“I en’t here for your jokes,” Tseges said, trying to massage his hand without being obvious about it. He couldn’t make up his mind whether to be watery with terror at the audacity of this job, dizzy with disbelief that he was helping the Mask-damned Rook, or pissed that the Rook hardly seemed to be taking any of this seriously. “Let’s get on with it.”
Ren, a former child thief turned con artist, seeks the security that she believes can only be found in large sums of money. So she embarks on her greatest scheme yet, returning to her native city of Nadezra in the guise of Alta Renata Viraudax, a foreign daughter of an exiled member of local family House Traementis, in an attempt to worm her way into their affections and finances. She has her beauty, her wits, and the skillful needle of her adopted sister, Tess, who’s posing as her maid. But there are several complications. To begin with, House Traementis is almost broke and significantly diminished in political and social status. More seriously, Ren becomes a tool in a sinister plot involving kidnapped street children unable to sleep, a dangerous new drug that turns users violent and at the physical mercy of their own fears and nightmares, and unrest between the city’s two ethnic groups, the ruling Liganti and the downtrodden but defiant Vraszenians. Despite her initially self
I recall writing a Most Anticipated post in previous years that was full of excitement and optimism. This year, well, I’d like to pretend I’m excited. I know there are good books coming in 2021. I
know it. Right now, what I’ve got is the teeth-gritted determination to last long enough to read some of them and appreciate the experience. And that? Well, that’ll have to substitute for excitement.
Roll on a comprehensive vaccine programme for 2021!
And also good books. There are so many good books coming out this year that I’m anticipating with determined pleasure, in fact, that this will be an extra-long installment…