This book is only 300 pages but felt so much longer. It took me such a long time to read. There was so much potential but it just… didn’t really deliver. I was pulled in firstly, by the gorgeous Alphonse Mucha-inspired cover art. Secondly, by the promise of a magical heist set partly in a world inspired by belle epoque Paris and partly in a magical fae realm while also featuring a sapphic love story. What more could you want? To actually feel invested in the story, it seems. It has a lot of things I should like but it just wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. I feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record because I’ve had this issue with the last 3 books I’ve read. There’s just something missing that makes me not really connect to the characters and story. 

What I did really appreciate about this story was the vibes. Esme and Sybil living in a clock tower surrounded by books, old clocks and numerous cats, Esme wanting a quiet cottage to live a peaceful life with those cats, a Moulin Rouge-inspired club with patrons getting drunk on absinthe, a magical fae kingdom, dragons, queer people, queer fae, mutual queer pining, the MC’s (literally) being “roommates”. But that’s mostly what this story was, vibes. A lot of potential, but very mediocre execution 😣