I genuinely think this might be one of my new favourites, I love heist novels in general and this goes SO hard for being a middle grade novel. This is my new crew, and I'm looking at the other two ASAP because I ended up flapping my hands at how amazing that ending was. Callan and Lachlan are my absolute faves, and the way that Sands weaves characterization with world building and an interesting magic system has my heart in a choke hold. I need book two yesterday!

I've heard a lot about the author's other series and now I'm interested in reading it as well. This was fun and intriguing, and I would definitely recommend it to younger readers. It wasn't as interesting to me personally, as an adult, like other series were (Nevermoor and Amari, for example), but I'm not the target audience so that's completely fine. Really good fantasy heist story!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

This book was so much fun! I loved the blend of a fantasy world with almost a historical based world, which was a strength in Sands other series. I absolutely loved the use of 'crystal lore' in the plot, I think that's such a cool fantasy trope to pull into middle grade. And most of all I loved this cast of characters! I can't wait to see what adventures await them in the next book (especially with that abrupt ending!)

I don't have a lot of MG readers in my library who will read a 400+ page book, but I love the author's previous books so I decided to try it. Although this book is well written, I found the pace slow and gave up on the book at 40%. I think it will appeal to the right reader, but it wasn't me.