This was quite great, and I was not expecting that. I have no idea why, but I went into this book expecting not to like it that much, probably because of the time period it takes place in. I'm not usually a fan of books that take place too far in the past, but that assessment was VERY wrong for this book. Which is a good thing.

The setting for this book was interesting in the sense that you really got to see how the time period affected the characters. For example, Laila, who is an Indian woman, battles with the struggle of having a dark skin tone in Paris at the time. Being mistaken for a servant countless times surely puts a burden on someone. Of course, this is demonstrated through many other characters as well.

Plot-wise, I went into this book wary too. It's pitched as a heist story, and that is one of my favorite tropes, but also one that can be done wrong. I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the epicness of other heist stories like Six of Crows or the Now You See Me movies. Luckily, I was wrong yet again. The heists in this book were super exciting and had a total Indiana Jones vibe.

There were so many twists and turns throughout the plot, and that honestly might be one of my only critiques for this book. At times I did find myself confused, and that may have been due to any of these three reasons:

1) The book was just confusing? Most likely not this, but always a possibility.
2) I read this on vacation so I couldn't put all of my usual brainpower into it.
3) I read this on Kindle, and for some reason I never connect to Kindle books as easily as I do for physical books.

While I was at times confused by the plot, and at the beginning felt a disconnect from the characters, as the story progressed I got more and more into it. By the end I was fully engrossed and I really want to read the sequel.

Lastly, I would like to discuss the amazing cast of characters from this book. There were six main characters in this story, and I would say that each one was arguably as interesting as the next. Let's give a quick rundown, shall we?

❇ Séverin- Even though he's presented as the protagonist, I honestly feel like I know the least about him. I love the dynamic he presents with Laila (even if he is a complete jerk in that one scene near the end), and his emotions towards her are incredibly engaging. I need to see where his character goes in the rest of the series.

❇ Laila- SISTER SNATCHED. That ending scene with her and Séverin though. I felt her break a couple of chapters before, but man, did she bounce back. She is an immensely strong female character, especially when she transforms into L'Énigme. I need more of her and the angst with Séverin in book two. Now.

❇ Zofia- This girl might actually be me in an alternate reality. She has trouble with social interactions (most likely a form of autism or asperger's, but it remains unnamed because it would not have been identified in the 1800's), and is in love with math and physics. She uses numbers to calm down and appreciates the Fibonacci Sequence. I swear, the author somehow read my mind and infused it into this character. Also she's Jewish, and I'm half Jewish, so clearly Zofia=Emily here.

❇ Enrique- Oh Enrique. In love with history, symbology, and maybe a dude in this squad of characters *wink wink*. Or a girl. Who knows?? Because we have a bisexual love triangle on our hands and I don't know what to do with it. THIS IS WHY I NEED THE NEXT BOOK NOW.

❇ Hypnos- He might be tied with Zofia for my favorite character in this book. With quotes like:

"You're like a plague."
"What was that? I'm all the rage?" Hypnos cupped a hand to his ear, then grinned.

What is there not to love?

❇ Tristan- A little jelly bean.

All in all, a great book and I'm kind of sad that I read it so early, because now I have to wait over a year for the sequel. *sniffles*

I'm conflicted about the rating of this book. I did like it a lot. I loved the complex characters and their backstories. Ms. Chokshi really breathed life into them. All of the characters had good motivations for what they were doing. I loved the setting. January/February is going to be a great month for books set in France.

I think perhaps why my gut gives this book 3.5 stars is that it was a little too long. Maybe there was a little too much backstory. Maybe there was too much shared about the characters. Even though I enjoyed it (and will probably read the sequel), it wasn't a book that I couldn't put down.

The Gilded Wolves tells the story of a group of teens (who actually act older than teenagers) who are trying to steal an artifact. These artifacts are amazing and have great powers, and it's one of the charms of this book. They get a little more than they bargained for, when they realize that there is a group of people bent on rising up and becoming like gods.

I love how the author builds a world behind the real world that we can all read about in history books. How there is an unseen group of people with amazing power behind the scenes. How there is magic around us when everything seems ordinary. I also loved the puzzles and mathematical thinking that is in this book. I think a lot of people are going to like it. If only it was a little shorter, I think I could have loved it more.

The book beyond this gorgeous cover does not disappoint! The story is compelling, the writing evocative and the characters engaging. Recommended!

DNF 13%

I loved the way this book began. Magical heist/adventure stories are endlessly entertaining to me. The characters seemed very promising, well thought out and distinct. I just ... Got to the part where a secret map in an I Ching puzzle revealed an eye of Horus, which led to a binary code, which led to a Bible verse. It's like the Davinci code on cocaine. I just had to stop. Maybe I'll pick it back up later, but for now, no.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love a heist. Whether it’s cinematic—like Ocean’s Eleven or The Da Vinci Code—or literary—like Leah Bardugo’s gorgeous Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom—heist narratives (when done well) are compelling and fast moving and just plain fun. They thrive on misdirection and subterfuge, both for characters within the story and for the reader. Roshani Chokshi’s young adult novel The Gilded Wolves, out January 15 and the first of a duology, falls solidly into the heist tradition. (Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC!)

The Gilded Wolves opens in a late 1800s Paris imbued with magic. An established crew of diverse characters successfully has completed a series of missions and is, at the novel’s beginning, in the midst of another. In this world, certain people are adept at Forging, a sort of magical engineering, and a circle of Houses control the world. Each House represents a different facet of magic connected to fragments of the Tower of Babel.

The novel moves between several perspectives. Séverin, the leader of the crew, has been cast out of the wealth and power associated with his line, the House of Vanth. He was raised in a series of foster homes, each dominated by a father who represented one of the seven deadly sins. With him through his childhood was Tristan, his foster brother, who relied on Séverin’s strength to help him survive each home. Next is Laila, a seductive, mysterious, and skilled woman from India who maintains an alternate identity as L’Egnime. Then comes Zofia, a brilliant Forger and victim of anti-Semitism whose objective approach to her world, including insight into numerical patterns, points toward some positioning on the autism spectrum. From the Philippines, Enrique, the final member of the group, can’t Forge but who makes up for his lack of ability with a dedication to history that informs many of their missions.

Each character has a distinct goal through the narrative, separate from the treasure they seek together, and each has a signature characteristic that acts as a sort of flag through the novel: Séverin, for example, chews cloves, Tristan has a gigantic tarantula that horrifies his friends, and so on. While these traits set the characters apart, they do at times seem to stand in for deeper development of individual characters. In general, The Gilded Wolves, in comparison with Chokshi’s other works, relied more on explicit explanation, on telling more than showing. This was, I think, in service of the plot, and Chokshi certainly devoted space to characters’ back stories, but I found myself wishing that the characterization were more nuanced.

As in all heist narratives, certain plot points require great suspension of disbelief: characters are able to foretell other characters’ actions with great accuracy or make speculative leaps just in time to allow their plan to continue. I am, as I said, all in for heists, so I happily suspended my disbelief and just went with it. The book’s fast-moving, compelling plot centers on a series of McGuffins that lay the groundwork for the next novel but are ultimately unimportant in comparison to the group dynamics at the book’s center.

The strength of the central crew and the solid heist plot make up for some shortcuts in other elements of the book. Overall, therefore, I’d recommend The Gilded Wolves, which has magic and Paris and humor and romance and vivid historical touches . . . plenty of good content for this compelling, fun YA read.

This was my first Roshani Chokshi book and her writing did not disappoint. She expertly crafts a beautiful, but dark world set in Paris during the late 1880's. Aside from her writing, my favorite part about this novel are the characters. They are all unique and stand apart from each other. In books with a lot of characters I sometimes lose track of the different characters and they blend together, but that was not the case here. I loved our main group and loved seeing them interact. They are all SO dramatic and I love that. They also have such a deep love for each other that I am not even sure they truly understand. It was beautiful and heartbreaking at times.

The reason I requested this book was because Roshani mentioned on instagram that she was inspired by National Treasure, which is one of my favorite movies. It does have that National Treasure vibe and combines history, adventure, and drama. I was also heavily reminded of Six of Crows while reading this (not a complaint). So Six of Crows meets National Treasure would be my pitch.

I had a little trouble following the world building in this novel and the plot lost me at times. I also was not a fan of the time jumps at the end, I understand why we had them, but it made the ending a little discombobulated. But, the ending also made me excited for the next books.

I really enjoyed this! It has all the elements I love in fantasy--a diverse and ragtag crew of characters, dramatic magical heists, found family, and romance with real conflict, to name just a few. Both the world and the characters are richly complex, and the historical setting is drawn with an attention to detail that I really appreciated. Fans of Chokshi's other books should enjoy this as well, since there are tons of mythology references and lush settings that reminded me of her previous works. There are a lot of intriguing twists in the end, and I can't wait to see where this story and the characters go in the next book. Definitely recommend for fans of heist novels and YA fantasy!

What an amazing story! Great world building. Compelling characters. One heck of a cliffhanger. Can't wait to read book 2!!

I was really excited about this novel because the beginning is enthralling but unfortunately it goes downhill afterwards. The premise and world building at first were very impressive. The wronged heir Severin was a great character and fun to read. At first there was intrigue and mysterious events but very quickly the book became a serious of plans for various plots and then the actual capers themselves. It is ultimately a novel with a series of heists but with magical help. Although they don’t call it magic. Items are forged which means they have special elements and some people have special abilities or origins. The POV switches between Severin and his crew of helpers who are all very different. There is a constant reminder of who everyone is and their backstories which was tedious. Each person is really just working on their part of the plan which I found boring. This was a hard book for me to finish because I was so bored by all the planning. Even the heists themselves weren’t very interesting and did not hold my attention. I wish the author had stuck to the writing at the beginning which was far more interesting than the rest of the book became.

Posted to Goodreads: Séverin Montagnet-Alarie is hunting for something. He is the heir to the mysterious House of Vanth however his inheritance has been taken from him. Séverin is willing to do what it takes to claim the postion that is rightfully his even if that means stealing his way back to his elite status or using magical forged powers. However, Séverin circumstances change when the Order of Babel, a powerful socitey asks him to help solve a mystery by which he may regain his inheritance. Séverin is joined on his journey by his friends: Enrique, Tristan, Zophia, and Laila who will add their powers to his to solve the mystery and regain their status.

I don't know how I feel about this book. It is definitely well written like everything else that Chokshi has written however it never grabbed me. The pieces of the story: the secret society, the puzzles, and the mystery are all elements that usually hook me but for some reason this book just didn't. I will keep reading Chokshi's books because she is a skilled storyteller and I will most likely read the squeal to "The Gilded Wolves" because the last chapter was the most interesting part of the book to me but I will probably not put it at the top of my to-read list.

The Gilded Wolves was a fun heist that had me expecting more, particularly regarding the characters. Together, the group was super fun and their interactions caused a smile or two. Individually, everything was surface level. The first chapters served as introductions to each of the characters and each backstory had an aspect I was interested in learning more about. Unfortunately, all of the characters' individual plights were forgotten to make room for the heist, and what a heist it was. The Gilded Wolves required some brain power on my effort, there were a lot of nifty Forged items and relationships to keep straight and it was overwhelming at times. The ending was exciting with sneak peeks to the sequel which has piqued my interest.

A historical, heist-adventure set in 1890s France with a touch of magic in the form of Forging. The book opens up with Severin and his group of misfits looking to make the score of a life time. All it will take is a treasure map stolen from the mouth of a bear and being replaced by a fake version of it. I think at that moment I knew this was going to be an interesting read. What is excellent is the diversity presented in this book and the uniqueness of each of the characters. This would be a great book to start your year with, so grab it now and wait for the magic to unfold.

Well. Chokshi has really stepped up her game with this book. It's like Six of Crows mixed with the best bits of a Dan Brown book. In short, it's full of friendship, scheming, and lots of puzzles to solve.

I began reading The Gilded Wolves with some trepidation. My multiple attempts to read the author's past work led to me complaining about a disconnect with her flowery, poetic writing style. In this book, the descriptions are vivid and opulent, but she loses a lot of the synesthetic metaphors, making it a much more enjoyable read for me.

It's Paris 1889, during the Exposition Universelle - a world's fair that featured grand operas, displays of locomotives, the largest diamond in the world at the time... and a "Negro village". A human zoo. This is not fantasy. Much of this book is the real history of Paris in all its sparkly ugliness. Into this very real setting, comes a tale of the divine art of Forging - an art whose power is believed to come from the broken pieces of the Tower of Babel.

Séverin Montagnet-Alarie is a thief and the son of a French father and North-African mother. He's also the heir to the dead House Vanth, if only the Order of Babel would accept him and grant him his inheritance. Séverin's pursuit of what is rightfully his leads him on a hunt for a Horus Eye, which is said to reveal the location of a Babel fragment. To do so, he will of course need the help of his diverse band of allies.

And can I just say I loved them? Each and every one.

💫 Tristan - Séverin's sweet brother; a lover of plants and animals, especially his tarantula Goliath. He's such a lovable goof.

💫 Laila - A feisty Indian dancer and part-time pastry chef. The chemistry between Laila and Séverin sizzles, and we soon learn that there's history between them that they are both trying to forget.

💫 Zofia - One of my two favourite characters. She is Polish, Jewish, and a genius. I think it's also implied that she might be autistic, too, as she struggles to understand jokes and human behaviour in general, but is great with numbers and solving the puzzles.

💫 Hypnos - Séverin's childhood rival. Hypnos is dark-skinned, unapologetically queer and absolutely hilarious. “Oh no, shiny things,” moaned Hypnos, clapping his hands to his heart. “My weakness.”

💫 Enrique - Ah, and my other favourite character. Enrique, my love. He's bisexual and mixed race - Filipino and Spanish - and is just the kind of perfectly snarky, funny, smart character I love. Plus, he's a history buff, so even more yay.

I love them all.

Also, The Gilded Wolves is a smorgasbord of mythology. In fact, it's main weakness might be that it's more than a little convoluted and dense. There's four third-person perspectives, and the codes and puzzles bring in a mix of Greek mythology, Biblical mythology, Chinese cleromancy, mathematics, and more. It makes a certain kind of poetic sense to have so many different mythologies, though, given the Babel story.

I think the bombardment of various mythologies is tempered somewhat by the dazzling and very enjoyable dialogue. It is especially fun when Zofia and Enrique bicker. They are both so smart, but in very different ways, and it is amusing to watch the back-and-forth of Zofia being dry and literal and Enrique being sarcastic and snarky.

“What proof did you have? What was your research?”
“Superstition. Stories,” said Enrique, before adding just to annoy her: “A gut instinct.”


It's a very interesting read, both fun and packed full of history lessons. Unlike the author's other books, this one stays low on the romance and high on the scheming and politics. But if that disappoints you, don't worry. With lines like this, romance cannot be too far away:

“That boy looks like every dark corner of a fairy tale. The wolf in bed. The apple in a witch’s palm.”


*shivers*

CW: Racism; antisemitism; abuse.

I greatly enjoyed this book and look forward to the continuation of the series. It is reminiscent of the type of series that I enjoy.

Thank you Wednesday Books for providing me an e-Arc of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 / 5 stars

The Gilded Wolves explores a diverse cast of characters who embark on a journey to recover an important artifact. There are different tasks that these characters must work to complete in order enhance their understanding of what they are working toward. This book is filled with mystical inclusions that support the world that Roshani Chokshi is trying to create in this novel.

All the characters in The Gilded Wolves are so carefully crafted in their own unique way. The reader continuously learns more about each individual throughout the book. Chokshi truly fleshes out each character and shows how each one plays an important role within the plot. I loved all the characters in this book and I was truly mesmerized by each one throughout the story. I also enjoyed being able to see through the eyes of each character through the POV changes that occur in the story.

The world presented in The Gilded Wolves is part historical and part fantastical. Roshani Chokshi builds a complex world full of mythology, history, and magical inclusions. I thoroughly enjoyed the world presented in this book, but I will say that it is a bit hard to follow at times. In my opinion some scenes and explanations are a bit too brief which makes for a harder navigation for the reader. I will say that Chokshi is an expert with most descriptions but still there were some passages I had to attempt to reread for clarity.

In a way, I also feel like some of the instances of action were a bit too rushed in the beginning occurrences which felt a little off when reading those scenes. I wasn’t too fond of the pacing at times as well because some things were drawn out and then the next transition would be rushed and somewhat unclear. I will say that some inclusions with pacing and lack of clarity definitely disrupted the story for me. I think that an extra fifty pages or so supporting some of the world building and events would have been more beneficial for creating a stronger story. I will also say that some of the ending inclusions felt a bit too filler-like and they could have been minimized for a stronger ending.

I do see the idea and purpose for continuing this story into a series, but I still feel like the story is lacking something to make me more excited for the next installment. However, I will be continuing on with the series because overall it was an intricately crafted adventure and story. I would recommend checking this book out.

At first I was like ZzZzZzZzZzZ...and then I was like PLOT TWIST! While this took me a while to get into (several attempts), the ending did NOT disappoint. The characters were lovable, charming, and broken just enough for my liking.
While it did remind me several times of my beloved Six of Crows, it wasn't. Six of crows was definitely better in my eyes as I was hooked from the start and couldn't put it down. I almost gave it two stars but that ending bumped it up to a solid 3. I hope the next installment is better than this because we all know I don't typically tap out of a series unless it's real bad and I can see the potential this could have.

The Gilded Wolves was almost like Indiana Jones in Paris, with magic. It was a very viscous story and there were a lot of characters to keep track of. Once I started understanding the world, though, the book became exciting and captivating with the twists and turns. I am excited for book two, to see where Chokshi takes this tale!

A thrilling tale of diverse characters on an exciting journey through Paris. But will they find what they are looking for? Roshni has a way with words that makes you want to keep reading and find out what comes next.

I loved the characters and the different cultures/languages as well as the wonderful imagery provided by the very descriptive words.

As a fan of Roshani Chokshi’s The Star-Touched Queen books, I was excited to see she had a new series on the way and the description for the first book, The Gilded Wolves had me intrigued. The new series promises to be an ambitious project, less reliant on mythology and folktales for its basis and involving a wide and diverse cast of characters, but it fell a bit flat for me where The Star-Touched Queen stories soared. It’s far too early for a release date for the next book in the series but though this first installment ends with many questions up in the air, I’m not sure this first leg of the journey left me invested enough or intrigued enough to bother with more.

Séverin was supposed to be the heir of one of the four family houses of the Order, bearers of great power and entrusted with using that power to protect several crucial artifacts—supposed to be from God Himself. But Séverin’s illegitimate birth was used as an excuse to exclude him and end his family’s house, leaving only two remaining houses and the larger Order to divvy up his inheritance. Having built a team of fellow misfits with unique gifts of their own, Séverin enjoys a bit of revenge in the form of stealing from the Order. Then Hypnos, the Patriarch of another house, comes to him with a proposition—the Order needs a certain artifact secured and if Séverin and his team help, Hypnos will re-administer the test to have Séverin’s inheritance and house restored.

I think the biggest issue The Gilded Wolves has is that it tries to do too much at once. It drops the reader right into the midst of a heist sequence, which wouldn’t be too much except that the reader is also trying to fill in the blanks of the magical-realistic world in which it’s set… and the narrative switches perspective between a wide range of characters. It means the story begins on a disorienting note and, for me at least, it never really found its footing. I did enjoy Séverin and his team as characters, but their interactions—especially early in the novel—fell flat more often than not. There are the characters’ individual backstories and motivations, there’s the larger world building trying to unfold, there’s a multilayered plot that involves a lot of puzzles, heists, and deceptions—and the initial plans for what’s supposed to happen on each of the missions isn’t always completely laid out so when a wrench gets thrown into the mix, it’s almost impossible to tell if something’s actually amiss or if it was actually part of the plan and it zaps a lot of the tension from the whole thing.

I feel like the pieces were all there but it was presented in a way that was just too chaotic to hold and maintain my interest. Sprinkling Séverin’s personal backstory throughout the book and playing on the themes of his foster fathers’ as the Seven Deadly Sins was clever but it was more interested in being clever than in establishing a foundation for Séverin’s character. The world building unfolded so slowly and amidst so much other chaos that I’m still unsure half the time how certain key elements—like Forging—come into play. The characters are wonderfully diverse and the dynamics between them work better and better as the novel progresses and telling gives way to more showing but it took a long while to get to that point. The deeper lines of antagonism that eventually emerge and build toward the series’ longer plot would have been more compelling if the world building had been clearer earlier.

It would have been incredibly difficult to put so much exposition at the beginning of the novel but getting off to a running start on something so complex meant I felt like I was constantly playing catchup instead of being swept along in the natural flow. I found it exhausting more than entertaining or engaging and the last several chapters were incredibly awkward in their pacing and action as the novel’s immediate plot struggled to wrap while setting up the series’ larger plot.

The Gilded Wolves will be available for purchase January 15, 2019.

The Gilded Wolves is one of those books that I've been anticipating for so long now and have been seeing so many wonderful things about that my expectations were pretty high. I always try not to let the hype influence my expectations too much, but I still had high hopes and honestly, they weren't quite met with this one.

This book follows a diverse group of characters who regularly embark upon a variety of 'acquisitions' (aka heists), in which the leader's main goal at the end of everything is the reinstatement of his inheritance. The Gilded Wolves is a lot of a fun and makes for a highly entertaining story, but it's also one that felt oddly paced and a little difficult to get through at times. I found the beginning of the book in particular to be exceptionally slow and difficult to get into. It wasn't until at least a hundred or so pages in that I really started to be able to enjoy the story more and follow along with the world. The magic and world felt rather confusing to me at many times, almost as if we'd been dropped into a sequel or part of an already-established world.

One of the strongest points of this book, however, is the cast of characters. Chokshi truly did a remarkable job of including well-developed, vastly diverse characters, from race to sexuality to religion and more--and all with fantastic personalities and great humor. There are racist elements discussed in productive manners, sexist elements (this is 1889 Paris, after all), and many people consider one of the characters to be on the autism spectrum (I don't feel knowledgeable enough to fully comment on that, but I feel it is important to note that that seems to be a common thought). All of this really made for interesting and authentic experiences. My only struggle with the characters was that it seemed like some (not all!) of the witty dialogue and banter was a little forced, as if Chokshi wanted her group of characters to be so amusing that she ended up trying too hard and was left with some unnatural dialogue and interactions.

Our main character group consists of Severin, Laila, Zofia, Enrique, and Tristan. Severin is basically the leader of the group and is a very determined, passionate person. He likes to act as though he's tough and hard-hearted, but he's also pretty vulnerable as well; he also makes a lot of extremely frustrating decisions that annoyed me quite a bit throughout the book. Laila is a lovely person who is exceptionally considerate of others and always feeding them, and I particularly loved the close attention she paid to Zofia's preferences and how she always did her best to always accommodate them. A+ as a good friend and person! Zofia is a character I really liked. I think her personality was expertly done and I found it interesting to see her experiences with all of the different characters, especially in regards to her intelligence and struggle to understand some types of humor. Enrique is the wittiest of the bunch and is the type that is always around to make jokes and make things more light-hearted--or complain about things. Lastly is Tristan, the more serious brooding one of the bunch at times, but who also has a soft spot for animals, particularly large spiders, and who can easily turn up his charm and big eyes to win people over.

If you like solving different puzzles and riddles (especially ones including math), then you are going to love this book. If you don't, well, there might be a lot of places you'll want to skim. I unfortunately happen to be in the latter half. I love a good puzzle, but I don't love reading about people solving them and doing math so much, so those extensive sections tended to be a bit much for me.

Overall, I'm really unsure what to rate this book. Part of me thinks of this book with fondness for how entertaining and imaginative it was, but part of me is also bored and frustrated with a lot of it as well. The characters and diversity inclusions were awesome, the sheer imagination in this world and magic system was fascinating, but the execution was all a little unimpressive. I do still highly recommend this to you if it sounds interesting because so many people seem to be adoring it and I wouldn't want you to miss out on that potential!