mousereads's Reviews (2.14k)

the romance crashed and burned this book for me.

I was bored so I stopped paying total attention and now I'm not sure what happened so I'm gonna watch the movie lol

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.

Thank you to netgalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

This book takes you on several different, dark, paths. It makes you unsure as to who is, and even when you think you know, there are still pieces missing.

I enjoyed this book, for the most part. However, I found the main couple incredibly unlikeable. Scarlett, despite having a past that would perhaps validate many of the choices she made in the past, was smug. She regularly acted as though she were better than the other women in the group. Ed was the worst husband ever, and he never got any better. The ending was a bit too tidy for my liking, and by the time I got to the epilogue, I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

The journey to the ending is what gets this book three stars, but the ending and the unlikeable characters took the other two away. I wanted to enjoy this book more, but I just didn't.

Read full review: here.
The adventure of trying to discover who done it, and why, was fun. This secret agent aspect of the gods and how that team fell apart brought a fun twist to things. While the world building was not as thorough as some, the fast pace of this book felt like it excused that. The entire time, I was on the edge of my seat needing to know- what happens next?

Admittedly, things became predictable as the story moved along. Without spoiling anything, about 50% into the book, I had figured out who had done what. That didn’t take away from my enjoyment, it just made me want to see how the author fleshed this out. I would like more from this as a series, perhaps with more world building and various other myths brought into the storylines.

I found all the characters interesting to read about, although, Sedna was much more interesting to read on than her very mortal daughter Cairn. Perhaps a prequel would make this entire thing just fantastic.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read more from Karsten.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.