Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

We follow Nina, "the Black Cat", a part of the Thieves' Guild, as she tries to save little Ettie from the Tiger. The separate guilds and the way the courts were fleshed out was incredibly interesting, and, really carried the majority of the book for me. The story though? Not so much.

Let me talk about the biggest issue I have with this book- and that's the time skip at about 75% into the book. We go so far ahead that I no longer had any idea what was going on. It was jarring, for one, and it took me a moment to get back into the story. I was really enjoying the adventure and trying to see how this all ended and then….that happened. Which gave me time to realize the things I didn't really love about the book.

Insert some spoiler-y beef I also have with this book:

Spoiler

When the book starts, Nina is relatively innocent as her sister sends her away. Her sister does this to keep her from being sold to the Guild of Flesh. Nina then swears herself to the Guild of Thieves. She also says she plans to rescue her sister. She…never does and essentially trades her sister's rescue for keeping Ettie safe. HUH?

I'll be transparent here, I've never seen Les Mis, and I also don't know anything about French history. So I cannot compare this book to any of those things. The three love interests were unnecessary, and a bit distracting. This book had a lot of possibilities, but its flaws really dragged it down heavily.