Stupendous, gripping, emotional, grimdark fantasy!

The ‘Queen of Thieves’ box set comprises ‘Child of The Night Guild’, ‘Thief of The Night Guild’ and ‘Queen of the Night Guild’. Andy Peloquin has created a masterpiece of descriptive writing with an intricate storyline burgeoning with thrilling action, suspense, intrigue, a rollercoaster of emotions and such vividly drawn characters. This is a superb three-dimensional work of art that draws you into its heart so that you experience everything as if you are there. And what an edge-of-the-seat experience it is! It is not for the faint-hearted as it does contain graphic scenes of cruelty and violence, but that is to be expected in grimdark fantasy. This epic box set is wonderful as an audiobook (narrated by Rebecca McKernan) and is beyond doubt a compulsive listening experience.

I was hooked from the start, drawn deep into the world of the Night Guild which we experience through the eyes of Viola (designated number Seven by the really creepy and cruel Master Velvet and subsequently she becomes Ilanna when she is allowed to take a name again). The feelings of sorrow, anxiety, heartache, anger, fear and joy that she experiences in her struggle through her apprenticeship (from age eight to eighteen) to survive and prove her worth to the guild as a successful thief are so palpable.

Ilanna’s tremendous willpower enables her to survive her brutal apprenticeship with the Night Guild to become a Journeyman of House Hawk and a very successful thief. Unfortunately, once the Night Guild has you, it doesn’t want to let you go, although it may agree to let you buy your freedom. However, the more successful you are, the higher the price will be as the Night Guild will be looking for compensation for lost future revenue. Ilanna desperately wants to secure her freedom because she has secretly given birth to a son, whom she has kept hidden, and she does not want him to be discovered and forced to undergo the same apprenticeship that she did. With the cost of her freedom being set ridiculously high, Ilanna hatches a highly complex plan. She has to put together a crew of hand-picked Guild members from various Houses whom she must pay for their participation in the preparation for and execution of a daring theft from Duke Phonnis whilst still making enough out of the job to meet price of her freedom. All that on the assumption that the heist will actually be successful in spite of what appear to be insurmountable obstacles.

Ilanna is a force to be reckoned with. Many within the Night Guild are jealous of her success and the special interest that Master Gold takes in her. The Bloody Hand want her removed because they recognise that she poses a threat to their plan to take over the Night Guild. lIanna loses her home to a deliberately set, fast spreading, incredibly hot chemical fire and believes her son and friend to have been consumed by it. A traitor within the Night Guild has engineered it so that she will believe that Bryden, a Journeyman from House Hawk, is responsible for this in collaboration with the Bloody Hand. This same traitor has also laid a false trail of ‘evidence’ of larceny which results in a gruesome death sentence being passed on Ilanna but, with aid from an unexpected source, she manages to escape. From here Ilanna sets out to track down the traitor, whilst also coming up with an audacious and extremely dangerous plan to drive the Bloody Hand out of the Night Guild and the city. Catastrophe and chaos follow in spades as the plot makes its way through a mind-boggling maze of twists and turns. In amongst all this, Ilanna discovers the truth behind the creation and purpose of the Night Guild – and what a revelation that is.

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Grips you like a hawk.

I'm so glad I stuck with this story. More so that I took the time to listen to the set. I have spent some very late nights in the grip of this adventure. The trials are brutal, and it pulls no punches. In some respects the heroine is hard to like but steathily you find yourself coming to admire and respect her. The narration only gets better as the story progresses, and by the finish you are a little sad to leave this world.

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Haunting and gripping.

Although this story is dark the narrator does an excellent job with the sensitive nature that involves in some parts of this book. I enjoyed the book. The audio version is excellent. The narrator does a wonderful job with the voices and accents.
She makes it very easy to imagine the characters with her voice. As Ilanna and characters age, the narrator is sure to change up the voices along with their age.

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brilliant and annoying too, poor audio quality

This trilogy taken at the high level is a well constructed tale with twists and suspense never shutting away from unconformable truths. It is not however without frustrations, the endless recounting of past incidents used to underline a frame of mind for the protagonist becomes quite tedious. We're quite used to the need to recap in a series; publishers, I believe, insist upon it; but we very quickly understand the mindset of our lead character and do not need the constant repetition.

The narration is for the most part enjoyable, the early years are a little trying with the childlike voice not quite working for me. the energy can be distracting at times with the narration all but shouted, yet the effect overall is good.

the plotline is complex and twists nicely in places throwing you off guard but reads a little like the Chap book genre, with constant cliff hanger moments of impossible escape. the lead character is intelligent, eloquent and cunning, yet frequently too stupid to see the blindingly obvious and even at the end I'm unsure if this makes her more human or more implausible.

all of the above resolves to an enjoyable dark fantasy romp that I'd recommend. however the production audio quality is some of the worst I have put up with be ready for whole chapters when the narrator sounds like she's preaching from a soap box across the other side of them room.

Jarring & irksome

So, although it was a bit repetitive I did enjoy some aspects of it. However there was one major plot point that was drastically under developed which continually came up; it irritated me to no end and affected my overall enjoyment of the book.
It was very jarring as realistically there would have been some incredibly complicated and difficult emotions surrounding it which weren't even touched upon, despite the fact that the character seemed to be experiencing PTSD (although never specified as such several symptoms were there). It was over simplified and brushed over with what was quite frankly a completely inadequate explanation of the characters reasoning and no insight into the complex emotions it would have provoked, despite a focus on several other aspects of emotional turmoil related to the situation.

Enthralling

I will be listening to this one agsin. I was a bit put off at first by the very short sentences. I confess I nearly gave up; Suddenly the characters were alive, and I could see myself as seven. To travel with her through this story was entralling. Best listen in a while.

A fun world with great characters

Don't have a lot to say about this book

I really enjoyed the characters but found the plot a little predictable

Great as a first delve into the genre, but probably a bit repetitive for fantasy veterans.

Excellent effort.

Great story, awful narration

This book took for..ever to get through! And it was entirely down to the absolutely awful narration and mispronounciations....I gave up on this book several times, leaving months in between picking it up again. In the end, I found speeding up the narration (almost to the point of being too quick to follow) made it easier to tolerate. It's such a shame as the story itself was really quite good and well written.
The only way I'd recommend this to anyone would be if the narrator was someone like the amazing Andrea Parsneau or Tim Gerard Reynolds! If you really want to enjoy the story, buy the physical book and read it the old fashioned way!

pretty good

decent story, repetitive and predictable at times but a satisfying none the less. Narration was a bit annoying.

Dark, gritty, painful, gripping.

Andy Peloquin is a master with the written word. This trilogy gripped me from start to finish. Our protagonist is forged through the fires of suffering, determination driving her ever forward. The only negative I have to say about this series is that the two major reveals at the end were obvious, but it was nice being proven right.