This book was fantastic, a fast paced read and so many characters to read about. I was fascinated by Valen's Story amongst the rest. Card Tricks, and what it takes to win and acquire a particular secret and what it will take to get it. I would recommend this book to those who love a card game, playing and the trickery that goes on. It was a breeze to read and I read it in a couple of days. The writing was easy, fun and the characters were all interesting and all different from each other.

Seeing and reading from each character's point of view made this book more interesting then a normal read from one's perspective.

Overall, I was very happy reading this book. I would recommend it to anyone who loves this kind of world. The magic, the card, the secrets.

I knew I had to check this book out when I found out that it was about con artists and was a fantasy novel. Alex creates a very detailed descriptive story following a con artist who can’t resist a good game of trading secrets. 

This is such a unique concept and I couldn’t wait to read it. 

The world building was really great. I felt like I knew the world so well after finishing this book. The descriptions were wonderful and I didn’t think there was too much info dumping throughout the story. 

I found that this book had a lot of great humour and made me laugh throughout. Valen was a really great character to follow. 

Right from the beginning I was sucked into the story. It had me in its grips and wouldn’t let me go.

I didn’t go in expecting much here. In fact, had a sinking suspicion I wasn’t going to like it. Too much fantasy. Not enough mitigating factors.
Magic, sure, that’s nice. That always attracts my attention. But this is the wrong kind of magic, the enchantment kind. Besides, all anyone ever uses it for is card tricks.
So then, cards tricks, ok, that’s fun. No, not this kind either.
The difference is…well, it’s the difference between watching an expert magician do card tricks and watching some people play cards.
And I know some actually go for that sort of thing, but to me watching people play cards is about as entertaining as watching them play golf which is to say not at all.
So just imagine how much fun it was reading a 400-page book where people do nothing but play cards.
So many people too. Enough to require its own supplemental who’s who. Just a mess of people with silly names. Try remembering who’s who. The only thing tougher than that would be caring who’s who.
Busy, busy, busy, without having much to say. Certainly not enough meat on these bones for 400 pages.
All in all, a convoluted not particularly adventurous adventure, overdone and elaborate in all the wrong ways. The writing itself is actually decent but the sum total leaves a lot, so much, to be desired. Thanks Netgalley.

I really wanted to like this and loved the premise, but it just wasn’t for me. It’s a great world and there’s lots that’s good but the plot was way too convoluted and over complicated and I didn’t have that burning desire to get to the end. It started to feel like quite a lot of hard work and I struggled. Not my favourite.

It took me a while to get into this book, I really enjoyed the premise of the story and the world building but It was a bit confusing. I feel like there could have been a bit more depth to the characters and a bit more to the magic system. However I did get into the more I read but some things wete just a but vague and could have dine with some more explaining.

Book source ~ Tour
DNF @31%

Valen Quinol is a cardsharp with a motley crew trying to win enough money to realize a dream. A local gangster is coming to call and Valen has no idea what he wants, but he knows it can't be good.

Ok, so this is a rare one for me. I'm not DNFing because I don't like the book or think it's bad. It's just too intricate for my brain right now. (It's been a bad year.) I'm absolutely enjoying the world building and characters in this story so far. It’s a multi-layered, multi-POV suspense filled with danger showcasing a tricky card system and magic added to the mix. It's rich and complex and I really hope I can revisit this at some point in the future because what I have read is quite good.

Gambling is widely accepted in this book culture. With a mix of magic, sleight of hand, and cunning -the story focuses on a group of gambling hustlers caught up in a power struggle between two nations.

I think Livingstone did a good job researching about gambling and how to cheat. It’s very believable and educational for me. However, it was a challenge to put two and two together, at times, in this complicated plot. My main motivation is why and how could people put the fate of an independent nation on gambling. Gambling on secrets, to be exact. The main characters have the “Robin Hood and his Merrie Men” vibe, except they don’t give their winnings away (ha ha). The worldbuilding is intriguing, especially where people with money and influence can gain actual government power by funding public works and projects. It seems almost every major plot points here are morally flawed in the real world. In a way, it challenges the readers to withhold their ideals. Magic (not the wand-swishing kind) plays an important role in this multi-cultural world, and a seminary of magicians are highly revered. I’m sure fantasy readers who navigates towards con-artists and political affairs will enjoy this.

While this sounded like something I would enjoy, sadly it just missed the mark for me.
I can see why others would like it and maybe I would if I had the audiobook. I'm unsure.

The beginning felt a little slow for me and the characters just didn't catch my attention.
I ended up struggling to just get through this.
I also just found I didn't retain anything so whenever I picked up the book I felt lost.

Thank you to the publisher Rebellion Publishing, and NetGalley for providing this e-arc!
This was very action packed, from the very beginning with lots of world building & political intrigue. It was slightly too much of an info dump at times and due to the POV switches I didn't feel as connected as I would have liked to the characters. I liked the magic system even if I didn't always understand it, and it was quite an interesting cast of characters and exploration of friendship and trust.

Unique story line with non stop action! Very interesting world building. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy.

Thank you so much to The Write Reads and Rebellion Publishing for the proof copy of this novel.

As soon as I read that this novel was perfect for fans of The Lies of Locke Lamora and The Mask of Mirrors, I knew this was a book I would enjoy! I love a gritty fantasy, and the addition of card games and magicians is everything I love!

This is a very clever and unique plot for a fantasy, and I was intrigued where the author would lead us. I do think that there was a lot of information imparted in quite a short number of pages, which made the reading slow going at times. But I was still interested enough that this didn’t fully put me off.

There is a very interesting cast of characters in the novel. Personally I thought the relationships could have been stronger and developed more fully by the author. The relationship between Valen and his wife Marguerite needed to be better described, it wasn’t believable to me. But despite that, I loved the other characters, and there was plenty banter to alleviate the grittiness elsewhere.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. An action-packed and politically intriguing novel with some real cool world building, I would recommend this novel!

Thank you so much The Write Reads and Rebellion Publishing for having me!

The minute I opened this book the first thing I noticed were the gorgeous maps. I love fantasy books with a good map. I just find something about them so evocative; I could spend ages just exploring them before I even start reading. Exploring the maps, the town names, the forests and the seas – and when I then see these names pop up in the book later it gives me this nice feeling, knowing that I’m already absorbed in the world and know the places in it. So, The Knave of Secrets already got a bonus point in this department!

The author clearly put a lot of effort into the worldbuilding. The aforementioned maps are a great indicator of that, but I do feel more time could have been spent on the individual characters to build them a bit more. We get to read the story from many different characters’ perspectives, which is a great way to add depth to it, but if we got to know them a little better, made them come to life a bit more, for us learn how they came to be how they ended up where they are, I think that would have made a great difference. We are introduced to a lot of people in quick succession, and it takes a bit longer than I’d like to really get a feel for them, who they are, what they have planned, and so on.

However, I love that most characters are (or seem) older than those we often get to see in fantasy these days. I also appreciated the fact that there was an Appendix at the end which helped clear things up when things got complicated. It did help a bit, and was a great reference point.

If you enjoy a good fantasy with a unique concept that is filled with card games, magicians, gambling, bargains and secrets, The Knave of Interest should be on your reading list too! 4 stars from me!

Who doesn’t dream of living in a world filled with card sharps and con artists? I mean really. Okay, okay, so maybe it’s not everyone’s traditional dream world, but guaranteed there’s a lot of action and things going on. So that’s pretty hard to resist.

Which is why Knave of Secrets first grabbed my attention! I’m absolutely in love with the heist trope in general, but a heist trope that revolved around card games (particularly cheating in said games)? That’s a new one. Color me intrigued!

The Knave of Secrets is a high fantasy heist plot built around card games. It’s got a sarcastic squad of characters, lots of strategy and one-upmanship, action, danger, and betrayal. You know, all the best things about heists!
The book starts a little slow as it sets the scene (though, slow is relative, because there is a bit of a shootout, so do with that what you will). There’s a lot of characters to keep track of, so if you struggle with character recognition, like I do, this could be a struggle. The magic system is super interesting, though, and the premise is a lot of fun and very unique.

A rollicking tale of a small band of grifters and card sharps who live by their wits and other peoples money! A great combination of the perfect heist, politics, family and magic which I enjoyed from the start.
The story follows Valen Quinol, his wife Marguerite, Tenerieve and Jacquemin, who work best as a team due to the complementary blending of their skill sets. Magic is a key factor although in the world that they live in higher magic is in the hands of the Brothers, who have firm views on what strands of magic are pursued.
Valen and Ten were both students with the Brothers however with his talent for luck magic not recognized Valen is forced to leave, as is Ten by her association. Valen perfects his luck magic and will need all the help he can get when he is forced into the high stakes Forebearance Games where secrets become currency.
The story is told from multiple viewpoints - so at times I had to go back to make sure I had the right thread in hand. Along with the voices of the main four characters we also have views from Omer-Guy Bendine Ambassador to Valtiffe and Gamesmaster Dona Ariadna, which made following the story complex at times. The details of the various games of chance be it cards or dice was fascinating in itself and the appendixes are an interesting read.
Overall an enjoyable read and will be keeping an eye out for more books by this author. My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for access to the ARC. All opinions are my own and remember " Never stake more than you can afford to lose".

This book was an interesting discovery, and even if in the end it wasn’t what I was expecting, I had a good time with it. I was hooked, I was intrigued by the plot and I simply had to know what would happen to all of them. Because things get twisty soon enough, and full of dangers too.
Let’s start with the expectations: I was expecting something similar to Locke Lamora’s books, full of action and deception, and cons inside cons, and without the time to take a full breath. And this was not it.
This book is, to say it in one word, sedate. And I am not really complaining, because sedate does not mean boring, at all. I was invested in the characters and their choices, and their risky bets, the book is captivating, but it has a slower pace (not really slow, but slower than what I was expecting) and another thing that I was expecting and that was missing was the sense of almost blind loyalty in the found family that we have.
Okay, this is a tad hard to explain with sense, but bear with me a moment. Found families are one of my favorite tropes ever, and usually, when we get to have one in the books, we have always a sense of undestroyable and uncompromising loyalty between all the people involved, and we have some deep feelings toward each other. But it wasn’t really the case in this book. We have a found family, and it is a beautiful one because the characters show us what a real family should be, and we have some moving moments in this department, but we have also doubts, we have resentments from time to time, and the feeling that the bond is not unbreakable. And it was good. Really!
Sure, to be honest, I prefer my found family with more unity and fewer doubts, because life can be just so full of doubts and bad things, that a happy island is like a beacon that we all need. And so yeah, I prefer the other kind. But this one was even more real for its “dark” sides. And I think that there is another factor in this more frail found family, and it is one of the best features of the book: the characters are older than usual.
Yes, this was, for me, the best thing in the book. The characters are all grown men and women, and they are approaching the middle age mark if they have not reached it yet, and it was amazing to see a fantasy with older characters that are not your usual beaten-from-life warrior (mind me, I love them, but it was a nice change for once!).
Valen is the brain of the group, and he is a charming character, but to be honest all of the main characters have some charming quality. The only one with whom I had some difficulties was Ten, and it was strange, because usually I am keener on this kind of character, and I really enjoyed that she can think for herself and that she is not afraid to act on her conviction, and yet in this book, she was the one who talked less to me. She was an interesting character, and I didn’t dislike her, but I was expecting to like her more, that’s all.
And then let me spend a few words on the magical system. I really wanted more of it, because it was intriguing and fascinating. I love magical systems based on languages, and this one was no exception. And it reminded me a bit of Chronicles of Elantra series by Michelle Sagara (and this is a series that I love!). And it was interesting to see that we have different kinds of magic, not only because there are different branches, but because it really is different based on the “class” of the practitioner.

All in all, it was a compelling book, that kept me interested from the start to the end, with some good cons, and some interesting twists!

One Sentence Summary: When card sharp Valen gets caught in a plot and ends up with a valuable secret, he’s quickly in over his head, but hopes his skill in cheating at gambling games will save him.

Overall
The Knave of Secrets is a fantasy novel encompassing the world of card games and gambling. When it comes to the games and cheating at them, the world is rich and detailed, complete with appendices that discuss them. When it comes to the rest of the world, I found the details a little thin and the world thus poorly developed. This novel seems to pull from French and Spanish influences, but it doesn’t carry far to the point where I’m still hazy on the world. I did appreciate that the main character is older and married, but I felt most of the things that made him interesting were off page. As a matter of fact, all the real scheming happened off page and the reader is diverted to another character who is just as surprised as the reader. Overall, this wasn’t quite my cup of tea, but maybe someone who enjoys sharping might be interested.

Extended Thoughts
I normally write my own descriptions, but couldn’t come up with something that made any more sense than the one provided on Amazon:

Never stake more than you can afford to lose.

When failed magician turned cardsharp Valen Quinol is given the chance to play in the Forbearance Game—the invitation-only tournament where players gamble with secrets—he can’t resist. Or refuse, for that matter, according to the petty gangster sponsoring his seat at the table. Valen beats the man he was sent to play, and wins the most valuable secret ever staked in the history of the tournament.

Now Valen and his motley crew are being hunted by thieves, gangsters, spies and wizards, all with their own reasons for wanting what’s in that envelope. It’s a game of nations where Valen doesn’t know all the rules or who all the players are, and can’t see all the moves. But he does know if the secret falls into the wrong hands, it could plunge the whole world into war…

The Knave of Secrets sounded like a really interesting fantasy novel. I liked the idea of combining card games and magic, and it sounded like there’d be some great adventures and intrigue. In the end, this was little more than an interesting premise that felt more like a vehicle for discussing gambling and sharping. Most of the world building went into that aspect, the magic system was a little lean on detail, too much scheming happened off page, and I felt like I was supposed to come away from this thinking how clever Valen must be because he was always a step ahead.

First of all, my reading experience was a little odd. This is clearly a fantasy novel that draws some inspiration from the French and the Spanish, especially in terms of titles, but the writing style felt completely at odds. It reminded me of when I read early 1800s literature, lending the whole book a vague Regency feel in terms of how things were worded and how the characters spoke. Overall, it gave the book an odd stilted quality that held me at arms length and kept me from being immersed in the world and the story.

But, if one is interested in gambling and sharping, The Knave of Secrets creates a whole world of it. Each chapter is preceded by an excerpt from one of several works, most if not all of which have something to do with card games or gambling. There are also two appendices devoted to defining every game mentioned and providing descriptions of every work excerpted from. Clearly, a lot of thought went into the gambling and game aspect of this book. It felt detailed and rich, but not necessarily helpful as the story felt like it wanted to go in the direction of groups of people after Valen for the secret he carries. Unfortunately, the rest of the world suffered. Just based on what one of the queens is called and the titles and names of some of the characters, there are Spanish and French influences, but I didn’t feel any of it trickled down to any other part of the world. I had a terrible time trying to figure out which queen went with which country (still no idea) and what the differences between the two countries were. The only part that felt explored was a people no one liked. I liked the history attached to the Mistigris and the stigma attached to them; it helped add some depth and really did wonders for Tenerieve, the Mistigris woman who is part of Valen’s crew.

Speaking of Tenerieve, I kept getting the feeling the reader, especially towards the end, was supposed to be put in her shoes. She’s clearly an outsider no matter what the other characters say, and I felt her exclusion on a surprisingly deep level. She’s left out of all the plans, making just about everything that happened in the last third as surprising to her as to the reader. Which was annoying because the POV for the character who was doing most of the scheming was given throughout the book and was, indeed, supposed to be the main character (I’m assuming as he’s the only named character in the description despite sharing story telling duties). I can deal with being kept in the dark, but the ending was just rife with it, keeping all the exciting planning and foreshadowing off page seemingly just for the sole purpose of surprising the reader and remarking on, yes, how clever Valen is. Valen clearly has a blank face when he goes into gambling games, and he showcased that exceptionally well in his chapters because he gave not one iota away, making me wonder why he was the main character and why he had his own numerous chapters if all the notable things he was doing were all odd page.

But that’s not to say I didn’t appreciate anything about Valen. Indeed, I appreciated that he’s an older protagonist who also has been married for ten years. The domesticity was fun and I liked that he and his wife’s parents didn’t get along (and those scenes really seemed to pull from Regency-era novels). He’s also nondescript and has seemingly few qualms about doing anything. His wife seems equally ambitious, perhaps more so, and reading the two of them together was fun. The last member of his crew is Jaq, a former sailor who had quite a fun personality and who felt the most unique. I liked how plainly he spoke and how loyal he was to Valen. And then there’s Ria, a noblewoman of this world from the Spanish-inspired side who runs her family’s casino and periodically travels to Valtiffe to hold a tournament. She felt like she should have been a more major character, but her chapters were few and far between, so it was difficult to get a sense of her, though, in the beginning, she was delightfully quick to accuse and think poorly of most people. She made so many mistakes throughout the novel, but, by the end, there wasn’t much to her character even though some intrigue should have played a larger role in the story and put her at the heart of it. Michel was interesting. As a Brother, he has use of magic and seems to act sort of as a spy, but he seems to be quite prone at getting himself into trouble and he felt just as much of a tool as Tenerieve. Lastly, there was Omer-Guy, an ambassador from the French side who schemes, but, other than enjoying spying on other people, I have no real idea of what his role was supposed to be or why he was marked as a main character worthy of his own chapters.

Ostensibly, The Knave of Secrets is supposed to be about Valen being caught between two groups of people who want the secret he won. He’s supposed to be in over his head in a game that’s being played at a higher level but ends up on his own lower one. There are the queens of the two countries and their ambassadors, but I couldn’t quite tell what they were playing at, especially when one of the notable ladies of the island became involved. What any of them wanted I had a hard time picking out. It seemed like one wanted the secret and the other wanted to keep it a secret, but what it meant in terms of war and the ending was just a little confusing since the world isn’t fully built and the story, frankly, felt a little meandering until it hit on how it wanted to end. Then there’s the Brothers, the men who live in a tower that hovers over the town and who practice magic, but keep much hidden, meaning I have no clue how their magic was supposed to work and I have so many questions, like is magic something the Brothers just develop and anyone, provided they are male, can study to become a Brother? The idea of Valen being caught between all these groups sounds like a fascinating story and I would have loved to see more scheming and intrigue, but so much of the story was devoted to how to play card games and how Valen was cheating at them and expounding on how great a gambler Valen is.

The Knave of Secrets had a lot of the ingredients to make for a fascinating, rich fantasy, but it felt like it got sidetracked into a part of the world that shouldn’t have played such a huge role. Granted, that is the world the main character operates in, but the story is greater than him. There’s so much more I wanted from this book. In the end, it wasn’t quite my cup of tea with a poorly defined world and magic system and too much of the interesting, foreshadowing parts happening off page.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

I’ll be honest – I wanted to love this one more than I actually did. There is a huge amount of explanation regarding the world, which is full of complicated names, a tangled and even more complicated political situation and characters who all have complicated backstories. Livingston’s insistence of giving a lot of the information in big lumps throughout, rather than letting the reader absorb it alongside the unfolding action meant that I always felt distanced from the characters.

The writing style favours telling over showing, which isn’t my personal preference. And while the characters are all layered and nicely ambiguous, I didn’t ever feel particularly close to them as Livingston tends to keep them at one remove from the reader. The same applies to the action scenes – while they were vividly depicted, some of the urgency and snap was diluted by yet more explanation that should really have gone elsewhere. The overall plot, which was suitably twisty and surprising, worked well and came to a solidly good conclusion – although I did feel the ending was a tad abrupt.

That said, for those who are fans of detailed worlds with huge amounts of background detail, including maps, historical events and long explanations of a variety of fantasy card games – this is a solid treat. I was particularly impressed at the sheer intricacy of the games Livingston constructed and the appendices make fascinating reading. While I obtained an arc of The Knave of Secrets from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
7/10

Thank you to the publisher, Rebellion Publishing, and NetGalley for providing this eARC as part of a blog tour with The Write Reads in exchange for an honest review.

When cardsharp Valen Quinol is offered an opportunity to attend and play in the invitation-only Forbearance Game, a gambling tournament where players stake secrets, by a local gangster, he cannot resist. Valen does what he was sent there to do, beat another player who has an extremely valuable stake, and wins the secret too – but now he and his crew are in danger on all sides. From gangsters to spies everyone is after this secret, knowledge that is worth a fortune, and in the wrong hands, could start a war.

The world building in this book was both detailed and fascinating, and seemingly French inspired. This book also had not one but two maps at the beginning, something very useful for this story given the complex politics between the various nations and the number of parties who have a stake in the whole situation. The appendices at the end of the book were also quite nice as they were a good way to keep up with the many characters and all the gambling games they played. What most impressed me most though, was how complex this story and world were for a standalone novel.

The characters were likeable enough, though the frequent POV switches didn’t allow me to really understand them in as much depth as I like for a fantasy novel. I felt like much of the book was tell rather than show and it affected the character development the most as right until the end, I couldn’t connect to or sympathize with any of them. I felt like they were all very two dimensional and it made it extremely hard to root for them. While the many POVs did not make the story any harder to follow, these many were not necessary either. The narration style just didn’t work for me and I found it detrimental to a story that should have been so much more exciting than it was given the nature of the plot.

Conceptually, this book sounded amazing and reminded me of some favorite books of mine centered around heists and such, but the execution was rather lacking to say the least. It started out on a promising note, stepping right into the middle of things, but that didn’t last. Unfortunately, the synopsis was more or less 50% of the book, during which there was a lot of history and background to the point of info-dumping that made it drag way too much.

Overall, I would have to say that this book, despite the interesting concept, just didn’t work for me. The plot certainly had a lot of potential however, and the world building was quite skilled, so I would definitely consider reading any other books by this author. The Knave of Secrets also does leave some room for a sequel, so I’d be curious to see where that plot might lead. Thanks again to The Write Reads blog tour for the opportunity to read this book!

Mmm, I can’t say this comes to Locke Lamora at best. The charisma is missing, I think, though you can tell a lot of thought went into worldbuilding.

I was given a free copy of The Knave of Secrets (“Knave of Secrets”) by Alex Livingston (author), Rebellion/Solaris (publisher), and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

This review will contain no spoilers.

I would characterize Knave of Secrets as sword and sorcery with a great deal of sorcery (maybe high fantasy featuring confidence artists) and not that much of swords.

The settings of this story take place in such locales as casinos, coffee shops/pubs, and in apartments.
The magic system featured in Knaves of Secrets is either learned in an academy taught by the Brotherhood and possibly in the form of natural magic.

The main character is confidence artist who was training at the academy by the Brotherhood when he quit/expelled because he had a difference of opinion of magic and the role of the Brotherhood. The main character has a crew of three that assist him in his schemes: a young woman who was training at the Brotherhood at the same time as the main character and left when he did; the main character’s wife who met the main character through the young woman; and young man who was a former sailor. The characters in the crew are engaging and compelling and wanted to spend more time with them.

The other characters are not nearly as developed as the characters in the crew and not as engaging. I think my problem is I do not care about these characters, they are involved in the political aspects of the story, and I was not as interested in the political part of the story as I was in the story featuring the confidence schemes.

I think if the political aspect of the story and the characters featured in this arc if Knave of Secrets was a longer story to enable this part of the story could be further develop and possibly be as compelling as the confidence schemes.

I had some quibbles about Knave of Secrets, but I really enjoyed reading about the main character and his crew and their confidence schemes.

Hope there is a sequel.

I rate the Knave of Secrets 4 stars.

I would like to thank Mr. Livingston, Rebellion/Solaris, and Net Galley for the free E-ARC.