Review: Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne

From Goodreads: Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs. But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent - and darkly attractive - and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull. Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease. When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival - and vengeance - might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives. 

My Rating: 2.5 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: With its promise of thieves and assassins and the author mentioning on Goodreads that one of her inspirations is Tamora Pierce’s The Song of the Lioness quartet, Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne was a novel that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. Sadly, the writing was simplistic and the characters left little impression.

To me, it felt like there was a lot of telling rather than showing going on in Midnight Thief. As well, more description would definitely have helped to make the setting and characters more vivid. That being said, Midnight Thief was a breezy read, and I can easily see it appeal to older MG readers.

Like the setting, the characters were also pretty flat. The story is narrated through both Kyra and Tristam’s points of view, but I never found the switches in narration to be seamless. In fact, Tristam’s narration was very unexpected and abrupt at the beginning because for the first five chapters, everything was told from Kyra’s perspective. However, I liked Tristam better than Kyra, who joins the Assassins Guild yet objects to killing (uh, so why join the Assassins Guild at all?!), but only by a slight margin because both characters were similar in that they didn’t think too much about the possible consequences of their actions. Since I couldn’t have cared less about the fate of the characters, I also ended up not caring if they would get together or not.

Midnight Thief will be released on July 8, 2014 by Disney-Hyperion. 

Comments About the Cover: I love it! The cat looks fierce, and is just daring you to find out what it’s hiding! 

In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Disney Book Group) for free via NetGalley.