Review: The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant

Title: The Court of Miracles

Author: Kester Grant 

Series: A Court of Miracles #1

Genre: Retelling/Historical Fiction

Publisher: Knopf Children's

Publication Date: June 2nd, 2020

Edition: Kindle

Source: NetGalley

Pre-Order: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM

Synopsis:

   In the violent urban jungle of an alternate 1828 Paris, the French Revolution has failed and the city is divided between merciless royalty and nine underworld criminal guilds, known as the Court of Miracles. Eponine (Nina) Thénardier is a talented cat burglar and member of the    Thieves Guild. Nina's life is midnight robberies, avoiding her father's fists, and watching over her naïve adopted sister, Cosette (Ettie). When Ettie attracts the eye of the Tiger--the ruthless lord of the Guild of Flesh--Nina is caught in a desperate race to keep the younger girl safe. Her vow takes her from the city's dark underbelly to the glittering court of Louis XVII. And it also forces Nina to make a terrible choice--protect Ettie and set off a brutal war between the guilds, or forever lose her sister to the Tiger.

  This book was just okay for me. I actually ran into small issues with it right away. I don't know how old Nina is supposed to be during most of this book. I know how old the character she is loosely, very loosely, based on is supposed to be. But that doesn't mean she's that age. So a lot of the context of who the character has become is supposed to be.  I am also not very familiar with the source material this is a retelling of, Les Misérables. I know the names of a handful of characters and that's about it. I had to look up how old Eponine was in that book/play, but I am unsure if she is that old in this book. 

  There was a lot of action at the start of the book, and I was really into it. There was a heist to "steal"/release a man from prison, Orso, The Dead Lord. He rules over the "dead", who seem to mostly be orphan children. A lot of things happened really fast. The pacing was just a little strange. Time and detail weren't given to things in a way that didn't really make sense until near the end of the book.

  Around the middle of the book, there is a scene that I think was meant to feel stressful, because of where Nina and Ettie were and who they were around. But the scene ended up having no consequences from those people. It happens later and to someone else. Not everything felt like a cause and effect situation. This is around when the book started to take a dip in pacing for me.

  There's a 2-year time jump, which I usually hate in books. But it worked for this book. The latter half of this book was about as face-paced as the first quarter of the book. Again, a lot happening very quickly. There is a twist that I didn't expect, and that helped raise the book for me. At first, I was unsure how this could be more than one book, but with where things were left I am very interested in continuing the series. I hope certain characters are explored more and expanded on.