doesn’t just offer up fantasy (though there’s plenty of that in the moonlit skiing, fur-lined coats, and lavish soirées). Beneath the faux furs and Fabergé lies a deeper emotional terrain. Cleo’s relationship with her father Didier, a charming, mysterious, and quietly menacing man, draws her back into the world of global intelligence. Meanwhile, a parallel plot follows Vera, a lonely widow transforms grief into an elaborate revenge plot using two actors and a pair of very expensive Blackphones. It’s espionage by way of amateur theater, and it works surprisingly well. The novel flourishes with cultural detail—from Russian literature and the tang of Chanel No. 5 to ski slang and the subtle geopolitics of polo tournaments. Sloan writes with elegance and mischief, often turning the story into a chess game itself: each move calculated, each interaction layered with meaning.
Sloan’s prose sparkles with high-society flair while still making room for pain, memory, and reckoning. There’s rape, loss, betrayal, but also beauty, resilience, and the thrill of being truly seen. The bond between Cleo and Sergei feels both grandly romantic and emotionally earned. Add in Cleo’s young daughter Zelli (a future heartbreaker already learning to ski), and the stakes become both global and intimate. Even when the plot leans into indulgence or improbability, Sloan grounds it with emotional sincerity and characters who wear their heartbreak as elegantly as their couture. This is a snow-dusted, perfume-spritzed tale of love, loss, and revenge, with enough satin, secrets, and sentiment to satisfy fans of romantic intrigue.
Readers who enjoy their thrillers laced with secrets, sentiment, and style will find much to savor here.
Pub date July 5, 2024
Publisher Tati Khan
ISBN 978-1733057783
Price $19.99 (USD) Paperback, $9.99 Kindle edition
