Release Date: September 20th, 2022

Genre(s): Young adult fiction, Fantasy

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Pages: 384

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Content Warnings:

Death, Death of a parent, murder, violence/gore

Thank you to Fierce Reads and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced finished copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis

Twin thieves attempt to pull off a daring heist in Stolen City, the sophomore fantasy novel from Dauntless author Elisa A. Bonnin.

The city of Leithon is under Imperial occupation and Arian Athensor has made it her playground.

In stealing magical artifacts for the Resistance, bounding over rooftops to evade Imperial soldiers, and establishing herself as the darling thief of the underground, Arian lives a life wrapped in danger and trained towards survival. She’ll steal anything for the right price, and if she runs fast enough, she can almost escape the fact that her mother is dead, her father is missing, and her brother, Liam, is tamping down a wealth of power in a city that has outlawed magic.

But then the mysterious Cavar comes to town with a job for the twins: to steal an artifact capable of ripping the souls from the living–the same artifact that used to hang around the neck of Arian’s mother. Suddenly, her past is no longer buried under adrenaline but intimately tied to the mission at hand, and Arian must face her guilt and pain head-on in order to pull off the heist.

As Arian and Cavar infiltrate the strongest fortress in Leithon and Liam joins the Resistance as their resident mage, the twins find themselves embroiled in court politics and family secrets, and the mission becomes more than just another artifact theft. The target is now the Imperial rule, and Arian will go to any length necessary to steal her city back.

GenresFantasy

Review

I love a good heist novel. Who doesn’t? There’s so much potential when it comes to meeting the characters involved, the planning, and holding out for that great execution at the end. Stolen City is one of those novels, artfully combining its story with a unique urban fantasy setting.

A big element of heist novels is plotting out the heist itself, and the pace of this novel definitely reflects that. I’d tend to recommend this book more to those who would prefer a slower-paced novel, as this one does take some time to set things up. But as a result, you have a rich story and world to become immersed in.

The characters’ motivations and interactions with each other were really well-done as well. But this book also included a lot of perspectives, which I personally thought made the book a little more complicated than it needed to be in terms of telling the story and character development. This tends to be a preference for me, however – other readers may not mind this.

Overall, Stolen City was a solid sophomore novel. This is not only a good pick for readers who enjoy Grishaverse, but also urban fantasy series like Renegades.

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