Dancing to the Beat of Your Secrets

Thank you, Macmillan, for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

We were alone, we had each other, and we had a whole wilderness ahead of us.

Dance of Thieves was a wish come true. I absolutely loved The Remnant Chronicles, so I was more than happy to read a novel set in the same universe. You can call it capitalism, but I’ll read anything that has something to do with my beloved Lia and Rafe. Their special cameo was so satisfying that it almost made me forget about the one and only problem that I had with this book: instalove.

Fellow fans of Mary E. Pearson were probably surprised, too. After all, the romantic relationships in The Remnant Chronicles didn’t have any trace of frivolity (or impossibility). In other words, Kazi and Jase’s love story was a far cry Lia and Rafe’s. I knew that I had to avoid making comparisons, but I couldn’t help it since the characters came from the same human brain and lived in the same fictional world. The author set the bar so high, so how could I settle for less? xD

To be fair, Kazi and Jase’s interactions were outstanding in that they made me feel many emotions like happiness, frustration, and surprise. Their banter was often the highlight of the story, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I just wished that they hadn’t kept so many secrets from each other. They would’ve spared themselves from a lot of stress! It was funny how their fights effectively demonstrated that open communication could be a matter of life and death sometimes.

Moreover, I loved how the author emphasized the importance of personal history. Most of the time, Kazi’s and Jase’s actions were a result of their respective pasts. Kazi was robbed of her childhood after her mother was taken by a slave trader. Jase, on the other hand, wanted to make up for not being able to save his younger siblings from a deadly fever. Their obsession with the past was saddening, but it was a significant contributor to their character development. By overcoming their traumatic experiences, Kazi and Jase were able to move forward and create a promising future together.

In the end, I genuinely enjoyed Dance of Thieves. It had a character-driven story that taught me valuable things about life (i.e. human relationships). If you enjoyed The Remnant Chronicles, you can look forward to another series about the beauty of exposing royal conspiracies and finding love in the process.