Petty Theft

Book excerpt: A hilarious romantic comedy about kleptomania and booklovers Pascal is in a bad place. He and his longtime girlfriend have just broken up, he's got writer's block, and when he goes out for a run to ease his frazzled nerves, he falls and injures his back so badly that he's strictly forbidden from running. What's an endorphin-loving cartoonist to do? In a bid to distract himself, Pascal throws himself into his other pleasure: reading. And while at the bookstore one day, he spies a young woman picking up his own book. But then she darts out of the shop without paying. Bemused, he decides to figure out why she did it. Petty Theft is a comedy of errors, a laugh-out-loud account of a man on a mission, and a testament to the addictiveness of book ownership. Pascal Girard intermingles an all-too-true-to-life snapshot of contemporary relationships with slapstick trials and dryly funny tribulations in this delightfully readable book. From the award-winning author of Reunion, Petty Theft is a deftly told, finely drawn contemporary romance that will keep booklovers on the edge of their seats from the first page until the denouement.