Book Review: Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne

Name: Midnight Thief (Midnight Thief #1)
Author: Livia Blackburne
Number of Pages: 376 pages in Hardcover
Published: July 8th 2014 by Disney-Hyperion
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs. But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull. Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives.

This is my December feature for the meme Random Reads. I’m getting great in keeping up with this meme. Hihi! So I got this book because the book cover is amazingly mysterious. Yeah. Call it judging the book by its cover. You got me there. I forgot all about this though. Given that I’ve acquired tons of books for the past weeks. This meme helped me a lot so far in reading books I’ve already forgotten. Though I’ve read awesome reviews, I’ve also stumbled upon not so good reviews about the book and I must admit I’ve got of issues myself which is sad since I want to like this at the very least.

This is an easy read. The writing is pretty much straightforward. Nothing out of the ordinary which is somehow, for me, not good. Though it’s an easy read, I can’t connect with the first couple of chapters or let’s say four to five chapters, that is. I kept on reading since the premise of the book has a lot of potential. In the middle of the book, I’ve come to realized that the ending could somehow be good or trash. The world building is no great shakes. It’s in an archaic town on a monarchy type of government with corruption and poverty as main issues. BTW, the King and Queen were never mentioned. Just the councilmen, knights and Red Shields aka soldiers. As you can see, everything is quite stereotyped so far. Nothing really remarkable. I have a lot of unanswered questions from how the plot goes. Not even a conclusion on why things were like this and that. So the main protagonist is a thief that cannot defend herself. Go figure.

Teaser Tuesday #22

I’ve decided to join this ’cause I think it’s pretty fun and easy. Plus I really want to quote smart retorts, full blown bullying, words of wisdom, swoon worthy lines and the like without giving much to readers about the entire book. A quote or two won’t hurt I guess.
So this is how you do it:
1. Grab your current read.
2. Randomly open a page.
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
(Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away!
You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
4. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants
can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is for this week’s Teaser Tuesday

Midnight Thief
by Livia Blackburne

“It had been tracks and droppings the entire trip and nothing else. No sign of human habitations, no campsites. They’d followed the trail through the forest for two days, but the dogs just led them in circles.”

“Tristan suppressed a bitter chuckle. So even though a group of unknown men had snuck into the supposedly impenetrable compound, past the best trained guard force in the region, and carried off a fortune in medical supplies, they could at least comfort in the fact that the thieves had felt the need to hurry while doing so.”

As you can see, I’m still reading this since I can’t seem to find time for reading this days. Anyway, what are your thoughts about my teasers? 🙂 Anyway, you could share some teasers on your current read too. Comment the link of your own Teaser Tuesday so I can check it out and have an idea of amazing books that I would want to read.

Teaser Tuesdays (TT) is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Currently Reading│Book Beginning : Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne

Currently Reading #34

Name: Midnight Thief (Midnight Thief #1)
Author: Livia Blackburne
Number of Pages: 376 pages in Hardcover
Published: July 8th 2014 by Disney-Hyperion
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs. But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull. Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives.

This is my feature for my December Random Reads and I’m quite proud of myself for consistently keeping up with the meme. It’s hard to squeeze books when you had them scheduled, but I’m so keeping up with this. I can’t remember when I’ve received this book so I’m excited. Here’s a five star, three star and one star review respectively. Got them from book lovers on Goodreads.

There are several reasons why I am in such a tizzy over this book and why others should be too. I rarely encounter two strong main characters, a fleshed-out world, a true threat, and a surprising plot in one book. Yet Blackburne managed all of them, and from the semi-cliff-hanger ending, I predict at least two more books. Now that she’s put all that good foundation work in, the rest of her series is her playground. And if Amazon’s labeling of Midnight Thief as “Grades 7 and up” gives you doubts about its maturity, ignore it. Pierce’s books are also tagged as “Grades 7 and up,” and I just reread it last week.
— Andrea of The Jukebox Muse

December Random Reads

This is where we pick a random book from our shelf to read within the month. Feel free to do more than one, but since a lot of people have a lot of books to read, only one is “required” for the meme.

How to join on Random Reads?

You can either use Random.org, eeny, meeny, miny, moe or you can simply close your eyes and point randomly at a book in your shelf. Easy Peasy 😀

Since new books are still adding up on my shelf every week, I’ve left a lot of books untouched for a long time now. Lack of reading time really. I have been wanting to read more to be honest, but I am really having a hard time squeezing it on my busy schedule. That’s reason why I love Random Reads ’cause I got to pick from my pile without favoring those I’m really craving for and reading books randomly (As the meme would require). Am I making sense? 😀 Anyway too lazy again to use Random.org so I closed my eyes and blindly point at a book from my shelf and this is what I got:

Name: Midnight Thief (Midnight Thief #1)
Author: Livia Blackburne
Number of Pages: 376 pages in Hardcover
Published: July 8th 2014 by Disney-Hyperion
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs. But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull. Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives.

See the published date? JULY. So that’s how long (most probably) that this book is sitting on my shelf I believe. Today is what? December. I know you have already figured that out. I love Random Reads ♥

I’ll try my best to squeeze the book this month for the sake of this meme. Wish me luck! Hey if you do have a Random Reads post, comment your link. I’ll try to check it out. 😀

Newly Owned to Read! #3

.. and my new books kept on coming. I’m such a happy camper! 😀

I’m going to be sooo busy in the next few weeks since I’ve got tons of books line up to read! I swear, I will try to read as fast as I can and post book reviews as soon as possible. Bear with me here.

Happy Reading To Me! 😀

Linking this up with Stacking the Shelves and The Sunday Post