Silver Queendom was a fun, light-hearted fantasy read. I really liked the characters and the banter in this book. I wish there had been a little more world building but overall I enjoyed this.

A really fun heist adventure, this had major D&D vibes with a great band of characters. There was minimal world building and a magical system that I need to read more about, but I loved the way the whole thing vibed. There was a great sense of humour throughout, and I enjoyed getting caught up in the action. I’m really hoping that there will be more adventures with this group, especially Tom who was just so wholesome.

What an amazing find on NetGalley. If you love fantasy heist stories, ]Silver Queendom is the book for you. This book contains multiple POV’s, a bit of magic and great fleshed out characters that sweep you in the story like no other.

I love the world building in this book. It is different from what you normally read and there is some back story on how this kingdom is based.

Darin is our main character and owner of the Red Rooster Inn and employs a crew to work in the Inn and to do jobs or Heist. Each person who works in the Inn has the ability to pull off a successful heist.

Even though they are good at what they do, they are having trouble keeping up with the debt to the Dame. Because of their reputation, they were presented with a job that was not only dangerous and never before achieved. Even though it has never been achieved, it is a chance to pay off their debt and be free from the Dame.

It is not as easy as it seems, as they were together to get things in place and to accomplish what they are going to be paid to do. They come across challenges and old revilieries that get in their way to pull off their biggest heist yet.

I love each and every character in this book. Each one has a unique personality and a joy to read each POV as they work together to pull an impossible Heist.

Even though there are so many good things to say about the books, there are a few things I would point out. The POV’s can get confusing, sometimes you have to read a few sentences to understand which POV it is. So, I do wish there was a better way to understand who is who.

The magic system, though great and intriguing, you don’t get much of it and much explanation of it. So, I wish there was more to it than the details because it adds to the story because the magic does assist Darin in the Heist.

I love how different this book is and would recommend this book to others who want a good book about a heist.

This book has some brilliant points and others that disappointed me quite a bit.

TW: domestic abuse, self-harm mention,

firstly the things I loved were the characters and their chemistry. Darin, Tom, Kat and Evie have a great relationship and it all works together seamlessly. I would absolutely believe they were friends in real life.

The magic system was also super interesting, they used silver and drew magic from it. It has some side effects and our only magic wielder is not a fan of using his powers at all for this reason, which was an interesting choice that I think worked well.

I also love that this book kind of has a Matriarchal society, all of the influential and powerful people were women whereas in real life there would be men (usually), but here we see a different kind of political system which I just wish there was more of.

Now the stuff that disappointed me were things I think deserve trigger warnings in a book but anyway we have the topic of domestic abuse play a role but I don't think this was handled very well we have victim blaming and we have an incident of a character only believing the situation after witnessing the abuse from a window which just rubbed me the wrong way, to be honest.

my other issue was the mention of self-harm in a side character that just seemed to be thrown in at the end for no real reason and to no real effect other than it was unexpected.

I did however enjoy the plot and the world but I do think it could be a little more polished.

Darin and his team are thieves, good-hearted thieves (aren’t they the best kind!) but with terrible luck (probably what they get for being good-hearted). First, they assist some nobels by lightening their jewellery loads, which goes very wrong. After that, they owe their ‘benefactor’ some serious gold. Each team member has unique skills, and together they have to get out of the mess… And Darin has excellent plans…

I loved this book! Darin, Tom, Evie, Kat and all the orphans she collects, are thieves, good-hearted thieves! They are so kind to steal from the rich and give well… to themselves (they can’t be that good because they are poor). Darin makes plans, which are really good plans… at the start. Evie used to be from the noble class but now uses those skills to fool the unsuspected. Tom is the muscle and really loves his horses. And Kat… she collects orphans and brews some really… interesting ale. They receive an impossible mission, but they owe so much gold… they will take it! And it goes down most spectacularly!

I already said I loved this book, but it is worth mentioning twice! The humour was terrific, the characters were witty and entertaining, and the stories go so wrong and then surprisingly right! Their final heist was done so that I did not see what would happen at the end. I do love stories with thieves in them, there is a little magic in there, and the world is old-fashioned, with a tavern, nobles that have too many things and people helping others while helping themselves a little bit in the process, of course…

I have to say, when I saw the cover of Silver Queendom I knew that I had to read it. I was instantly intrigued, I mean it is a fantasy heist novel and I do have a bit of a soft spot for that type of tale.

There is so much to like about Silver Queendom that I was instantly drawn in. We start the book immediately in the middle of the action, with Darin, the leader of our merry band of thieving con artists attempting to fleece a crowd of finely attired nobles. However, things start to go wrong when one of the posh knobs challenges him to a duel. Whilst Darin is a good duellist, he is at a slight disadvantage due to the fact that he does not have his own sword and the prig that he is duelling happens to be the son of one of the most influential men in the city. It is in this first chapter that we meet the rest of the gang; Evie, once a noble whose father lost their fortune, Big Tom, a fighter of dubious background, Kat, the brewer who has a soft spot for stray children and Seraphina, a hackneyed old witch who happens to put people to sleep with her special stew.

Now, I have to say that the book does follow a particular formula, but I think that this is part of the book’s charm. It knows what it is and it doesn’t deviate from the path that it sets out on. It uses the old familiar tropes, but is that a bad thing? Well in my book no, because it does them well and the book trundles along on its merry way taking you along with it.

I liked all the characters, who all had a typical back story of why they got into their way of life. The two standouts for me were Evie, the fallen from grace noble (I could read a whole book with Evie in to be honest!) and Big Tom, who is just a big softie doesn’t say much, likes horses and knows some of the dodgiest people in the kingdom. For me, I think that the weakest character was Darin, who I didn’t gel with, and felt he was a bit lacking, and I felt that the ensemble cast carried him rather than him shining through.

The plot, as I said runs a familiar line, but I liked that about it. The story has a number of set pieces that I thought worked well and kept me engaged and entertained. I was never bored in the story, and the pacing was pretty steady, coming up with various different scams and saving a victim of domestic violence before it actually comes to the main set piece.

The world building was minimal, just telling you the facts that you needed to get by in the world. On the whole, it was quite low fantasy with some fantastical elements, mainly coming from the magic system that was introduced. Now if there is one criticism of the book, it would be the magic systems of the book. For me, this wasn’t really explored as much, but I did like the way that Darin tried not to rely on it and felt that Dan Koboldt managed to use it sparingly rather than it being a deus ex machina device that got the gang out of trouble every time something like that was needed. I did think that something other than Metalurgy could have been used as it put me too much in mind of Allomancy a little too much, but hey, what the heck it works.

One thing that I feel needs mentioning is that with the team, Dan Koboldt stays away from the buckets of blood and I feel that this book could easily be given to a younger reader as a gateway into the genre. Yes there is one nasty death in it, and there is some intimation of sex, but it certainly isn’t offensive or exploitative and is a natural part of the story.

On the whole, this book is just good fun. It is light, entertaining and I would definitely read more stories set in this world.

I do love a fun heist story with lovable not really evil scoundrels trying to run the show. This is a fun book that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I had a good time reading this and the pages flew by. I’d happily read more about this crew. I had a ton of fun with this one. I had read The Rogue Retrieval by this author some years back. After reading this one I want to go back, reread that and read the rest of that trilogy just to read more by this author.

The Red Rooster Inn seems like a fun place to hang out and people-watch! This book by Dan Koboldt was full of fun characters that I enjoyed rooting for. The one odd thing is the person I liked the least was the main character. I get that he was supposed to learn from his mistakes, but I found him arrogant, which often foiled the team's plans. I wondered why they kept covering up for him because he was more concerned with his pride than with ensuring the safety of his friends. I think because the other people on their team looked out for each other, I didn't understand why they were all trying to protect someone who didn't reciprocate that concern.

That being said, the other characters more than made up for Darin. I loved Kat's personality and loved people's reactions to her ale. She also surprised me with some of her other talents that came in handy later in the story. I had so many questions about Evie's past and would love to see a prequel showing her downfall from high society. And my favorite character was definitely Big Tom. He was such a protector and so kind that I just wanted to hug him. The group was fabulous, and I wanted them to pull the heist off - which is why I got so angry at Darin because while they were up against some tough odds, he made things even harder with his attitude.

I would love to read more about this group, and I hope the author writes a follow-up story (maybe he'll also give Darin a little well-deserved humility). Overall, the book was a fun read. I found myself laughing at the group's antics, and I felt connected to the characters because the author did a great job of building their world and showing their connections.

Thank you, NetGalley and Angry Robot, for providing the ARC.

Who doesn't love a good heist book?
It was SO fun to read and got me out of a book slump. i did drag reading on a few parts of the book but all in all a really well written book. I really liked the world building and plot and the cover was also so tempting!

This is a fun heist with minimal actual fantasy elements. I liked the metallurgy talent but the author could have done a lot more with it. It seems like there are at least one or two other magical abilities in the kingdom that could have been explored too.

There's a good cast of characters with some good banter. I liked Tom, he was the stoic warrior with a soft interior type. Each had their own struggles and we got glimpses of their pasts and strengths. They were a likeable crew and easy to root for, just something was missing to fully flesh them out. Their personalities developed throughout the book but they themselves didn't develop. That said, they pulled off an amazing heist

The world build was ok. On a micro level I liked how some tidbits were thrown in like the red foaming mouths of the mercenary horses, the ale making, courier custom, etc. Little things to make the world seem more real.

I also feel dumb but I don't actually understand why the client wanted to have the wine stolen 😳, although the resolution was still satisfactory. I hope there's a sequel so we can see the crew in action again!

Overall - it's a fun, entertaining heist book that I would definitely recommend. It stopped short of 5 stars but I did fully enjoy the book!

***Will do my best to remember to come back and add social media links**

In the Silver Queendom, we follow a group of thieves who've been hired to pull off the most impossible heist (where have I seen this before...). The story starts with a bang right in the middle of a heist with POV chapters from each member:
Darin, slippery, charismatic leader and brains of the group
Big Tom, the surprisingly attentive and observant muscle of the group.
Evie, the charming and beautiful "honeypot" and noblewoman prior to her family's fall from grace
Kat, the most recent addition and professional brewer.

This book is unfortunately very front loaded. The cover art is incredible and was the first reason I got interested in the book. Similarly, the opening chapters are very engaging and hook you into the story as you're dropped immediately with the gang pulling off a heist. Sadly, the story quickly falls off afterwards and I didn't enjoy the rest of the book as much as the beginning.

One reason was I feel the author tried to do too much in the world building and setting at the expense of strong character development. We have multiple operations in the book in addition to the main heist that don't feel like they merit enough to be included. The author tries to cram political intrigue and a fantasy magical system which is quite interesting as it involves metallurgy but is sadly very underexplored. The relationships also seemed quite shallow; Evie and Darin are clearly into each other but broke up for reasons that are never made clear and you have to go through the entire book of them tiptoeing around each other for no reason. Big Tom, who had the potential to be a really interesting character, remains sorely unexplored with his unexplained and seemingly undying loyalty to Darin.

Overall, I felt that the book almost seemed to be setting up for a sequel but if the first book isn't strong enough, you don't usually go for a second. Which is a shame because I felt this book had so much potential that was wasted after the opening few chapters.

There comes a point where an oft-used trope morphs into a genre, and Scott Lynch some time back put the clincher on the elevation of "the band of likeable thieves" to its own shelf in the bookshop. I don't know if he'll ever get around to publishing the final volumes of his Gentlemen Bastards series, but, while we're waiting, one could do worse than pass the time with Silver Queendom by Dan Koboldt (and there's a name for a fantasy writer!)..

This is, indeed, a most readable opus, well-constructed, varied three-dimensional characters with solid-yet-slowly-revealed backstories and vulnerabilities, a credible parallel world-with-a-touch-of-magic to circa-15th century Europe, convincing dialogue, and a binding logic to the plot. A truly professional polished beginning to what I anticipate will be a very successful series.

I appreciate Angry Robot providing an ARC of Silver Queendom via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was excited to read a fantasy heist with a morally ambiguous protagonist, along with what ended up being a host of strong supporting characters. I enjoyed the job the characters were working, especially the target of the heist: imperial dream wine. Darin’s crew trying to minimize bloodshed in their work, and the unique heist target, led to a different type of mission than I’m used to reading (in a good way). I wish that I could have enjoyed the book with a healthy serving of dream wine while sitting in the Red Rooster Inn.

The story hooked me immediately and had my attention until about the last 13 to 17% of the book, which dragged and ended in a brief and unsatisfactory confrontation. It is for this reason alone that I ended up rating this book 4, instead of 5, stars. Although the following issues didn’t factor into my star rating, I’m sure some readers will have wanted a content warning—no spoilers, but there are discussions and a brief depiction of domestic violence—and there was also an instance of a poor word choice regarding preferences. Something else that left me wanting was the magic system—there is a lot left unexplored related to metallurgy that I would have loved to have learned about. Aside from these bits, I found myself devouring page after page of Silver Queendom. There are many things I’d like to learn more about (like metallurgy), which I think is a good indication that the world was interesting enough for me to still be thinking about.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

This took the heist genre and the fantasy genre and blended it in a perfect mix of the two. Each character were so well done and I was invested in them succeeding. I loved the idea and the plan of the heist. The world was so well done and it was what I wanted from this type of book.

One of the lines that I enjoyed was "The crack of splitting wood was almost deafening. The tiller handle snapped free, and pieces of it fell into the water. The rest of the cutter shuddered and then calmed as the ship spun gently with the breeze. It was a dead stick, now, at the mercy of the wind and currents."

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc!

When I saw the cover and read the description, I knew Silver Kingdom was worth reading. And I wasn't disappointed.
The worldbuilding and characters are well-written. None of them were boring. There was also a little bit of romance, that was sweet.
This story reminded me of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. So if you are a fan of it, you will also like Silver Kingdom.

I was initially drawn to this book from the reviews that compared this to the Black Company … one of my favorite series. Now having finished the book … I don’t see it. There was also a comparison to Ocean’s Eleven … I don’t see it. To be fair, it is a solid story, but I just didn’t seem to connect with anything. There are no major mistakes to callout, but the feel comes across as a mechanical “paint by the numbers” effort. There were plenty of new/foreign terms … but they didn’t seem to fit well as if the only reason the invented word was used was to be different … which made them a little awkward. The magic system, based upon manipulating silver through metallurgy, was interesting, but not well developed beyond that. The chapters are short and quick … just like all of the encounters with the various antagonists, which seem mostly formulaic. The crew of four, Darin Evie, Tom and Kat, were mildly interested, but they were also still fairly shallow at the end and fairly predictable, with little to recommend them going forward … which was a surprise given that the first 80% of the book was build up and character intros. In fact, that first part made it difficult to get to the good/last part. The actual heist. This was actually fun and well done, but the strong finish only manages to raise the total over all impression to 3*.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#SilverQueendom #NetGalley.

(I was provided with an ARC through NetGalley)

Everyone likes heist movies and if you say you don't, you're lying. This book is a fantasy-world heist movie and reads like that from start to finish. The characters fill in to their heist movie roles (the face, the heavy, the transportation, etc.) satisfyingly enough and the book ends on an awesome "fist pump" moment of getting away with it. Highly recommended.

4.5/5

It's been ages since I read a heist fantasy. That's why I immediately hit the request button when I saw the book on NetGalley. The cover looked cool. The plot sounded even cooler.

Silver Queendom is the kind of low heist fantasy that brightens your day and entertains. Everything in the story clicks and hits the right tone to engage the reader. We get a roguish band of protagonists based in Red Rooster Inn, (in)famous for its Ale. The fast-paced plot has twists and turns in all the right places, and the story stands on its own.

Darin owns the Red Rooster Inn, but his business and revenue sources are more diverse. He and his team are the best con artists in Old Quueendom, always happy to relieve nobles of their valuables.

Unfortunately, they rarely keep the loot. Instead, indebted to Dame, the city's most prominent and cold-blooded criminal, they try to pay the debt. After one of the heists goes wrong, Dame grows impatient.

Darin and his crew get a chance to earn BIG MONEY, but the mission is suicidal. A mysterious noble wants them to steal dream wine (the realm's most valuable substance) from the Queen.

A challenge!

Darin likes challenges, but he prefers ones you can survive. Unfortunately, time is running out, so the team accepts the challenge. Mayhem ensues.

I loved the whole team - the chapters are told from the point of view of key Red Rooster Inn employees. Darin is the brain of the operation, with a gift (although he'd call it a curse) for Metallurgy (fascinating magic). He likes to avoid attention. Evie comes from money and misses the wealth. She knows how to talk and act around high borns and has a lot of charm and sharp wit. Kat brews her own beer, which gets nastier and nastier with each new batch. She also helps orphans. Big Tom is a bouncer, and he's BIG. Most people prefer to stay on his good side. Those who don't, learn from their mistakes. There's also Seraphina, who encourages Darin to explore his magical gift.

Koboldt delivers imaginative action and cool twists (though I wouldn't call most of them shocking) and strong character interactions. Combine it with minimal world-building and you get fast-paced low fantasy goodness that can be easily devoured in one sitting.

I had a great time reading Silver Queendom. The story stands on its own but opens many possibilities for future sequels. I hope the novel succeeds and we'll get more adventures of Darin and his team.

The play:

-Steal a wagon-load of coveted (i.e. outrageously expensive) dreamwine.

The players:

-Darin, the mastermind with a tragic past.

-Evie, the royal who fell from grace.

-Kat, the infamous brew-master that has a bleeding-heart for orphans.

-Big Tom, the gentle (to his crew) giant.

-& Seraphina, the mysterious grandma-like figure who will make sure you get some sleep if she sees fit.

Who doesn't like a good heist books?! This book was smooth (at times a little too slick). Each character was well thought out. The pacing was great. The world building was solid. Overall, a well planned novel. It did not end on a cliffhanger and feels like a standalone with room for more if the author is so inclined. I docked a star because I wanted more exploration into the characters and some of the anticipation/tension fizzled out for me in the last part.

*ARC provided by Angry Robot & NetGalley.