Synopsis

Thirteen years ago, monsters emerged from the shadows and plunged Kierse’s world into a cataclysmic war of near-total destruction. The New York City she knew so well collapsed practically overnight. In the wake of that carnage, the Monster Treaty was created. A truce...of sorts.

But tonight, Kierse―a gifted and fearless thief―will break that treaty. She’ll enter the Holly Library...not knowing it’s the home of a monster. He’s charming. Quietly alluring. Terrifying. But he knows talent when he sees it; it’s just a matter of finding her price.

Now she’s locked into a dangerous bargain with a creature unlike any other. She’ll sacrifice her freedom. She’ll offer her skills. Together, they’ll put their own futures at risk.

But he’s been playing a game across centuries―and once she joins in, there will be no escape...

*Blurb taken from Goodreads

Review

Characters: Kierse provides readers with a fierce FMC who knows where her loyalties lie and will make risky moves to save herself and her friends. I loved the strength portrayed through her character and the way she’s always working multiple plans at once. Which tracks, since she’s a professional thief and prides herself on knowing her exits. And we actually see Kierse in action. Her talents are completely validated. I truly enjoyed our FMC due to her wit, loyalties, strength. I especially liked that she didn’t cave to the whims of the love interest, or put her own goals aside for his. What did lack in her character was the exploration of her trauma. It very nearly becomes a plot device used to create sympathy in the reader, and doesn’t seem to have the kind of lasting mental/emotional effects expected from the level of abuse indicated.

Graves makes for an intriguing MMC, and he could have been a great love interest if the relationship had been built better. He’s a multi-faceted character who views the world similarly to Kierse. They both hold multiple cards in their hand at one time, and they don’t trust anyone enough to consider them a true partner. He’s respectful, but distant, and certainly plays into the mystery of his role as a warlock. We get enough tidbits of his history to keep me interested, though there was so much happening in this novel that it felt like one subplot out of dozens.

The secondary characters have been fleshed out enough to feel well-rounded, though the amount of them load down the text. I appreciated the way Kierse and her two best friends had a preexisting relationship that continued to develop on page. It was a necessary addition considering the importance put on their bond at the end of the book.

Craft: Like much of what I’ve seen come out of Red Tower recently, this was written slightly better than a first draft. Don’t get me wrong—I still read this in two days. But it needed at least two more rounds of developmental edits, followed by a thorough combing by a line editor. Simple things, like starting every sentence in a single paragraph with “She [action]” bogged down the prose. (Ex: She did this. She ran here. She saw that.) A slew of basic edits should have occurred, but didn’t. And they did wear on the text, making it clunky. The dialogue came across as inorganic, which gave certain interactions a forced quality. I could go on. And, again, it didn’t slow my reading down by any means, but it was unremarkable and had me wincing on multiple occasions.

Plot: This started off strong, with a heist concept and a slight Beauty and the Beast nod. However, as the plot progressed, the story got lost in the multitude of sublots. Again, this fell into a trend that I’ve seen in a lot of my high-market fantasy reads of late: it tried to do to much. Rather than following a main plot, with perhaps two or three subplots and a flurry of threads to be picked up later, we’re bombarded by side quests. So much so that I couldn’t tell you who the main antagonist is. I know who it should be. King Louie, leader of the Men of Valor. Except, he doesn’t get much page time, nor does he pose much of a threat at all when finally confronted. It was all very … convenient. So, who was the antagonist? The Oak King? The Holly King? King Louie? Kierse’s lost memories and forgotten heritage? All of them? It’s hard to say.

Plus we get the issues with the monster treaty, the existence of magic, the feuding gangs, the wish dust drug, the battle between summer and winter, the semi-love-triangle with Keirse and the kings—takes deep breath—the extinction of the Fae, the new trinity with Kierse and her friends (who are parting ways), etc. And each of these paths gets explored enough to make it a new road, not simply alluded to with the promise to return to it later. The directions we get stretched in become painful, and they leave gaping plot holes. In fact, this became so disjointed that I lost interest in the storyline and don’t plan on reading the rest of the series. Especially with so many wonderful books out there that have a focus on Irish folklore and mythology.

Romance: Oof. I was so in this one at the beginning. Graves and Kierse have the means to be compatible due to the way they see the world and weave through it. The lust, I could buy, but the emotional connection didn’t hit. It felt as though space in this installment ran out, and the build of intimacy turned into an insta-love trope to force a completed relationship, that way there will be conflict and tension in book two with the increased presence of the Oak King.

We also get a clear interest between Kierse and the Oak King, though that isn’t explored much in this book. At the end, a past love between them get alluded to. After Kierse and Graves’s meh relationship here, I’m really not interested in a half-shot love triangle.

What hurts is that I think Kierse and Graves could have been built into a strong relationship. But because this book had so much going on, everything—including the romance—got rushed towards the end.

(The spicy scenes also weren’t my cup of tea. I can’t quite pin down why. Maybe the dialogue? I’m leaning toward that, but it wasn’t just the dialogue and I can’t figure out what else made me breeze through them with a detached interest.)

World Build/Magic System: The concept of a post-apocalyptic world being rebuilt after a monster treaty had me hooked from the start! And the beginning of the novel promised a well-developed execution of this premise. We do get some backstory regarding the war and the vampire leader whose death brought on the treaty. Beyond that, however, I don’t feel that we dive into this setting. Instead, the plot takes a turn to focus on Irish mythology and a past feud between the Holly King and the Oak King. It’s not that these two can’t coexist in a single plotline, so much as that, by having both, the story gets split and we don’t receive well-rounded development of either.

So far as the magic system, I’m not even sure how to explain it, other than to say it’s specified to each individual and that, for some unknown reason, it was important to the monster treaty that magic didn’t actually exist. The reason why never gets explored, but Kierse returns to that detail often throughout the text. I can’t even call the magic here a full “system”, seeing as we learn so little about it despite Kierse getting lessons from Graves. What makes things more complicated is the fact that our FMC isn’t a Warlock at all, but a (previously thought eradicated) Wisp. Which is why her magic didn’t seem to follow the tasks he was giving her.

Overall Thoughts: I found this to be a fun read with some different concepts. However it fell back on common fantasy tropes without leaning into the “post monster-apocalypse” hook that enticed me to begin with. Many of the obstacles faced by our FMC were resolved in convenient Hail Mary’s, especially with concern to the attention/affection of Graves and The Oak King (I already forgot his name, and I don’t have a physical copy to refresh my memory). Disjointed and with an ending that had my nose wrinkled, I found this fun in the moment, a letdown in the conclusion, and less than memorable a day later. As I mentioned above, I don’t plan to follow up on this series.

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