While it’s not technically a villain origin story, “Ace of Shades” offers the rare opportunity to watch a character who is the very definition of innocence thrown into the unforgiving world of lies, greed, betrayal and sin with little hope of survival but with the determination to come out on top.

This book follows Enne, a sheltered young woman desperately searching for her mother in the city of sin with nothing more to go on than a letter offering up a man, Levi who might be able to help but who also happens to have problems of his own and while their two stories intertwine, they are forced to trust each other and work together in order to find the answers Enne so desperately craves and work to keep each other alive.

This is a world that blends the allure of magic and the temptation of sin creating a dark and seedy atmosphere that draws you in while following these characters as they try to survive and establish a reputation that will allow them to advance in the world far better than any gambling den or dance hall would allow while offering the underlying political tension that could start a new war if secrets that were thought to be buried manage to make themselves known with the smallest slip of the tongue.

Fans of ‘Six of Crows’ will love this book as it shows the importance of loyalty and the dangers of pulling off the impossible with a horde of enemies lurking in the shadows and a game of chance that you won’t survive losing.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Ace of Shades is a masterpiece of a book. The worldbuilding, the writing, the characters, and the plot are all phenomenal and I am so excited to see where the next book takes them all. It's wonderful and refreshingly diverse, clearly influenced by Six of Crows and Spirited Away but with its own delightful spin. I simultaneously didn't want to put it down, and wanted to stop reading it so I wouldn't finish it.