A fun and cozy story full of twists.
Every character feels so unique and detailed.
A sweet treat for the sci-fi and romance lovers

Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I asked for this book because the description sold me a queer heist novel featuring a group of women who were setting out to rob an AI- Controlled casino. The book starts with much reminding us how absolutely hot and talented and desired all of these characters are to at least one other person (if not multiple) and, in many cases, how little they think of themselves and oh, how woe is me that their chosen interest won't be interested back-- light on the heist.

Which is not to say this is a bad book, but if you're looking for a high-stakes and exciting heist, you're not exactly going to get it here. If you're looking for a sapphic romance full of yearning in a sci-fi setting, you may just find this book is exactly what you're hoping for! This book absolutely has its audience, and I'm sad to say it is not me.

To speak positively about the queer representation, I really did like that there was a variety of sexual identities at play here, if all sapphic leaning in one way or another.

In short: read if you want a lot of sapphic yearning, skip if you're here for an interesting heist.

This is a delightful, fun romp of a book! Five women, each with their own baggage and hopes, meet to pull off a heist in an AI-controlled casino (and one of them might just be in love with the casino's AI...). The characters are unfailingly kind to one another, which feels like such a gift (when much of real life right now is heavy and unkind). This is the kind of book where everyone gets what they deserve (in the most satisfying ways). I'll be hoping for more from Resnik!

SPOILERS BELOW

Disaster lesbians* attempt a casino heist in space; it gets distinctly M-rated between a couple of them, and all the problems with the fairly simple heist are because the characters have personal issues. Also, the heist ends up not making a lick of sense. But the journey is reasonably entertaining.

*Technically, one lesbian, two bisexuals, one pansexual and an asexual, all women within a couple of years either way of 20 years old. They are:

- Kiyo, a brittle heiress to a jewellery fortune, who's being extorted by Shaul, the villain and mark, over a sex tape (think Paris Hilton, but if the boyfriend who secretly recorded the tape died on screen through an interaction between a drug he was on and her body paint). She is the client and funder.
- Finley, a recovering alcoholic (recovering thanks to Kiyo) and professional gambler. In mutual thought-to-be-unrequited longing with Kiyo, who is understandably gun-shy when it comes to sex since her previous experience.
- Psalome, a Dazzler (casino employee). She's theoretically available for clients to have sex with, as well as to have her deal for them and provide various other forms of entertainment, but in practice she doesn't have sex with them because she wants to reserve that for someone she cares about, and the Casino is very strict about consent (and yet it's often implied or stated that she's very skilled at sex, even though she's had, it emerges, only one previous partner and isn't that old). She's working in the casino to pay off a huge debt left by her father. It's never made clear why she feels she has to do this.
- Psylina, Psalome's sister. A hacker, asexual but not aromantic, and in a relationship with the casino's AI, who she refers to as her "joyfriend". She's been trying, unsuccessfully, to get around the AI's programming to allow it to forgive her sister's debt. The AI has multiple bodies which are often referred to as clones, but are actually androids, to fulfil the role of casino security.
- Ilaria, Shaul's wants-to-be-ex-wife. They come from a strict Jewish planet where only men can grant divorces, and he won't, even though he doesn't care about her at all; it's part of his controlling personality. (Shaul, the only significant male character, is not only an unmixedly vile human being but also not very smart.) Kiyo has helped her fake her death, both so that she can escape and also so that she can help them get Kiyo's heirloom earrings back from Shaul, since they would validate the sex tape as not a deepfake; this is the heist. Ilaria is in mutual thought-to-be-unrequited longing with Psalome, whose exact type she coincidentally is - which is fortunate for getting Psalome to sign on to be part of the heist, though she might well have done it just for the promise of Kiyo paying off her remaining debt.

A lot of the book is more about the romantic angst and the characters working through their considerable damage than it is about the heist, so if you're not up for that, this isn't your book. The heist itself is relatively straightforward: manipulate a poker tournament in which the stakes put up are jewellery, and in which Shaul will put up the McGuffin earrings. The dealer wears all the stakes during the game, and Psalome is the dealer in the final. Then they just have to swap the earrings out somehow. (The actual heist turns out to be more complicated than this, of course.)

Their plan for doing this earring swap is far from clear for most of the book, and then when it comes to it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. <spoiler>Instead of the stake jewellery going into a secure safe as would be the case in any normal casino, Psalome is simply allowed to take the pieces with her when she returns to her room. She doesn't do the switch in her room, which is explicitly not surveilled by the Casino, because "the Casino would find out" (how?). What she does instead is to swap them in the corridor instead, in the presence of multiple Casino androids, in a set of circumstances which are specifically being recorded - it's a key plot point that a recording is being made. Shaul doesn't notice, because he's distracted by her being naked at the time, though it seems unlikely that even someone as stupid and lustful as him wouldn't notice her switching earrings. But the Casino isn't a man, and wouldn't be distracted - yet apparently doesn't notice either. I found it completely implausible. </spoiler>

Most, though certainly not all, of the commas are in the right place, but the vast majority of the apostrophes are not, and if I had a bingo card with every error you can commit with an apostrophe, it would have been mostly full by the end of the book. Some idioms are fumbled, some words are confused with other similar words, and there's at least one typo that should have been caught by spellcheck. I've seen far worse; the issues aren't constant, and, as always, I give the disclaimer that I saw a pre-publication version which may not represent the final text.

More significant for me were the issues of plausibility. I've already mentioned the biggest one in spoiler tags above, but it's also implausibly easy to avoid security cameras in the space casino. The casino AI doesn't twig to things it really should have twigged to. Fire in a space station is said at one point to be unthinkable, but there's plenty of smoking going on, and the Dazzlers sometimes set cocktails on fire, and in general fire seems to be a lot more thinkable than it in fact should be. And <spoiler>as part of the conclusion where the supposed plan was not the actual plan, Finley is arrested, in order (by a hack swapping the identity of two spaceships, I think) to get her into Shaul's ship to take his stuff, even though it's been established that he's moved it out of his ship into a secure area that couldn't be broken into and in which you definitely would not confine a prisoner unsupervised<spoiler>.

It's lacking in polish, in short; needs a more knowledgeable development editor, a continuity editor, and a more careful copy editor who's good with apostrophes and idioms. But it shows potential, and even though the heist of the title was overshadowed by the characters' personal and interpersonal issues and ended up full of plot holes, I found it an enjoyable read on the whole. It's good enough, just barely, to make my 2025 recommendation list, though it's right at the bottom.

I first went into this for the sapphic sci-fi but omg it was so much. A sapphic sci-fi CASINO HEIST. I just finished neon nights so I was in a casino las Vegas ish mode lol but make it IN SPACE this was such a fun story I flew through it. Normally sci-fi world building takes longer for me to get into right away but this you can jump right in easy peasy. Pit story begins with our FMC she is one of the highest paid hostess at the casino she is tick their due to her inherited debt from her deadbeat dad. The only way to escape is to try to find a way to rob the casino. Then she’s home free. Part of her escape team is a disgraced heiress seeking to rescue her family business, a recovering alcoholic card counter, a religious Jew whose abuse husband refuses to grant her a divorce, and Psalome younger sister who is dating the casinos AI long story lol. Sparks fly with with the Jewish wife and Psalome starting chaos with her husband. Just a story you need to read 🥹 so much happens it’s a must for any sci-fi and queer romance lover.

Sapphic casino heist...in space?? Sign me up! The story is about 5 women who come together to take back what's theirs. I loved the story and the pacing. I tend to have a hard time reading sci-fi because the world-building takes some time for me to understand. But the setting was so clear and to the point that I was able to just jump into the story. I enjoyed each character's POV and their perspectives on certain situations. I was rooting for all the female characters and was satisfied with the ending!

Did not finish book. Stopped at 32%.
If I had a nickel for every time the author used “crap on a stick” I’d have two nickels. It’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

She also uses “crap” more than 10 times in the book, not counting when she mentions the game craps since the setting is a casino. I don’t vibe with the word “crap” especially this much in one book.

Also I couldn’t get into 5 POV’s. I made it 100 pages in and had not even heard from a couple characters more than once.

Summary:
Five women come together for a daring heist on the largest casino in the galaxy.
Review:
I loved this book! The plot was high-stakes, exciting, and unpredictable. Each character was totally unique and interesting, and the relationships between them were stunning. A delicious read!

This book was definitely my type on paper, and it mainly delivered! The glamorous space casino setting was fun and exciting, and the eventual heist crew all had solid motivations to want to see it through. Stand out character for me was definitely Psylina - don't take your eyes off her for a second! The only drawback for me was there was a little bit too much longing and miscommunication, I think this is just down to the number of point-of-view characters. But apart from that this is a space romp that's worth spending time with!

Sadly, my search for a great heist novel remains ongoing. This ain’t it, folks. I had a lot of problems with the writing. Everything from the world to the characters and their background was explained so quickly and explicitly, as if the reader were an idiot. No mysteries to unravel, no intrigue, nothing to think about. Also, having five POV characters and using first person is confusing at the best of times, but especially in this instance where their voices were nearly identical. They also all read very juvenile, and I don’t know how I was supposed to believe that these women were capable and clever enough to pull off a heist in a cool and satisfying way when they came off so immaturely.