A raw, spirited, sometimes uneven tale of adventure and intrigue.
A young thief defies a brutal crime lord in this reimagining of 1820s Paris.
The French Revolution has failed, and the royals have restored order by day. But at night, it is the city’s criminals who rule, forming guilds bound by the laws of the Miracle Court. When famine strikes, young Nina’s avaricious father sells her older sister to the Tiger, the Lord of the Guild of Flesh, and Nina flees and becomes a burglar—the Black Cat of the Guild of Thieves. In time, Nina’s exploits win the admiration of allies from all classes of society. Meanwhile, the poor still starve, the royals poison them to suppress uprisings, and the other Lords cannot stop the Tiger from enslaving women. When the Tiger tries to seize Nina’s beautiful, innocent, young friend, Nina orchestrates a plot to kill him and save his victims, whatever the price. Grant’s debut is crowded with characters and events; the action feels rushed, with leaps of logic and time that can leave readers puzzled. But the narrative shines in its depictions of the gritty criminal underworld and its fierce and resourceful heroine. Nina has olive skin and black hair from her Algerian mother, and several characters are brown-skinned and dark-eyed. The Miracle Court is described as a place where race doesn’t matter (along with social class and religion), unlike the all-white royal court.
A raw, spirited, sometimes uneven tale of adventure and intrigue. (map, Miracle Court guide and laws) (Historical fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7285-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
This tale moves beyond the boom-bang, boring theology of so many fantasies—and, in the process, creates, almost griotlike, a...
Taj, the black teenage narrator of Onyebuchi’s debut, is an aki, or sin-eater—meaning that he literally consumes the exorcised transgressions of others, usually in the forms of inky-colored animal-shaped phantasms called inisisas that reappear as black tattoos on the akis’ “red skin, brown skin.”
This really isn’t his most remarkable trait, however, even as he ingests greater and greater sins of the Kaya, the brown-skinned royal family ruling the land of Kos. What makes Taj extraordinary is the tensions he holds: his blasé awareness of his exalted status as the best aki, even as the townspeople both shun yet exploit him and his chosen family of sin-eaters; his adolescent swagger coupled with the big-brotherly protectiveness he has for the crew of akis and, as the story proceeds, his increasing responsibility to train them; his natural skepticism of the theology that guides Kos even as he performs the very act that allows the theology—and Kos itself—to exist. He must navigate these in the midst of a political plot, a burgeoning star-crossed love, and forgiveness for the sins he does not commit. “Epic” is an overused term to describe how magnificent someone or something is. Author Onyebuchi’s novel creates his in the good old-fashioned way: the slow, loving construction of the mundane and the miraculous, building a world that is both completely new and instantly recognizable.
This tale moves beyond the boom-bang, boring theology of so many fantasies—and, in the process, creates, almost griotlike, a paean to an emerging black legend . (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-448-49390-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A deftly balanced mix of history, intrigue, and romance.
Against the backdrop of World War II, four young women codebreakers put their minds together to find a serial killer.
It’s early 1943, and Arlington Hall, a one-time girls’ school in Virginia, is now the site of a covert intelligence facility where an 18-year-old former maid secretly assumes the new identity Kit Sutherland and becomes a codebreaker. A night out turns deadly when one of their own is murdered, and Kit stumbles across her body in the bathroom. Kit, roommate Dottie, and Moya, the supervisor of their floor, work alongside Violet, one of the Black girls from the segregated codebreaking unit, to bring the culprit to justice. As the budding friends turn their sharp minds and analytical abilities to covertly investigating what turns out to be a series of murders, Kit struggles to keep her own dangerous secret—and her attraction to Moya—under wraps. Meanwhile, Moya will do everything in her power to help her girls while trying not to fall in love with Kit. The novel deftly addresses questions of inequality across class, race, and sexuality in a story that combines well-researched historical background with a nifty whodunit, a strong focus on friendship, and an empowering queer romance. The narrative follows Kit and Moya, making them the better developed characters in the largely White cast. An author’s note includes many resources about the real women whose behind-the-scenes espionage work informed this story.
A deftly balanced mix of history, intrigue, and romance. (Historical thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-33958-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
