Publication Date: July 8th 2014
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Genre: YA, Fantasy
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Synopsis: Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs.
But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull.
Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.
When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives.
My Rating: 5/5 stars
My Review: I have been anticipating the release of this book ever since I read the prequel called Poison Dance. I instantly fell in love with the author's writing and characters, and I knew that I would love this book. I am extremely happy to say that Midnight Thief way a hundred times better than I ever imagined it would be. It was absolutely perfect, from the characters, all the way down to the world-building.
Kyra is a thief. In a world where the rich take from the poor, Kyra is the "Robin Hood," stealing from the snobby rich folk and giving back to the poor children who live on the streets. When the Assassin's Guild find's Kyra, they are impressed with her, and they make her an offer she can't refuse. Kyra starts working with the guild and starts training as an assassin, but being an assassin and thief are two completely different things.
The story is followed in two points-of-view. We get to see Kyra's perspective as well as Tristam's. From the very start of the book, I instantly fell in love with Kyra. She is such a well-rounded character, you can't help but admire her. She is so caring when it comes to her friends, but she can also be ruthless at times when its important. She is determined to improve herself, she never backs down from a challenge, and takes every opportunity she gets to improve her skills to learn more.
Tristam on the other hand, I had some mixed feelings about. There were definitely some moments in the book where I just wanted to yell at him for a few stupid things he did, but near the end of the book I got an understanding of his character and I couldn't help but be a little impressed with him. Hopefully he manages to impress me even more in the future books.
The romance aspect of this book was definitely the most impressive and surprising part of the book for me. I am so used to reading books with love-triangles or insta-love, I always expect one of them to be in every book I read, and even for a moment I thought this book would have a love-triangle, but it didn't. It's not very often that people in the real world find themselves in love-triangles or fall in love at first sight, most people slowly get feelings for another person, and if that doesn't work out, they move on and end up falling for someone else. This is exactly what happened in this book, Kyra started having feelings for James, but when it was obvious that it wouldn't work out, she ended up moving on, and having feelings for someone else. I absolutely love how the author wrote this part, not only is it very unique, but it's also very realistic to what happens to real people, you can't help but relate to it. Major brownie points, well done.
The writing in this book was fantastic, if you like action in the stories you read, I can guarantee that this is going to be one of those books you just can't put down. I found myself reading till the late hours of the night because I kept saying "One more chapter and then I'll go to bed," about seven or eight times before I actually put the book down. The amount of action, plot twists and hooks this book has just keeps you fully interested from beginning to end.
The world-building of this story is absolutely amazing. We get to see so many different settings in the book. We get to see places like: the forest, the town, the palace, different outskirts and farmlands. But what's even more amazing is that each and every place is described in such a way that you feel like you're actually standing right in the middle of the scene as it happens. We also get a sense of outside Kyra's town from the descriptions of travelling merchants and where they came from. You can definitely tell that the author put in a huge effort for the world-building of the story, and it definitely paid off because it made the story so much better.
Overall, I love pretty much everything in this book. It's going on my favorites shelf. I highly recommend this book and the prequel (Poison Dance) to anyone who loves YA and/or Fantasy books.
If you're interested in reading Poison Dance, it is currently free on Amazon. Just click here to check it out.
-Aneta
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