The Court of Miracles – Kester Grant

So I had originally planned to write about a completely different book today. But then I went back to read some more of The Court of Miracles yesterday and completely got sucked in and fell in love with Nina and Ettie and their world and now I need to yell at all of you about how great The Court of Miracles is immediately.

Thank you so much to Kester Grant and Harper Voyager for providing me an eARC of this book, all opinions are entirely my own.

RELEASE DATE: 04/06/20

STAR RATING: 5/5 ✶

Liberty

1828 and the citizens of Paris still mourn in the wake of their failed revolution. Among them, in the dark alleys and crumbling cathedrals of the city, the most wretched have gathered into guilds of thieves, assassins – and worse. Together they are known as The Court of Miracles.

Family

Eponine has lost more than most. When her father, Thénardier, sells her sister to the Guild of Flesh she makes a promise to do anything she can to get her sister back, even if that means joining the Court of Miracles, the very people keeping her sister a slave.

Treachery

Eponine becomes perhaps the greatest thief the Court has ever known, finding a place among them and gaining another sister, Cosette. But she has never forgotten the promise she made, and if she’s to have any hope of saving one sister, she will have to betray the other. (From Harper Voyager)

OPINIONS: THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD YOU NEED TO READ IT IMMEDIATELY. I always say that I rarely ever give out five star ratings as I have to fall in love with a book, although I’ve had quite a good handful this year already – there’s a strong batch of books being published! It took me a little while to really get into The Court of Miracles. I started reading it a few weeks ago, and then got distracted by more pressing review copies, and didn’t pick it up again until yesterday, when I absolutely devoured the rest of it. There were moments when I almost threw my Kindle across the room from pure glee and excitement. I fell in love with Nina, got exasperated at the various men in her life making things difficult, felt for Ettie and her troubles and could not put the book down.

I can’t quite believe that this is a debut novel – it is incredibly well developed into its details, every single character is frustratingly multi-dimensional and driven by intrinsic motivation, and few things are as they seem. This has been taken on as the lead title for Harper Voyager for Summer 2020, and The Court of Miracles deserves all the hype it gets! There’s various special editions announced, it looks like it’ll be featured in an awesome bookbox (hint hint, check out Illumicrate’s June theme)… I’m also extremely glad that it is the first in a trilogy because that means MORE NINA and more of KESTER GRANT’S WRITING in my future! Also, Nina is dark-skinned in a traditionally super white setting, which I love, bringing in much needed diversity and it’s written by a British author of colour, of which there are way too few, making this a book extra worthy of support. I am so glad that this is being pushed so hard in the current publishing climate!

Now you better go off and pre-order a copy – HarperCollins has usefully put together a site with all your convenient buy links here and the Goodreads link is here!