Review copy provided by the publisher.
This is a heist novel with a bit of magic in it. I want to distinguish this, because if you are hoping for a fantasy novel with a heist in it, you will be disappointed. This is not a book that intends to go deep into its magic theory, spending pages upon pages on how the magic works, who gets it and why, how they develop it, how they apply it, any of that. No. This is a book that looked at heist movies and said, I want a one of those. But with some magic.
Want that? You’ve got it. It’s got the bit where you find out the job, the bit where you get the team together, the bit where it’s all a little wobbly. It’s got a cute dog, a love triangle, a fancy gala, a really sketchy customer, and a terribly fraught emotional backstory to complicate the whole thing. It’s got the supply run and picking out the dress for the gala and the point where you think it can’t work but it has and the point where you’re sure it has worked and it hasn’t. It has all the things you want in a heist. Also the cute dog is not harmed in the making of this book.
But notice that those things were not the magic training sequence, the wise wizard mentor, the cool spell, or any of the other genre furniture for fantasy. Okay? Because this is a heist book, with some fantasy elements. Dani Poissant and her border collie Sunflower are absolutely here for your art theft needs. (I really, really like Sunflower.)