Ever since the first Heist Society book was published in February of 2010 readers have been asking if characters from the Heist books would ever run into the Gallagher Girls.
At first, I was pretty skeptical about this. What voice would it be in? Whose point of view would I use? Why would these two groups ever cross paths? And, most of all, how could I write a story that could stand apart from the individual series? (In other words, not spoil people for GG5 or GG6 or Heist 3).
It wasn’t that I didn’t see potential in the idea; it was more that I just wasn’t sure how to execute a crossover between two totally different worlds. But the idea did intrigue me. And the more time that passed the more the question kept coming up over and over again.
In the meantime, digital publishing (eBooks) has become a bigger and bigger part of our industry. Also, I kept hearing from writer friends about the fun short stories that they were working on that they were going to make available as eStories.
Well, that seemed like a great idea! But what to write?
It was then that I was talking with my friend Jennifer Lynn Barnes who mentioned that she had always wanted to see what Hale and Macey would be like if they ever crossed paths, and I had it! After all, they do come from similar worlds. It would make sense that they would hobnob at some fancy charity party with their parents. And what if that party went horribly, horribly wrong and these two strangers had to work together to save the day?
Well, I pitched the idea to my editor at Disney-Hyperion and immediately everyone there got on board. We decided to make the story available for free as a thank you to readers and booksellers, and we went to work–hoping to have it up and ready before Heist Society 3, Perfect Scoundrels, was in stores.
I really hope you enjoy this “Spies and Thieves” story. Will there be others? Maybe. I can’t say for certain right now, but I can say that I had an absolute blast writing this, and I really hope you all enjoy it as well.