Friday Reads: ARC Review of The Paladin Caper by Patrick Weekes!!

Hey guys!

Happy Friday! I hope you guys are having some cool plans for this weekend! I am having a bunch of days off and today I'm going to the opera! My first time and I'll be watching Madama Butterfly, so very excited!

For this week's Friday Reads I have the final book (for now, hopefully, because I want to read more books about these characters!) in the Rogues of the Republic series up for review!




The Paladin Caper by Patrick Weekes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Once again another fantastic book that had me glued to the pages and that managed to surprise me more than a few times! I'm so very grateful that I got all three ARCs from Netgalley because reading them in quick succesion has been so much fun!

Plot twists are the bread and butter of fantasy heists, because you're not supposed how the plans would unfold, and you're not even supposed to know when something is part of the plan, is a planned for contingency or all hell is going to break loose, and sometimes it'll be a lil bit of all three!!

Patrick Weekes manages to take everything the previous two books had and twist it a lil further and make it a lil bigger to make this book a lil darker and still keep the irreverent tone from the previous two books. The humour was still there too, but things were getting so dire that I didn't have as many laugh out loud moments. Now that I've finished the book, I feel like I miss that humour but while I was reading the book I was too engrossed and worried about everyone's fate and what would come next to think of the comparable lack of humour in this one.

Loch continues to be one hell of a main character and the rest of the gang do get quite a bit of limelight and progression and character development as we see a bit more of what makes them who they are, and what their choices what change in themselves as well as in the fate of the Republic, because... did I mention things are a lot more dire in this book? Because they really are!

The previous book ended with shock and betrayal and this one deal with the consequences of it, with fighting an enemy that you didn't know was an enemy at first and with privilege and freedom and mind control and information vs propaganda. We still have dragons and unicorns and talking weapons and warrior monks and death priestesses and elves... And we're never too sure about who is on who's team at times!

I don't want to continue rambling on about the book because I fear I'll end up spoiling something but if you like fantasy books and heist books and want to read something captivating, fun and diverse, you need to add the entire series to your TBR pile! The book has a rather definitive ending, no cliffhangers or anything, but I would love to go on reading more adventures of the gang for more books to come, so I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Very much deserved 4 stars for this one!





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Tell Me Tuesdays #32!!

Tell Me Tuesdays is a meme/feature created by the awesome La La In The Library, where we can share how we choose the book we are currently reading from our TBR pile!

I'm always curious about that, cause as much as I tend to make myself a rough schedule for books to read and the like, I'm quite a mood reader and sometimes I just HAVE to ignore my schedule and read something else!

It's been a while since I last posted on Tell Me Tuesdays so hi there!!

The Paladin Caper by Patrick Weekes

A thief’s good deeds are never done.

Loch and her crew are determined to stop the ancients from returning to reclaim the world they once ruled, but a kidnapped friend throws their plans awry. When a desperate rescue turns into a shocking reunion, the ancients return and seize power. Determined to stop them, Loch and the crew look for a way to close the gate to the ancients’ world, but this time, they find themselves up against an enemy that has insinuated itself into the highest ranks of the Republic. Cruel, cunning, and connected, the ancients target the crew’s families and histories, threatening to tear friendships apart.

If that weren’t bad enough, Loch must deal with her treacherous assassin sister, her turncoat ancient friend, and a daemon who has sworn to hunt her to the ends of the earth. In order to save the Republic and pull off her largest con ever, Loch will need her friends…and maybe her enemies too.

 Riders by Veronica Rossi

For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.

Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can't remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemen--Conquest, Famine, and Death--are brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence.

They fail.

Now--bound, bloodied, and drugged--Gideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he's fallen for--not to mention all of humankind--he needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger.

But will anyone believe him?

The Paladin Caper is the last book (for now, hopefully there will be more) on The Rogues of the Republic series, a fantasy heist series, as I like to call it, and one that I'm loving to bits! So happy that I got approved for them on NetGalley!

And Riders is only a sampler I got from NetGalley, because as much as I think the summary sounds amazing and should be something I'd be all over it, I don't seem to be able to be as excited for it as I should! So I got the sampler hoping to either discard it completely from my list or finally get as excited as I should.

That sounds odd, I know, but that's me, I'm quite odd! ;)

So what are you all guys reading and how and why did you decide to pick up that book? Shiny new ARC? Comfort read? Scheduled for review? Must have new release? Tell me!!

Friday Reads: ARC Review of The Prophecy Con by Patrick Weekes!!

Hello there guys!

Happy Friday! It is sort of a Monday for me, because I'm back to work after a few days off, but I'm feeling rather rejuvenated and rested! Also did some retail therapy on IKEA, in the shape of new shelves, so things are looking up!

For this week's Friday Reads I have the second book in what seems to be a trilogy (at least for now) heist fantasy series (I think this should be its own genre) that is becoming a quick favourite for me! So glad to have listened to Jessica from Rabid Reads and have started this series!



The Prophecy Con by Patrick Weekes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was so excited to be approved on NetGalley to read all the books in the Rogues of the Republic series so far, and The Prophecy Con didn't disappoint at all!

It starts pretty soon after the ending of The Palace Job, and we see our characters back in the thick of the action, at least Loch and Kail, because after the events of the previous book the diplomatic relationships between Empire and Republic are quite tense. We learn about the changes (Loch as a Justicar) and we see how everyone is dealing with the aftermath of their saving the world, Dairy and Desidora the ones with more issues finding their way after the extraordinary.

The action and the humour in this one are non-stop and perfectly mixed as it was in the first book. I found myself laughing out loud as well as cackling and simply howling with laughter at some points... what can I say, I simply look the humour in this books, it can be subtle, it can be cheeky... and I love it!

And the action... we start with a diplomatic mission that ends up with a battle, Loch getting a new weapon from her foe and starting a new mission to recover/steal a precious artifact, this time in the name of peace and not personal revenge. And this time is not so much a heist but an ongoing mission about stealing/recovering/winning the damned artifact and discovering what else is threatening the precarious peace between the Empire & the Republic.

As the action moves around quite a bit we get to see much more world building and we meet dwarves and elves. These are and aren't the dwarves and elves we've met before. Their societies are similar enough to what we've seen before, but I feel that the author gave them his own unique twist.

The relationships between the characters have shifted a bit, and some of them are paired up, and their interactions can be both a moment of relief from the action as well as some added gravitas, depending on which relationship. I'm quite more partial to one of them two established ones, but the other two just won me over in the end even if their chemistry is not so obvious or maybe well developed.

As a sequel it expands and builds upon what we knew from book 1, but also manages to give a twist to what we thought we knew and add a betrayal to make things even more interesting and unexpected!

The ending was rather horrible and I was ready to scream at my Kindle in rage, but luckily the author decided to take pity on us poor readers and added a epilogue to make sure we didn't end up hating him!

I'm now thoroughly in love with this series and these characters and will say that if you like fantasy books with humour, diversity and twisty action, you NEED to check them out! Very well deserved 4 to 4.5 stars!



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Friday Reads: ARC Review of The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes!!

Hello there guys!

Some days life as an adult sucks! I've been worrying about money and bills and still trying to buy things for the house and sort trips for next year and dammit it's a doozy for the brain! *flops down in bed*

I think that's partly why I've been a bit more unmotivated to blog as of late, I keep on reading and not reviewing and half the time I'm online, I'm only fluffing around...

But today I just realized it's Friday so I managed to crank up a half decent review for this week's Friday Reads for a very cool book that if you're a fantasy lover and you enjoy amazing humour, YOU JUST NEED TO READ!


The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


There are some reviews that really make you want to read a book, and when I read Jessica from Rabid Reads review for The Palace Job, it really made me want to read this one ASAP!

So when I saw this one and the next two book of the series up for request on Netgalley, I just had to give them a try, and yet, very wise choice on my part!

The Palace Job is a fantasy heist book, with a very random crew of people trying to steal a very precious something for itself and for revenge.

Fantasy heist in a world with magic, magical floating cities where only the rich live, the Republic is at peace with the Empire but no one seems to be happy about it, and a puppet theater keeps the public informed of the goings-on, political or otherwise!

Our main character is Loch, a prisoner in the bowels of the floating city of Heaven's Spire, former military and with a past that shapes her motivation to get out of there. Loch is a woman, a fighter and a Ursujan, a woman of colour. The Republic is supposed to have equal rights for all, but prejudice for the Ursujan is still rampant.

Then we have Kail, also Ursujan, former military and an uncanny ability to insult someone's mother is probably every known language. Tern is the expert on safes and picking every lock, Icy the Imperial contorsionist and martial arts pacifist expert, a magical unicorn, Hess the magician,a Death Priestess with a talking warhammer and a boy with no apparent ability that was rescued along with the magician.

There's plenty of action and even social commentary here and there, but the thing that this book does brilliantly is mixing amazing sense of humour everywhere! Sometimes a bit some subtly, others a lil more blatantly but always always SO WELL DONE!

Planning and plotting and second guessing and keeping an ace up their sleeve and even confraternizing with the enemy! There is never a dull moment in this book!

The world building was very well done, although I think the bigger strenght was on the social and political climate more than on physical desriptions, but it was done in a way that the Republic felt very real!

The book can be divided, no exactly half and half but nearly so into assembling the team and the actual heist, so keep that in mind when you start to wonder what trolls have to do with anything in the story!

Not much romance to speak of in here, even if there are some bits here and there. One of them was easier to see and root for and the other was more told than shown, so maybe that's what didn't make me give this one a full 5 stars? I'm not sure, I simply go with my gut feeling and this one felt like a 4 to 4.5 stars.

If you like fantasy, this is a book and a series to add to your reading pile ASAP!


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