ACE OF SHADES - Amanda Foody

4 stars

Deadly games, a city based on your sins, historical fantasy vibes, gangs and codes of honor, slow burn romances, revolutions and conspiracies, and so much more... what a (surprisingly bloody) good time.

Pacing: ★★
Characters ★★★ 1/2
World/Setting: ★★★★
Larger story arc: ★★★★★
Enjoyment: ★★★★

Take your time in the City of Sin, if you lose your bearings it'll reel you in...

Enne Salta arrives in New Reynes, known in the realm as the "City of Sin," with a bag full of belongings and a note from her adopted mother telling her to who to call if she needs help. Enne can't find her mother and time has run out, so she's desperate for some help. She's looking for a man named Levi Glaiser.

Levi Glaiser is the Iron Lord, the leader of one of the most prominent street gangs in the city. He's balancing on the edge of fealty to his gang, a forced bargain with a mob boss, and the mountain of lies keeping him—and his future—from falling apart. The last thing he wants on his doorstep is a girl calling in a favor from one of the most notorious rebel sympathizers in the realm.

Enne doesn't like the look of Levi, and Levi likes the look of Enne a little too much. Enne has money, Levi needs money. Levi has connections to the pulse of the city, and Enne needs to find out what happened to her mother. Time to strike a bargain...

But things quickly become much bigger than a bargain between the Iron Lord and the visiting new girl when things in New Reynes get complicated, and fast. Trouble is brewing in the city, lords are being murdered, and the noose around Levi's neck is getting tighter and tighter with one of the two mob bosses in the city after him and the other pulling his strings.

Enne and Levi are going to get much more than they bargained for, and neither one of them is truly ready for the hidden secrets of Enne's past to rise to the surface.

The game of monarchies, conspiracies, murder plots, and blood ties is about to begin...

WOW, y'all. I loved this. Ace of Shades is one of those YA books that came out in the surplus of red/black aesthetic fantasy reads released in the aftermath of Six of Crows and V.E. Schwab's rise to popular immortality and to be honest, I thought the book was going to be derivative of the themes it was invoking on the cover.

Totally missed the mark on this one. While you can sorta-kinda-squint and see Schwab and you can definitely make surface-level comparisons to Six of Crows, Ace of Shades quickly diverges from the paths of the expected with a truly explosive and engaging story arc.

I found the first half to be slow and followed a lot of traditional YA tropes. Discovery of world, learning the key players, getting a quick-and-dirty run down of the magic system, introducing the bad guys, etc.

But the second half—d-d-d-damn! Talk about a ramp-up and a showdown all in one. I couldn't put it down. When the ending actually happened, I was on Amazon that very second pressing "Buy Now" on the second book. Very excited to see where the plot takes us, and now that the exposition and beginning stuff is over with the really intrigue and development can take off.