Seattle, 1929. Magical and other intrigue among the upper crust, as a young woman worms her way into a powerful family with nefarious purposes. The narrative jumps back and forth over a six-period, revealing secrets one layer at a time.

Competently written. There's nothing wrong with this, but I didn't find it particularly engaging.

In a magic-filled 1920s Seattle, Dolly White is a changeling, grifter, con artist. Her marks: a dastardly family of wealthy human supremacists who want to exterminate shapeshifters and magic-users that aren't themselves. They're really quite vile, up to and including coercion, sexual assault (off-page for the most part) and murder. Her helpers: a shapeshifter, a socialite, a speakeasy owner, and a magical and blind tattooist. The plot is well-woven and non-chronological, and I'm eager to learn more about Dolly's past in the next book in the series.

What a fun read! The timeline jumps around a bit and the magical component takes a bit to get used to, mostly because there's no real explanation of the setup, but it's a fast and zippy read that definitely leaves you wanting more books.

I think this was first described to me as "Phryne Fisher with magic". It's not quite, since it's not a detective story, but I can see why the comparison: there's something very Phryne-like in Dolly's matter of fact certainty about things. But don't downplay the magic element when you're thinking about this book: there's a whole rich world outside the novella, happening before and after it, and giving it a context. There's stuff going on that isn't really explained, that just stands there as background, and it makes me hope there are going to be more books following Dolly/Comeuppance.

Everything about this is remarkably well-handled: telling a non-linear story in such a way that everything comes together with a snap at the end is a pretty good trick. You get just enough information to not quite trust everything, but not to put all of it together at once.

I enjoyed the characters a lot, in the end -- even Fiona, to my surprise. I feel like there are two or even three strands of the story I'd like to follow in future books: I'd love to see more of Gabe, Philippe and Violet, as well as more of Dolly, or of her associates.

It comes together really well, tells a complete story, and leaves me wanting more. What more can you ask?

I enjoyed this book, and I hope it continues. I would love to read more about "Dolly" and her adventures across the country. There is a magic system that is a little hard to follow, but the setting and characters helped make the book enjoyable.

Well wasn’t this the charming little chocolate-box of a novella?

Loads of fun, a fascinating historical urban fantasy setting, a diverse cast, and an intriguing main character. MAN I hope this is the first of many.

Magic, drugs, the prohibition all taking place in an urban fantasy Seattle in 1929... what could go wrong? This is a such an interesting story that follows a nonlinear storytelling style. There are shapeshifters, magic, a complicated mission, a forbidden marriage and so much going on. The story is short but interesting and the tension builds. The ending was fit, as everyone got what they deserved and the story fit. Despite it’s short length it perfectly wraps things up nicely while telling an intriguing story!

*thanks for the sending me an arc Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tordotcom in exchange for an honest review*

This is absolutely one of the best books I've read all year.

Objectively, it's got enough complications it that it runs the risk of being messy, and would easily be so in a lesser hand. It's got a heist, nonlinear storytelling, urban fantasy set in Seattle in 1929, shapeshifters (and fantasy racism), characters facing real racism (and sexism, and homophobia), blood magic, drinks and drugs and magical drugs and real life prohibition, and more.

However, it pulls everything in perfectly, creating a tense situation where I read the whole thing fully believing, based on the prologue and the title, that it was going to have a good ending where everyone (good and bad) got what they deserved. And even though I believed that, the situations were so thrilling and so tightly written that I kept having to put the book down to remember to, oh, blink and breathe.

The characters were fantastic, the setting was perfectly done, the non-linear storytelling was arranged in a way ideal to a heist where everything gets set up ideally so when it is finally pulled tight at the end it all makes sense. It reminded me a bit of Baccano, haha. I'm just so completely satisfied and I can't wait to read more Comeuppance stories (and I'm going to check out the rest of Deeds' work asap).

Marion Deeds is a reviewer for Fantasy Literature, which occasionally (by arrangement) republishes some of my reviews, and I've appreciated reading her thoughtful and thorough reviews, even where our tastes obviously differed. So when I saw a novel by her on Netgalley, I was immediately interested, and when I saw that it was a heist novel I was instantly sold.

It's unusually, but effectively, structured, in that the prologue (briefly) shows us the heist, and most of the rest of the book (apart from the wrap-up at the very end) is told in flashback, with headings indicating how long before the heist each scene takes place. This kind of thing is tricky to pull off, but the author makes it work, building some nice tension, introducing a number of subplots and additional characters, and performing a masterful slow reveal about the protagonist's background and abilities. All of this in competent prose with very few errors, even in the pre-publication version from Netgalley.

It's not completely without flaws. There are a few things that conveniently line up for the protagonist. <spoiler>The most obvious being that there's a spare body lying around, that has been magically preserved for no obvious good reason, at some cost, by someone who the protagonist would go to for help in any case, who has a grudge against her mark. There are also plenty of opportunities for things to unravel, with multiple not-necessarily-reliable people - including someone just coming off drugs - knowingly being part of the heist, but somehow none of them let her down.</spoiler> Even this, though, is subtly handled; it's not like the author is obviously manipulating events in the protagonist's favour at every turn. Given the setup - the mark is involved in harassing the smaller and more vulnerable members of the magical community - the fact that everyone's interests are aligned against him is plausible, and there are no sudden reveals of convenient get-out-of-jail-free cards at critical plot moments.

This is one of those heists where we, the audience, don't understand the whole plan until it's completed, and then we look back down the trail of all the events and see them fit together in a new light. It's a satisfying fiction experience to have, and the author pulls it off well.

I would very much like to read the further (or, for that matter, the fascinatingly hinted-at prior) adventures of this character, and will be keeping an eye out for them.

Recommended.