Title: The gilded wolves.
Author: Roshani Chokshi.
Format: Audiobook.
Publisher: MacMillan Audio.
Page count: 388.
Release day: January 15th 2019.
Genre: YA, fantasy, historical fiction.
Rating: 4.5 stars.
What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)
No one believes
in them. But soon no one will forget them.
It’s 1889. The city is on the cusp of industry
and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the
streets and dredged up ancient secrets. Here, no one keeps tabs on dark truths
better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. When
the elite, ever-powerful Order of Babel coerces him to help them on a mission,
Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true
inheritance.
To hunt down the ancient artifact the Order
seeks, Séverin calls upon a band of unlikely experts: An engineer with a debt
to pay. A historian banished from his home. A dancer with a sinister past. And
a brother in arms if not blood.
Together, they will join Séverin as he explores
the dark, glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the course of
history—but only if they can stay alive.
My thoughts:
I was a bit dubious about reading this book, since I was not a huge fan of Chokshi writing in the star-touched queen. But I kept hearing amazing things about it, and it was being compared to Six of Crows, so I just had to try it out!
And honestly, they were right! This book surprised me so much! (In a good way) And it is definitely comparable with Six of Crows (but it is different of course!).
The story starts of with immediate action, which I like because it immediately grabs your attention. All characters are introduced in the first couple of chapters, which had me confused for a bit, but after a bit I figured out who was who. When we got to know them better I really started to care for them! There is one character I didn’t really care about, to this character something bad happens at the end, and I didn’t really care at all.. Like I know the other characters liked this character and were feeling bad, but I cared more for them then the character this happened to. (See me trying not to spoil anything..).
When they started discussing the mission I realized that this book has some similarities to Six of Crows, and where I started to really love this book! I absolutely loved the planning, deception and betraying! I really liked that this book took place in Paris, and has quite some similarities to the current Paris (which is logical). The magic system was quite interesting, but I don’t think I fully understand it.. It was not that clearly explained, I think we were supposed to slowly understand while the story was progressing, but for me that didn’t happen.
They only reason I took half a star is that sometimes things were said that felt to ‘modern’ for the time. I also wanted to say that fireworks didn’t exist back then, but I just googled and the first firework show was one year before this ahah. I shouldn’t have doubted her research for this book!
Just one complaint about the audiobook (Which I did not take into account for the rating): the accent is really distracting (for me at least). I get that they wanted to do the French accent, to make it more ‘real’, but it took me out of the story at times.
I cannot wait to continue on after the ending!
Loved this book, and was lucky enough to meet the author and get a signed copy a couple of months ago. Glad you enjoyed it, Evelyn!
Oooh that so cool! I would love to meet her!
I just started reading this!! Glad you enjoyed!
Have fun!