I think I wanted to like this book too much and then I got my hopes up and that just ruined it for me. It was good but it just wasn't that great. One; it was very, very slow. It didn't start getting interesting until like 60% into it and then stopped being interesting 80% into. Yeah... Thats not good. I don't know. I like the characters. I just don't think they were well developed. I don't really know how else to explain how I felt about the story. I felt like it could have been amazing, it just wasn't. I will read the next one eventually. Just because I already have a copy of it. but it may not be for awhile.

Started 4/07/2015
Finished 4/08/2015

Kyra - is not the typical helpless heroine I am used to seeing. I like that she has a skill set suited to her backstory (no amazing unexplainable skills). She is a valuable contributor to the people around her, not just a pretty face that needs constant saving. I do feel that she is somewhat naive about the politics of her world and the people she is dealing with but that is not unusual for a character of her age.

Tristam - he seems to be the atypical knight in shining armor. He is heroic, noble, honorable, and puts duty before self, yada, yada, yada. I am not truly impressed with the character as of yet. I do like that he is not an automaton, he feels true emotions about the loss of Jack and makes, what seems to be, a legitimate decision as a result. His behavior toward Kyra seems a bit forced. It may be that I have not seen enough of his perspective to connect with him but it all seems a little bland.

Malikel - here is a character I am interested in. It is unfortunate that he is a side character that is used to move the plot for Tristam. I find myself wanting to know more about his history and activities than I do for Tristam. I am hopeful that his character will be flushed out more as the story flows.

Willem - this guy is as slimy as they come. A true politician, which is not a compliment. He is not an active character and only pops up when needed to move the plot but when he does it is instant tension.

Demon Riders - and here is the main reason for this book. These guys are awesome. This character set is the reason I kept reading this. I actually wish there was more of them in the book, especially the kittens, but I suppose that will come later.

The Assassin’s Guild - James is a rather typical bad guy for me. He is, naturally, handsome and charming and everything a bad guy needs to be to get the heroine to trust him. Of course there are googly eyes between Kyra and James, though thankfully they are brief and, I feel, more a result of proximity than insta-love. She begins to see through him rather quickly which spares me the annoyance of this little romance.
The remaining characters are murky for me. None seem to really stand out, not even Rand, though Bacchus makes an effort to be big and brooding. I don’t have a clear picture of any of them as they are all secondary to James. He is the Guild, not them.

Plot - The plot is compelling but not totally immersive. I was aware of how far I was moving through the book rather than being lost in the world. I like the action throughout. It is well paced and doesn’t bog down in the minor details. I have lost track of the amount of time that is supposed to have elapsed occasionally but it is not a huge detriment to the book. The connection between the Guild and the Demon Riders was intriguing and played well throughout the plot. Kyra’s connection to the demon riders seemed obvious after her first encounter. But I still enjoyed the interaction between her and Pashla. I am hoping for more interaction between the clan and Kyra as the series continues.

I like the writing. It isn’t over the top or too flowerly. Blackburne doesn’t nitpick the details too much which can slow books down and begin to feel like a textbook. The pacing is well done with enough quiet moments to learn about the characters while not becoming an introspective journey through anyone’s mind. The world is solid. There isn’t much beyond Forge, but this isn’t high fantasy or sci-fi that would require massive world building. The “magic” elements in this fantasy are very subtle which makes them more believable for the world. For all the talk of Griffins and such the only real oddity is the demon riders. The world doesn’t seem suited to outright wizardry so the choice to limit the magic to such a level was smart on Blackburne’s part.

Title: Midnight Thief
Author: Livia Blackburne
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Source: Netgalley
Rating: 4 Stars

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 is 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 the 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.

In her arresting debut novel, Livia Blackburne creates a captivating world where intrigue prowls around every corner-and danger is a way of life.

 

There has been a slew of books lately centering around thieves and assassins (and the guild thereof). I think it's becoming a thing. Now, personally, I'm almost always down with some good cons and thievery, assassins less so, but every one of this type of books I've come across reads fine, but feels like it's sorely lacking something. Namely, a character that I can root for. Characters like that, I want to know how their life ends up, and if they're happy and where they've been and most importantly, where they're going. Kyra is just a mundane and uninspiring character to me. Is she an admirable person. Actually, yes. (Though she doesn't have much of a sense of humor...) So even though I liked Kyra on the outside, I felt like she wasn't her own character. She was nearly just like every other generic female YA protagonists in the last 10 years. So while I LOVE that I didn't want to slap her, and that I could admire most of the choices that she made, and that she was a good person, she was rather like an actor that delivers all their lines in monotone. That analogy doesn't fit exactly like I want it to but it's close enough.

Plot-wise, it's much the same. Nothing to write home about and not a whole lot I haven't seen before. Though the part that I didn't really see coming

"YER A SHAPESHIFTER, KYRA" is about the extent of it.

(spoiler show)

didn't wow me by any means, because A. it could have been written better and B. I didn't really care.

The dust jacket description was so misleading!!! And I was so happy about that. They really played up the (nearly non-existent) love triangle. What little romance there was was very light and refreshing; I was fearing expecting much more. True, Tristam (just bloody name him Tristan and be done with it) was a tad dull, but at least he wasn't played up as this hot amazing guy with flashing green eyes and slabs of muscle. AT LEAST.

And that's all she wrote, folks. Will I be back for a second helping? Nah. But I will drool over this cover whenever I see it.

I liked Midnight Thief, but there were a few minor things that kept me from giving it four stars. I enjoyed Poison Dance, the prequel to this and even mentioned that it felt very adult to be a prequel to a YA book. I liked James as a character in that story. However, Midnight Thief did not go where I thought it would go with his character at all. James is a completely unsympathetic, horrible person in Midnight Thief and it didn't feel like I was reading about the same person at all. I'm not sure if he was written about the way he was in the prequel to illustrate the reasons behind why he is the way he is in this book (but it still didn't seem to fit with the character from the prequel), or if it was just to make the reader trust him more in the beginning of this book. Because of the prequel I trusted him a lot more than I initially would have had I not read it. So I was surprised when he turned out to be so horrible. I'm not sure how I feel about the demon cats in this. Instead of feeling like cool shape shifters, they felt a little cheesy, and I kept picturing the cats from the Warriors book series, although that could have been because my daughter is reading those and they were on my mind already. A lot more world building could be done here, but there will be more books so we may get more later and some elements of the story seemed very contrived. Overall I liked the first half of the book better than the second half.