Brutal. Full of flawed, fascinating characters. A wild, eventful ride from start to finish.

"In the violent urban jungle of an alternate 1828 Paris, the French Revolution has failed and the city is divided between merciless royalty and nine underworld criminal guilds, known as the Court of Miracles.

Eponine (Nina) Thénardier is a talented cat burglar and member of the Thieves Guild. Nina's life is midnight robberies, avoiding her father's fists, and watching over her naïve adopted sister, Cosette (Ettie).

When Ettie attracts the eye of the Tiger - the ruthless lord of the Guild of Flesh - Nina is caught in a desperate race to keep the younger girl safe. Her vow takes her from the city's dark underbelly to the glittering court of Louis XVII. And it also forces Nina to make a terrible choice - protect Ettie and set off a brutal war between the guilds, or forever lose her sister to the Tiger."

The dark, gothic criminal underground of Paris was such an amazing backdrop for this retelling.

(Yes, this is a Les Mis retelling.
From Eponine's perspective.

I know, I know. Feel free to make dinosaur noises, and squawk like the adorable, awkward, nerdy pigeons we all are.)

It felt...Cozy...If that makes sense? I often find myself describing a world "cozy" when the author has made the setting feel something akin to a home for my imagination. The criminals are cutthroat, and the city is alive with mystery, and mischief, and smog; it breathes life into the narrative with every turn of a page.

"Now these are the laws of the Miracle Court, as old and as true as the sky; the Wretched that keep them may prosper, but the Wretched that break them must die."

Ah, *chef's kiss*
Pure poetry.

I will say: You do not necessarily have to know the story to enjoy this interpretation of it. This retelling is so richly imagined and somewhat faraway from the original (in a good way!), that if anything, knowing the story will only make you smile at the some of the ways in which the author has flipped things.

Now, make no mistake: Nina is not the heartbroken, lovesick Eponine we know from the classic tale and the beloved broadway musical ( 🎶do you hear the people sing 🎶). She is cutthroat, clever, and menacing. She does not shy away from saying the honest thing, or doing what is painfully right (or wrong). I found myself wanting to shake her for the lengths she was willing to go to get what she wanted, and protect the people she loved. The closest thing she ever comes to being heartbroken and lovesick is in regards to her sister(s). I won't say more (because spoilers) but - the girl loves fiercely. FIERCELY.

Also, just one of the many things I loved about this story: Nina.has.somany.love.interests. This was one of the many changes from the classic tale that I loved. She's not just pining over one guy. She's not pining over anybody, tbh. She's pining for her family. I think in so many narratives (especially in fantasy novels), we see mainly men who get to have several flirtations with so many female characters, and it's rarely ever the other way around.

Let me just list each fine specimen:
1. St. Juste
2. The Dauphin
3. Montparnasse

It is a love RHOMBUS.

All of them, with amazing qualities. All of them - exceedingly attractive in their own ways. St. Juste with his fiery sense of justice, the Dauphin with his kindness and tenderness, and Montparnasse WHO WOULD DIE FOR NINA. WITH HIS SILENT, FEROCIOUS, FOREVER ENDURING LOVE. YOU ADORABLE LITTLE ASSASSIN, YOU!

I don't want to pick sides (I love you all, bebes) but I'm clearly leaning some-type-of-way.

My only complaint: I wish there hadn't been so many time jumps. Obviously, it's an element of the original tale, but time jumps have a tendency to make me feel disconnected from characters. I want to suffer with the characters. But that's just me. They were artfully done, though.

There are so many other things/elements/characters that I could go on and on about, but that would turn this review into a book report...Hehe.

Anyway, if you loved Eponine, or Les mis, or 'Six of Crows', or anything to do with kickbutt heroines, sisterhood, and brutal criminal undergrounds systems - this is the one for you.

A big thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me an ARC of this book!

A really clever and interesting retelling of a story I feel like I’ve known since childhood. I really loved the characters and the idea of the guilds, I thought that it was a creative and interesting setup, and I personally enjoyed the brilliant personality written in to the guilds and the characters themselves.

Such a great story. I would love to see more books as amazing as this one. It's an amazing story with great characters!

Ooh this was great! I love the Court and the different guilds, their leaders and the comparisons to different animals was so interesting. Our lead character Nina is so smart and cunning and always has something up her sleeve. She's so much fun to read, I love seeing her stand up for herself and those she cares about.
The twist on Les Miserables was cool, although I only know a little bit about that story, but I like the roles Inspector Javert and Jean Valjean played and their complicated relationship. Also the revolution and St. Juste were great plot points and the way everything played out was well done.
I loved the sisterly bonds throughout the book. It's great to see women stick together and be there for each other and I liked that we just got a tiny bit of romance and the main focus was on Nina and Ettie.

I really enjoyed this, it was a fun read and moved really quickly. I'm excited for everyone to get a chance to check out this amazing book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I expected good things from this book, and Kester Grant delivered. The moment I saw a comparison to Six of Crows in the description, I was all in. This book had all of my favorite character archetypes, especially the badass female thief. This book overall was really good. The Court of Miracles as a group and not a book was such an interesting place, and while the villains seemed very one-dimensional, they were definitely entertaining. My one complaint with this book would be the vast time-jumps. One of these went six years at a time, and while it served the plot, it was very confusing. The smallest jump was two months. However, it’s easy to get past these and the intricate plot is well-suited to readers. There is also a lot of heavy world-building, but in my opinion, that makes it all the more interesting.

I would recommend this book mainly to people who liked Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows or Roshani Chokshi’s The Gilded Wolves, both of which I loved. However, anybody who likes fantasy and bits of historical fiction along the way could enjoy this book. I loved this book and I would definitely recommend it to a friend.

As soon as I saw this compared to Six of Crows and Les Miserables, I absolutely had to get my hands on a copy of it. The characters and world building totally did it for me in this book. I really enjoyed that a heavy romance was not the main focus, which happens a lot when it comes to ya fantasy.

Nina/Black Cat is part of the Guild of Thieves and is one of the best. She is trying to save her sister from a man who thinks he is above the law and who everyone in the nine guilds fear. This book was very interesting and I feel like this could be an epic series depending on where the author takes it. Think SJM world building and epic fantasy with so many characters it takes a while to remember who everyone is. That was one of the main issues I had with the book plus a few times the book skipped time but the reader wasn't made aware until later on in the chapter. Overall I was impressed and I'm looking forward to more of this world!

Les Miserables was a part of my teen years. Like anybody who grew up with the musical and enjoyed it (I'm talking pre film adaptation), they went out and purchased 'the brick', also known as Hugo's tome. Currently there are two versions you can purchase - abridged and unabridged. The unabridged is known as the brick. Anyway, there are a lot of themes that are brought up in that book - the most important are forgiveness, love, and God. Les Miserables will always be a story about one's faith in God. From Valjean finding his faith in God, to Javert doubting his faith in God in the end.

... When I saw this was a book based on an AU of Les Miserables I was not only intrigued, I was confused by the story that the author was trying to tell. The only thing that seemed to resemble Les Miserables was the time and the familiar names.

After finishing this book, thinking about it, I don't think this book should even be remotely related to Les Miserables. It almost paints an entirely different story. A strange, convoluted, bloated version of nothingness. You have everyone - down to the barricade boys - making their appearance. However, the author is focused on Eponine and for some reason decides to turn her into some sort of cat burgular who gains the attention of not only one, two, but THREE MEN?

Javert is now a female, who is hunting Valjean who is not a convict but some sort of lover who scorned her? Oh, yes, there is the Dauphin of France who some how becomes connected with Eponine and has fallen in love with her (he is one of the three men).

The prose is lovely and I feel that the author has a story to tell but I don't know if writing Eponine lives fanfiction is the way of showing off what she can do?

Overall, the story held my interest but by the end I just didn't really seem to care and found the story weak and wanting.

I've been craving a Young Adult fantasy novel thats actually original and has great world building for so long and The Court of Miracles has supplied the solution. With a little bit of a slow start, I was worried this was going to be equipped with long, drawn out plot that was going to take a turn into boring. The plot does pick up though and its worth the slow beginning.
The writing style is my favorite part about The Court of Miracles. It's beautifully written and makes this book stand out from the mass of YA fantasy out there.
There's a wonderful cast of characters and even though I never became deeply invested in the characters, I really enjoyed them. I really loved the main character and, in my opinion, she makes this book stand out so much.
If you're not much into romance being forced into every single book, The Court of Miracles is for you. I really appreciated how there wasn't much in this book and what little there is, isn't unnecessarily forced into the plot.

This was absolutely incredible. I've tried to read other Les Mis retellings before and they never clicked, but there's something about Kester Grant's writing that is captivating. I loved all of these characters with all of their flaws, and it was so much fun to trace parallels to the original story. I know a lot less about The Jungle Book but that did not impact my enjoyment in any way. The only bad thing is that now I have to wait until the next one in the series!!!

Brilliant!

I received a copy from Netgalley for a fair and honest review.

I'm quite torn in how I feel about this book. I was confused by how it somehow seemed both slow and rushed at the same time. The author did do a lovely job of really making me feel as though I was in 1828 France, filling in the world well. I just wish that the whole story hadn't just revolved around protecting Ettie who had little to no background put in at all. I just felt like it had so much more potential.

I did really adore Nina (Eponine). She was fiery and strong willed and fiercely protective of the few that were close to her. She handled everything with a cleverness that was admired by her peers and leaders alike. I honestly feel as though she made the book worth it for me. She was definitely the most fleshed out character in the entire book. Most of the others fell pretty short, seeming to be mostly just accessories, which is sad because I would have loved to have learned more about a few of them, especially Ettie (Cosette), Montparnasse, and Corday. I felt like there was so much more that I wanted to know about their backstories and their relationships with Nina. And there was a lot of hinting at possible coming romantic situations, but in the end, what little there was fell kind of flat for me because it needed more to be given more life instead of two people just being thrown together and falling in love with very little shown interaction.

Nina is the black cat of the Thieves Guild. She's basically the best. The tempo starts to pick up halfway through as a slew of Nina's past choices and actions start to catch up to her. It was nerve racking at times, and Nina was always quick and clever in most circumstances. Along the way she makes new and dangerous allies, I found them all interesting and I enjoyed learning about the different guilds. The backdrop of 19th century Paris, amidst the famine, and uprising... I was easily sucked in to a world that isn't what it appears to be. A web of lies, betrayal, power struggles, and intrigue. I really enjoyed it and I was kind of sad how it ended but I am looking forward to the next adventure and hoping a couple of romantic interests become a possibility.

**3.75 stars**
This rating feels right, since a 4 is a little too high but a 3.5 seemed a little too low? This is a book I've been waiting for for almost 2 years now but I finally got to read it! I really enjoyed the hierarchy of the Courts, their lore and laws and all the groups. I also really liked the first couple sections with seeing how Nina becomes apart of the Thieves Guild and be known as the Black Cat. While this wasn't a 5 star read for me, due to the jarring time jumps and feeling like the characters were held a distance from me, this a very entertaining and compulsively readable first book. I have no idea where this series is going but I will read the sequel. This is definitely a darker book with lots of death, mentions of sex trafficking and morally gray characters. I'm still not quite sold on Nina's relationship with Ettie, since it still feels more surface level but I hope that Nina has SOME kind of development as the series goes on. I do hope that my library district with eventually open after this virus pandemic and I also hope that they can purchase either a digital or physical copies of our patrons. Looking forward to rest of the series.

Spoiler free review of Court of Miracles:

Court of Miracles was heart wrenching, but not in the way you'd think.
Its Les Mis if the revolution was unsuccessful. And the way of life described in the book is more depressing than the movie.

I didn't really care for Nina. I thought she was unkind and "one track minded" throwing everyone under the carriage to get what she wanted. in this book's case- Ettie's safety. now, you could argue that anyone would do anything to keep their loved ones safe- but Ettie wouldn't have even been in any danger if Nina hadn't tried to bargain her off in the first place! She likely would never have been noticed by our "big bad"

I am torn when it comes to reviewing this book. It did not make me feel good, but i'm not sure what i really expected out of a "Les Mis" retelling. The things Nina had to do, and the constant struggle to keep Ettie safe was taxing. On the other hand, the writing style was BEAUTIFUL! I suppose the authors ability to make me feel strongly either way should say something about her writing talent. I will be reading future work by her.

4 stars! It defiantly was unlike anything I've read in recent years!

I was gifted a free E-ARC copy of Court of Miracles in exchange for an honest review.
thank you NetGalley, Random House, & Kester Grant for this opportunity!

This was an interesting read. It took me a few chapters to get into, and really understand what was going on, but after several chapters, when everything started to click, I couldn’t put it down. I loved the writing style of this author, that’s one of the reasons I kept reading. And it was so worth it. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

The description of this book intrigued me as soon as I read it. The book started out slow but something kept pulling me back in, demanding that I keep reading. The pace soon picked up and had me quickly turning pages to the end. I was so engaged with the characters that I immediately said "I want more!!" as soon as I finished the last page. I can't wait to keep reading where this story goes!

Very good book! I am very happy I requested this. The synopsis intrigued me, and the characters sounded interesting. It is a fast paced read, full of twists. It was very easy to follow, and I love the snark and scrappiness of the main character. Definitely recommend!

When Nina's sister is sold by their father to the guild of flesh, Nina's whole life is upended. She swears her alliance to an underground criminal society for protection and thinks of nothing but vengeance against the man that took everything from her. What lengths will she go to to protect those she loves?

This book has such promising mechanics. (IE: the guilds). Now I've never read or seen Les Miserables,or read The Jingle Book (Shame on me, twofold) so maybe that's why I come by the opinion I formed; I found the book to be quite dizzying and disjointed. There are a lot of time jumps that seem to come unexpected and leave so much unexplored which is probably my biggest complaint. . And the plot just goes around and around.
It's by no means the worst book I have read but it's just not my pace. I will also say I found the male "interests" if you could call them that to be quite bland and it's hard to care about any connection with the main character as so little is explored between any two characters in the book. It seems out of place.
Some of the characters were actually quite intriguing and the whole idea of this underground society is exciting and I would have loved to see more world building on that and character exploration and development. There's just so much promise there. I feel if more time was spent on those few things, this could have been a much more complete and enjoyable read.


I appreciate the advanced copy for review.

Thank you Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of this book for an honest opinion.

The Court of Miracles is fast-paced and twisty. It is full of intrigue and yields plot secrets slowly and deliberately. The narrative is multi-layered, with the MC, Nina, at the helm. The story is conveyed through her eyes and chronicles her efforts to destroy the Miracle Court Lord known as the Tiger. He is a “flesh trader” and his enslavement of Nina’s beloved sister, Azelma, precipitates Nina’s journey. Her vengeance fuels the story and sustains her. It is this single-minded need for retribution that makes it difficult to fully embrace her, however. Her myopic tendencies facilitate a willingness to sacrifice any number of people to protect the adopted sister who she placed in harm’s way. The whole debacle is ultimately her doing and though you root for her success, her methods are sometimes extremely off-putting. She is an unrepentant heroine, willing to “pay a terrible price” to achieve her goals, but her love and perseverance are ultimately redemptive despite her amoral path.

Kester Grant’s foray into the fictional world is enthralling, but not without flaws. The most salient flaw is the frequently unlikable nature of her protagonist. Nina makes selfish choices, and although you understand the motivation behind them, they are not always easy to condone. Another issue is the pacing of the novel. Many years pass within a small narrative space and it is disorienting. It disrupts the flow and adds unnecessary confusion to a fairly straight-forward vengeance tale. Finally, although Nina is surrounded by a colorful cadre of characters, they are superficially drawn and lack dimension. It would behoove Grant to flesh out these characters, as they were frequent contributors to the levity and humanity of the novel. Despite these imperfections, I wish to continue with the purposed trilogy.

Not what I was expecting but essentially a good book. I'd definitely recommend this title to others. Are there any more in this series?