UptownOracle in Book Reviews

Uptown Oracle Reads… Ace of Shades

Welcome to the City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets… and secrets hide in every shadow. Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school—and her reputation—behind to follow her mother’s trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted. Frightened and alone, her only lead is a name: Levi Glaisyer. Unfortunately, Levi is not the gentleman she expected—he’s a street lord and a con man. Levi is also only one payment away from cleaning up a rapidly unraveling investment scam, so he doesn’t have time to investigate a woman leading a dangerous double life. Enne’s offer of compensation, however, could be the solution to all his problems. Their search for clues leads them through glamorous casinos, illicit cabarets and into the clutches of a ruthless mafia donna. As Enne unearths an impossible secret about her past, Levi’s enemies catch up to them, ensnaring him in a vicious execution game where the players always lose. To save him, Enne will need to surrender herself to the city… And she’ll need to play.

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Ace of Shades
Amanda Foody

Before I picked up Ace of Shades I was seeing so many tweets and reviews absolutely raving about how good this book is. High expectations always do lead to high disappointments though don’t they? It’s not that Ace of Shades was bad at all. I just personally do not see why so many people are putting this onto their favourite books of all time lists. The books has similar tropes from other books and pulls from different genre’s to create an interesting premise but it’s not brilliantly fantastic, and it does have some issues.

One of the big things I love about fantasy books is introducing a new and unique magic system. I’m all for the different kinds of magic, and different uses and so on. But I do want to understand the system and not just be like this is how it is ‘like magic’. Ace of Shades has an intriguing magic system where you inherit your ‘talent’ of which some are magic based like being able to create fire (or burn things? make things hot??). The problem is that it’s never fully explained the extent of these abilities and so the author could theoretically pull a deux ex machina out of her sleeve at any point where our characters are in trouble.

The world building of New Reynes was fantastic, and I could really imagine it to be similar to Las Vegas and New Orleans and there’s clearly a lot of inspiration throughout the book. There’s also the backstories of specific characters like Levi and Lourdes, and the people they’ve been caught up with. There’s superstitions, rumuors, myths and religions which all fit into this story really well to create a great world to get lost in. But there were times where we learn information from a literal guide book in Enne’s hands. So the pacing is often cut a bit short as we’re trekking through the guide to New Reynes.

The romance element and the ‘plot twist’ were both very obvious from the start of the book. In one of the info-dumping sessions we learn about Mizers which are the monarchy that were murdered many years ago. After we learn this, we learn another fact I think a couple of chapters later that points straight to what the plot twist would be. As a reader I felt like we took a long time to get there even though the characters were really shocked themselves.

Throughout the book, both Enne and Levi are constantly evolving and developing as characters. They get smarter and start to become better characters that go out of their way to do something. Enne very narrowly missed being a main character where things just happened and she reacted to them. Eventually she becomes a much stronger female lead, who takes action when needed and is great. Levi also seems to grow up a bit more. At the start he’s gotten himself deep into some debts, and by the end he’s smart enough to know better about taking on risky business.

Although I wasn’t particular impressed (most likely because it was so hyped!) I do think I’ll look out for the next book. I’m intrigued by the story and I did like most of the book.