Wondrous, mysterious, delightful.

As much as I love an epic fantasy, I’m also captured by the stories that have a more centred setting with unique magic systems - a cosy read vibe. This was perhaps adjacent to that, an urban fantasy - Seattle in 1929 on the edge of the financial crash, but with magic. An adventurous slow heist, difficulties of discrimination - especially from law enforcement, with some dangerous characters.

Some of the following points I first felt may be a negative, but reflecting on them it showed the true genius of the author with a dare to be a bit different. This story is quite twisty, so not much more should be said past the blurb, it’s a thrilling ride - but for the qualities of the book…

Time was a devious little aspect of this book, along with story lines which converge. It builds mystery and surprise. Increasingly you’d think you understood the plot, but the next chapter would flit about the timeline to an earlier event, to reveal the previous chapters had more at play than first appeared. It’s a novella, so as long as you’ve got a physical copy the flick between chapters headings (they state where in the timeline they are), it’s pretty easy to keep up.

It can be good to leave a few mysteries to forever be wondered once a book is put down. And this novella did that.

Therefore, I would love to know what Gabe was actually prepared to trade for his tattoo machine. Or what really happened when Comeuppance/Dolly was with the faeries and her whole story in general.

I often wish more books wouldn’t always turn any detail into a plot point. It can hint to readers where a story might be going, or be used to usefully push a plot in a desired direction or just lack reality. This book had a moment where it didn’t take the obvious book narrative plot decision, and I’m thankful for that.

Philippe and his forgotten clothes were funny and also tense. The reader would presume he’d go back for them, so not to stand out while navigating the streets back to Violet with Gabe. With the switching of narrative povs, it left me with suspended tension. But no, instead we got a giggle out of the imagery and Violet’s exasperated reaction.

And Fiona’s true character plot and her true qualities, were a delight. One I noted the author credited the need to develop Fiona into a character and not just a plot device, to crime novelist David Corbett who read her first chapter.

This story was very much centred nearly totally on the events around this job Dolly was undertaking. There were merely mentions of problems with a previous job and we closed the book on her travels towards her next adventure. This was a choice, and one I respect, and makes her character even more intriguing.

But some things weren’t explain brilliantly, or didn’t make sense, and I was left with some questions.

Going back to Dolly, the brief details we had on her previous job and how it linked to this one, I didn’t fully understand. Becoming another character for this job was one thing, by making herself appear poorer than her last identify - but willingly wasting so much of her money by making a awful trade on a dress, while having to frugally ration meals was bizarre.

There was the building mentions and references to what happened when Dolly was taken by the faeries, which was always vague. But that appeared a deliberate choice, as to put the reader in the same unsuredness the citizens had of these - believed but still folk law - stories. But if she had a heart was a question asked and never really answered, apart from maybe hints that she was growing/gaining a soul?

Unfortunately, there were some writing errors; of sentences and speech not making great sense, it not always being specified which characters said each remark, and on one occasion I found a duplicated couple of words.

The first few chapters in, I worried this novella would struggle to portray a complex and rich story. And while descriptions weren’t the most detailed due to the limited pages… This book really made a marvel of a story. The characters were all unique, and I surprisingly eventually found a familiarity and growing warmth towards the likeable ones.