Ren has been many things in her short life: a fortuneteller’s daughter. An orphan. A liar. A lady’s maid. A thief. A traitor. A murderess. The thing she doesn’t intend to be any longer? Poor. With her sister Tess, she’s come back to her home city with one goal in mind: to lie, betray, and steal her way into a fortune no one can take away.

But a good con needs more than an audacious lie. A good con doesn’t start caring for her victims and fighting their battles. A good con doesn’t get distracted by quests for justice. A good con uses stacks her mother’s cards; she doesn’t read the fate of the city in them, and set out to do something about it.

Ren is an unparalleled liar. But as a con, she may not be good enough….

I’m not sure words can express how much I adored this book — in part because I’m pretty sure a lot of why I adored it went beyond words. It hit me right in all my soft spots: skilled but unobtrusive worldbuilding, a heist story that dodged right in that sweet spot between “too unrealistic” and “too cruel”, and most of all a cast of characters I fell for hook, line, and sinker. Throw in stylish swordfights, an outrageously clever con artist, and a Robin Hood style vigilante, and y’all. It’s just TOO MUCH GOODNESS.

I am so far restraining myself from going straight out and buying the sequel — mostly because I know the third book won’t be out until fall, so I have to, you know. Nurse things along. Suffice to say if you grew up loving Robin Hood* and Zorro and the Three Musketeers but kind of wished they had better women characters and a plot as tight as a heist film… this is your book.

*The Errol Flynn version, obviously. Sir Walter Scott and Disney versions also acceptable. No other Robin Hoods exist.