CW: Loss of loved ones, torture, homophobia during historical sections of novel, quite emotional death scene.

4.5 Stars

Well after a confusing start this ended up being a brilliant fantasy heist story.

This novel began with some very loose world building and skipped around different story threads. My interest was waning quickly. It was at about the 30% mark that everything fell into place and from that point I was absolutely hooked. It is an incredibly full cast of characters which may not appeal to some Readers as you get thrown around across time and between perspectives. However, the tie up of all these threads is phenomenal and worth the earlier head scratching. The characters were diverse and engaging. I thoroughly recommend this book for those who love complex fantasy stories. I suggest having book 2 lined up though because the ending feels more like a beginning if that makes sense. I can honestly say I loved this. ( )

My heart beats for Harte ( )

4,5 stars
Amazing writing and story! I really enjoyed reading about 1900's New York and all magic around the city. The story had a lot of plot twists, some of them predictable and some not so much.

Esta, a magician capable of bend time, travels to different locations and timelines to collect different magical artifacts for the Professor, the man that she always worked for, and who showed her her abilities. In the present, magical people are rarer and rarer, and Professor is focused also on saving those people, as he saved Esta.

Using an artifact that can amplify her ability, Esta is sent to 1902 with one goal - steal a magical book capable to rescue the magic from disappearing in present days. However, in the past, the book is protected by the Order and a group of magicians organized a heist to steal it. Although, during the heist, the book was stolen by a Magician who betrayed his group and disappeared with it provoking the disappearance of the magic. So, Esta needs to be careful and blend well in the group, help organize the heist, and she needs to con the Magician and return with the book to the present. As we all know, the plan will not go as planned!

I really liked the main characters, the only thing that annoyed me the most was the love line... I'm a sucker for good romance in fantasy books, but here it was too easy and a little bit superficial! One minute they hated each other, the next they were in love!

We have A LOT of main characters and the story was told from different perspectives, nevertheless, it wasn't hard to understand the plot, because it all blend really organically.

I recommend this book to people who like Cassandra Clare and S. j. Maas. ( )

I had never heard of this book before I received it for SantaThing recently. It's mostly set in 1900s New York and involves time travel and magic (and time travel magic). It's also YA, which I didn't realize until after I started it.

This book wasn't for me. The characters seemed like a collection of tropes with not much substance underneath. The magic system was vague and confusing. That's not always a bad thing, but didn't work for this book because the whole plot depended on how the the magic system worked. There were some twists towards the end that might have been fun if I was invested in the story, but I wasn't. It might have also been easier to overlook some of its deficiencies if it was tightly paced, but it's almost 500 pages long and slow. On the positive side, the historical setting does seem well researched. ( )

DNF