A Love Affair of Blood and Bourbon in Tiffany Reisz’s The Bourbon Thief

When bar owner Cooper McQueen meets a bombshell dressed in red and takes her to bed, he thinks nothing of it. But the following morning, he finds his most prized possession stolen: a million-dollar bottle of Red Thread Bourbon, the first bottle ever made. When the woman—named Paris—says that the Bourbon is actually her birthright and Cooper never should have had it in the first place, we learn that the story of Red Thread begins and ends with fire and blood.
The conceit of revealing a sordid past history through a third party is familiar territory for Reisz, whose Original Sinners novels often retain a similar structure. Paris deftly weaves past and present with the story of fiery Tamara Maddox, heir apparent to the Red Thread fortune—despite the fact that she’s a woman, which is of deep disappointment to her grandfather, who hoped his son would inherit the riches. But Tamara’s father committed suicide, leaving her and her mother without a future or a home. Defiant, willful and with a heart of gold, Tamara doesn’t want to marry someone her mother and grandfather deem “suitable” by their Kentucky highborn standards; she wants Levi, the groundskeeper and stable boy, who is too old for her—and as we soon learn, an inappropriate choice because of his background. When her mother catches them kissing on her sixteenth birthday, she gives Tamara an ultimatum: Levi goes, or her favorite horse does.

But Tamara refuses to concede to her mother’s demands, which further angers her grandfather, whose horrific retaliation finds Tamara spending the rest of her life seeking vengeance against his memory—and atonement for her sins. It turns out the well of Maddox family darkness only begins there; over the course of the novel, secrets are revealed, truths destroyed, and choices made that have irrevocable consequences.
While this is not a romance novel (the story’s happily ever after is more than tinged with tragedy), there is romance between Tamara and Levi, who reunite later in the novel as part of Tamara’s master plan to secure the Red Thread inheritance. There is also romance in the way Reisz writes; her descriptions of Kentucky are as beautiful and terrible as the history of the place itself. The passion between Tamara and Levi leaps off the page, but their journey is not an easy one. By the time Paris tells Cooper the end of her story, these characters have endured their share of heartbreak, along with beauty and redemption—but we are left wondering whether that will ever be enough for Paris, whose mission to take back the legacy stolen from her family a generation ago has only just begun.
Fans of Reisz’ other romances will surely be along for the ride, but newcomers to her work, be warned: The Bourbon Thief will steal your heart.
The Bourbon Thief is in stores now.