I have mixed feelings about Geonn Cannon's How to Steal a Star. It's a good concept, and I enjoy the overall story. But --- it just didn't capture my attention fully. I didn't really care.

Sadly just wasn`t for me, Margot was okay but that was just it - i didn`t really care about her or the other characters...it was just...boring?

How to Steal a Star takes a very different concept and builds on it with interesting, strong women at the center. Author Geonn Cannon does a great job at crafting this story and keeps it moving along quite well.

I enjoyed this read a good bit and look forward to reading other items from Cannon

Loved it! I was skeptical at first because the description of the book was vague in the "romance" aspect. Needless to say, I was hooked from the start. Giving the reader a glimpse into Margot's beginning was a perfect opening for the series of events that followed.

I also loved how empowering the novel is. Seven strong women with different skill sets who come together for a mission of a lifetime?! You can't get any better than that! It's like Oceans Eleven but better. I can actually picture something like this happening in real life. There is sad history of the exploitation of women scientists. How To Steal a Star is an homage to those women.

The romance was a sweet bonus. Margot and Colleen are both women with stolen dreams with something to prove. They relate well to each other and are very loyal. You start 3/4 through the book that their dreams start to shift when the realize their feelings for each other. All in all, they are dedicated to helping each other achieve the others goal at all costs even if it meant sacrificing their own self.

I look forward to more!

Margot Sullivan is a would-be astronaut who misses her window to go to space. 10 years later, an opportunity, albeit a crazy one, along with a good looking scientist comes knocking on her door.

This book is not about women in space nor is it SciFi unless you’re casting a very wide net. Instead, the story is about a group of women getting a second chance to make a dream come true. First of all, you really have to suspend disbelief from beginning to end.

At the fifty percent mark, I thought I was just about fed up. The story meandered and I’ll be honest, I was salty about not getting the blurb-promised sci-fi book. This is instead a heist book. I’m not a fan of heist stories and if that had been mentioned in the blurb, I would have passed.

What I did enjoy was the chemistry between Margot and Colleen, the scientist. They had good banter and there were some steamy scenes. They ended up caring about each other so I did too. The secondary characters were literally the Professor, the Soldier, and others, so not memorable. I did like the last third of the book as it revved up the story to a high energy conclusion. FYI, this book is a sort of sequel to Can You Hear Me? or at least in the same universe but can be read as a stand-alone. I didn’t read the first one and it didn’t seem to matter.

If you’re into heist books with a Thelma and Louise vibe plus lite NASA thrown in, then you might like this one.

Fast, exciting, - follow your dreams, overcome o obstacles, find love. This book has something for everyone.

Margot has wanted to go to space for as long as she can remember - she even makes it through NASA's rigorous training. And then, her mission is permanently scrubbed. Who is she without the dream of space?

Colleen, mad skilled genius engineer - she has different dreams for space until the military shelves her revolutionary design for space travel.

Bring together a group of women willing to do anything to prove their dreams, to reclaim their passion - and you have a book you want to read straight through in one sitting.

This book by Cannon is unfortunately not one of her best. Even though I liked the premise of an astronaut who missed her shot going into space being able.to get a second chance after a dubious offer it felt a bit off. Maybe because it was 't clear what this book was supposed to be...a romance? Not enough connection and chemistry between the main characters to really be a great romance book. A sci fi / thriller? A way too unbelievable plot to really get into the book. So for me it fell a little flat and I couldn't place it, I enjoyed the read, but wouldn't read it again and wouldn't recommend this book by Cannon if this would be your first book by this author.

***An ARC was provided by Netgalley in exchange for a honest review ***

3.50 Stars. This was an entertaining read. I’ve been a fan of Cannon for a while and have read over a dozen of his books. I love anything about maybe going into space, so I had some high hopes on this one. Unfortunately, this was not one of my favorites by Cannon, but I did still like the read.

This is a story about doing anything to reach your dream, even if it puts you in real danger and probable arrest. I liked the general theme of the book quite a bit. I enjoy books were women have STEM jobs and I really liked how positive this book was towards women scientists. I found the book to be very readable and I was entertained from beginning to end. There were a few errors and continuity issues, but I think they were really proof reading issues where the wrong names were used causing something to not make sense. My copy was an early ARC copy so these types of issues are to be expected so this didn’t affect my rating and I expect the final released copy to be nice and clean.

I do want to make clear that this story is a little out there. What this group of women do if fun to read about, but you have to really suspend disbelief. If you go into this book trying to take it too seriously, you will miss out on the fun. It’s the kind of book you just have to go with the flow and be okay with things even when they are pretty unbelievable.

The reason why I had some issues with this book was the writing style choices Cannon used. Most of the book is third person, but only one POV. Third person- one POV drives me nuts! The whole point of third person is to enjoy the POV of both main characters. I get why Cannon wanted to be in Margot’s POV most of the time, but then give us a wonderful first person story. Let us into her head so we can really know what it’s like to be a pilot and an astronaut. Instead, the psychic distance to both main characters felt too far away and I couldn’t connect like I wanted to. Both main characters were perfect nice, and I wished them well, but I didn’t care for them the way I cared about other characters of Cannon’s –like Claire Lance for instance-.

There is a romance and I liked it, but it was missing something for me since I could not connect to the characters like I wanted. The characters had some decent chemistry, and they made a cute potential couple, but there was just something missing so it was about an average romance. Nothing that blew me away, but it was pleasant to read about.

While this would not be the first Cannon book that I would recommend to people, if you like books about women scientists, and dreaming about space, you might enjoy this story. As long as you let your imagination run free, and don’t take things too seriously, you should find this to at least be an entertaining read.

Engineers, astronauts, and a heist. A spoiler-free review.

How To Steal A Star is one of Cannon's better works. It takes place in the same world as Can You Hear Me?, but reading that book is not necessary to understand this one. I do recommend it though, on its own merits.

The characters are strong and distinct. The plot pacing is good. It keeps moving you along. I think it reads like a movie in that regard.

I really like Colleen. She says the "wrong thing" a lot, but it is never actually the wrong thing. She is blunt and seems to not really grasp how social situations work. None of the other characters judge her for this. It's just the way she is. To me, she reads as neuroatypical, which I don't think was necissarily the intention. But it felt authentic and allowed me to relate to her character in ways I wasn't expecting.

This book doesn't have quite as many humorous moments as some of the author's other works, but they are still there.

How To Steal A Star is definitely worth a read.

I enjoyed it, but something just doesn’t sit right with me.

Margot lost her chance to go to space a decade ago when ISS dropped. Now she is turning 40 and owns her own “airline”. She flies Cessnas over the Rocky Mountains but doesn’t enjoy how privileged she actually is. She has been on standby for a mission that will never come. Until Colleen pops up, a former army employee who is an actual rocket scientist. She has grand and illegal plans to get Margot into space and her engine from the government.

Margot accepts Colleen’s offer and she moves in with her to be there while they work on the spaceship. And this is where it starts to fall apart for me. The premise and the idea behind this story are fun and make sense, but when they start living together and working on their project it is just somewhat childish in my opinion. These women are in their thirties or forties and they act like teenagers. Even their project, it is just so ridiculous, building a rocket in a barn from military scraps, it’s almost like a high school project. I appreciate the characters communicating, but what doesn’t make sense is Margot seems close to her dad, until she moves to the Garage. Zero contact between Margot and her dad and Margot and her friends. It’s just odd.

I like the idea behind the story, but not so much how it is executed.

Interesting premise. Quite liked the story but thought their would be more space travel in it and less building of spaceship. So was a bit disappointed there. Otherwise it was a likeable enough read.