“Choose your words carefully, even the words you think, because they become seeds, and seeds become history.” 

before going into this book, the description of it made my expectations very high, especially because a lot of the people i follow on instagram were hyping the remnant chronicles up; and so why wouldn’t this series live up to the hype as well for such a highly praised author?

i know i wasn’t looking into the remnant chronicles as much, it was always a book that popped up in my recommended, but it honestly didn’t sound like much of a story i’d love, even though a lot of people i know absolutely adored it; which is why when i read the description for dance of thieves i had high expectations for it.

and did it live up to it? it did, but not quite, as well.

the book starts off brief and small, which is what i would expect a good book to do. personally, i feel like that was what the author specifically wanted, that the reader and the characters in the book to both discover the ‘plot twist’ and to feel vulnerable and rushed throughout the story.

The story itself starts small, as all good stories should. That’s the point, really, for the reader and the characters to uncover the Great Danger TM together and to gradually feel more and more threatened/hurried/whatever the point of the story is. And somehow until after the middle I didn’t get the sense that there was any threat or any high stakes or any reason, really, why the characters couldn’t be happy. Kazi’s mission was important, but only around the end of book we get a sense that there might be a bigger threat than (view spoiler). 

The main couple were constantly thinking they couldn’t be together, but I just failed to see why. It was one of those stories where the characters seem to put so many unnecessary obstacles between themselves for no reason at all. Like, if they have had a proper conversation maybe they could have come to the conclusion that all their lovesickness was quite unnecessary. But then, of course, we’d have had no story. 

I’m being too harsh, to be honest. The truth is that actually the relationship between the main characters was believable and could pull at someone’s ( who’s not as sceptical as me) heartstrings. The only real issue I could truly complain of is how quickly Jase and Kazi fell in love : I believe it didn’t take them a week of the meeting each other before they started throwing each other hot gazes. 

Now, what I absolutely loved was the setting, the rich history, the vivid descriptions of Tor’s Watch and Hell’s Mouth. The atmosphere was so, so good, it practically bounced off the pages and became a real image before me. I wanted to know more about this side of the world, about the Ballenger history, all the stories that Jase hasn’t yet told Kazi, to see Tor’s Watch during all seasons. 

And, of course, after approximately 60% the action really took off and I couldn’t put the book down. At this point all my complaints that the stakes weren’t high enough were gone. 

The absolutely best part of the whole book was, in my opinion, the epilogue, which left me guessing what the hell was going on. Now the joke’s on me because I can’t wait for the next book.