THAT’S RIGHT! I loved this trilogy so much that I’m not done boosting it to the masses! Child-, Thief-, and Queen of the Night Guild are some of the best in indie. Grimdark sword and sorcery that packs a band of thieves into so much action, grief, struggle, and perseverance. I wanted to check these out for so long, and when I saw that there was an omnibus of them on Audible, I had to jump at the chance to read them all at once. The narration by Rebecca McKernan is top-notch, and she does a fantastic job of bringing Viola/Seven/Ilanna to life.
I also just saw that the author has this absolutely insane hardcover omnibus (image above) that I just have to acquire…and you can too–here.
Synopsis
They killed her family. They ripped apart her home. But to repay her debts, she’ll have to sacrifice her innocence.
Three gripping novels of grim, dark intrigue in the underworld of thieves and cutthroats!
Robbed of everything she loves, Viola mourns the sudden loss of her mother. Now burdened with an impossible debt to the Night Guild, she’s forced to train as a cunning thief. Subjected to cruelty at every turn, the scrawny criminal apprentice vows to survive long enough to become the kingdom’s best.
Thrown together with unlikely allies, her burgeoning skills draw the attention of sadistic bullies and jealous rivals with dark intentions. But fueled by grief-filled rage, Viola won’t let anything distract her from preparing for the Guild’s most treacherous test.
In a cutthroat den of thieves, can Viola rise to power and outrun a brutal death?
The gripping Queen of Thieves epic fantasy series is not for the faint of heart. If you like grim dark battles, improbable heroines, and graphic scenes, then you’ll love Andy Peloquin’s unflinching coming-of-age tale.
Listen to Queen of Thieves for a pitch-black tale of a thievery today!
Warning: This book contains one scene of graphic sexual assault and is not suitable for all ages.
From the Author: This Omnibus is a self-contained, stand-alone series set in the same world as Defenders of Legendnumber one and number two, but can be listened to either before or after. Chronologically, it occurs before the events of the previous collections.
Review
CHILD OF THE NIGHT GUILD:
The author very kindly sent me a copy of the book, and then, with everything that happened with my quick move, I misplaced it. It’s definitely somewhere in my storage unit, which sadly houses my entire book collection, but I grabbed the audiobook to ensure I did get to it.
And DAMN! Peloquin is a solid storyteller. This is a grimdark tale that brought to mind notes of academia (with the Night Guild’s houses and names), the Thieves Guild from Skyrim, and Assassin’s Creed. A world where children are not useless but rather seen as a harnessable commodity, trainable income from the streets of Praamis. Produce of be disposed of.
A debt-ridden father, haunted by the loss of his wife and youngest daughter, offers his oldest, Viola, as a way to cover the debt. The Night Guild agrees, and just like that, Viola’s world completely crumbles. As a young girl, and a small one at that, she must struggle through trials unimaginable, swallowing her grief, and working thrice as hard as the others just to get by. While teaming up with another scrawny trainee, she vows to do whatever it takes to survive, to prove everyone wrong.
Viola/Seven/Ilanna was a well-crafted main character. Her stubbornness, perseverance, and hope (no matter how small) kept the reader’s eye on the horizon. I’d say it’s the biggest thing that kept much of this novel from feeling too grim. There is lightness in her will to not be extinguished, and there is hope in how strong she holds herself. With that said, wow! I have seen reviews/comments of people saying I must hate my main characters, but holy moly, this author just keeps the brutality coming. This is a coming-of-age story that could make just about anyone pessimistic or defeatist…not our main though! The integration of kindness when she finally gets mixed in with the other apprentices of House Hawk was a nice addition. The fact that she wasn’t sure if she should believe it or trust them even more deft.
The psychological torture displayed by Master Velvet to his tyros felt well researched (and heinous). These poor children being forced into hours of work before receiving water, the low-protein, high-sugar diet, the loss of their names and pasts, the fact that if they messed up or failed, they went to bed hungry. Can’t forget the fact that they aren’t allowed outside either, no sun whatsoever. I appreciated the way this was all layered in, creating heavy believability. I did wonder, though, how after so much trauma at the hands of those who had taken them in, more of them are not looking for revenge after they receive a modicum of freedom as apprentices or journeymen. But maybe some deep-rooted Stockholm syndrome?
While much of this is training, which can be repetitive, the author shows his strength by keeping the reader entwined with the hint of danger around every corner, and there is a lot of it. You really do go through each of the coming-of-age tropes, and with the attempted thieveries, this even feels like some “leveling up” tropes coming into play. Any time an author meshes genres or tropes of any kind, I feel like that’s when things truly shine. And this one did.
The ending, which I have seen some mixed reception of, I think, was the final hammering to remind us all of how grim the world really is. While I am not a fan of SA scenes of any kind, the author did do well in skirting the “showing” while still delivering the harshness and hurt of the violation itself. And that I can accept for what it is. Ilanna’s quick revenge also offers a payoff that I feel was necessary, and it’s a reminder that if something is continuously coming for you in the city of Praamis, the only way for it to end is the removal of the obstacle wholly.
Grim, dark, and even shockingly brutal. Peloquin offers readers more than a glimpse at the depravity of his world, and yet there are still characters here to root for.
THIEF OF THE NIGHT GUILD:
Ilanna is back, and her world is darker than ever. Still, there is a bright spot. Her torment at the hands of Twelve has given her a child. No matter how dark and traumatic her past has been, she’s determined to raise her son with love and light, away from the eyes of the Night Guild. While she squirrels away little visits with him, the city’s defender from all things thievery, Duke Phonnis, continues on his tirade of death and destruction. These deaths, earning cheers from the city’s populace, do nothing but stir the fire within Ilanna as the Duke executes more of her friends. And as she is the one who enraged him by successfully infiltrating his “impenetrable” Black Spire in book one, these deaths feel personal. As she struggles with each new loss, as well as the anxiety of the guild finding out about her son, she looks for a way to buy her freedom. And while the guild accepts and offers terms, the price is exorbitant, leading to yet another unbelievable feat.
As the second book in a trilogy, I think this did well to break from the norm. As the tried and true format is typically a book 2 being all about growth and training (ie., the Empire format) this book actually does away with almost all of the training exercises…at least on the page for the most part. Ilanna has already spent an entire book, and over a decade, doing nothing but pushing herself to peak personal form, therefore, she has the ability and time to focus on her actual goals now. Her targets are rich, even famous, and she is known for being like that of a ghost—entering, stealing, and even leaving without anyone knowing she was ever there to begin with. I loved how the author went into this as it really reminded me of Assassin’s Creed and Ghost of Tsushima, both games I particularly loved for their stealth dynamics.
However if Ilanna wants to pull off this job correctly and live to reap the benefits, she’s going to need help. And a lot of it. While it pains her to let people in, even if she keeps a multitude of secrets from each, she needs a team. This layered in a new dynamic for her character and the story, not only allowing for new faces, but also building in character development that would perhaps have been absent otherwise. She recruits some of the best and brightest from each Guild house, ensuring the odds are at least as tilted in her favor as possible. And with each additional person helping, the chances of Ilanna losing someone else goes up…and House Hawk is dangerously empty already. I particularly liked her relationship with Two/Errik of house Serpent as it allowed the author to show off how she behaved around someone she might actually consider an equal, if not a friend. While she tries to keep him at arms length too, it’s still pretty obvious that she trusts him…and that’s super unique for her. In a way she depends on him, and he her, as he often does what she needs of him without any convincing. Perhaps coming up as tyros together will bond you that way.
The only complaint I have with this book is more of a me thing than anything against the writing. I tend to take quite lengthy breaks from Grimdark in general. The bleakness, the losses, it all begins to add up for me and can become a tad samey. Ilanna has become incredibly jaded in this one (understandably so) so a lot of that lightness and hope from the first that I loved is missing. And while her strength, courage, determination, and perseverance has not diminished for her son’s sake, the losses just stack. And don’t get me wrong—at all—it is not a fault of the author. He has not lost his delivery of these deaths whatsoever, I felt each and every one, it’s just not my typical subgenre. The book’s ending, while most definitely still presenting the most recent loss, is nothing short of heartbreaking—and one that is surely to send you right into book 3 looking for vengeance.
Book Two offers readers a fantasy world heist the likes of Six of Crows meshed with the death-heavy likes of Game of Thrones. This second entry is building up to what I’m sure will end up being an absolutely stellar trilogy.
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT GUILD:
The narration by Rebecca McKernan was awesome. I love how she somehow molded Ilanna’s voice from a child on, and it still felt like the same person for three straight books.
Book three takes off mere minutes from where book two left off. The area of the city where Ilanna’s house is—as well as Ria and her son—is on fire. And strangely, the fire is green, unnatural. Meaning that someone did something to cause it. Someone…well truly anyone involved, is going to pay. Dearly.
The novel that follows meshes so much anger, grief, and violent revenge together that this one flew by for me. And this thing’s ALL GAS. Peloquin does not take his foot off the pedal for a single second. Any scenes with dialogue are filled with lies, deceptions, betrayals, and deaths. Even in its quieter moments, which are few to begin with, it has shifted into a sort of pseudo ‘political’ intrigue, where Ilanna does her best to keep her head above water while shifting the tide in her direction/favor.
The Bloody Hand has infiltrated the Night Guild, and while they were repelled at first, the hostile takeover attempt has left too many dead and wounded. With many of the heads of houses killed, as well as their leader, Ilanna has lost many of her friends in high places, and much of the blame is thrown her way. The years of blackmail the author has sprinkled in have finally come into play as all of a sudden there is heaps of evidence condemning several actions by Ilanna. While some of the claims are, of course true, the guild should have known better than to believe she’d leave genuine evidence…With little hope of staying free on her own and even less hope of saving the guild, Ilanna must turn to the least likely, and perhaps most dangerous person for help within the city.
While I previously remarked on how dark and jaded these books are, and how I usually space out my grimdark reads, this one evolved into something even further. At the supposed loss of her son, Ilanna has become less jaded and more so detached. Her motivation for the entirety of book two was stolen from her, so now there is truly nothing holding her back. We see her become more unhinged, taking to torture and murder to get the answers she requires. She has killed before, but there is no room to argue about self-defense here; she is the one who has become the aggressor. And for me, that shift worked in her development, although there is less hope than ever. Book three is a natural progression of the building tensions and has almost become a military story in many aspects. The author handles it well, and I enjoyed how the POV still stayed on her, but she wasn’t necessarily the driver, as we know she isn’t a soldier.
I did guess the twists at the end, or at least see them coming, but they were both well plotted, well intertwined, and revealed in really satisfying ways. I think if you are not accustomed to mystery or thrillers, this will be a really nice one for you. The second one, which I am purposefully being mum about, felt earned. It was time for a shift in bleakness, and actually, it made me want to read even more…which there is a follow-up that works as a standalone titled Traitor’s Fate that I will have to get to.
A fantastic grimdark trilogy filled with loss, anger, and so many deaths, but also strength, hope, and borderline preternatural perseverance. Deeply threaded secrets and intricately wound characters make this an absolute must-read.
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