A review by sarrie
The Moonsteel Crown by Stephen Deas

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 

The Moonsteel Crown is a classic heist gone wrong type of story. We’ve got three PoVs throughout the book, two of which were involved in the heist and the third a close compatriot of the other two. It’s cold and dark, and spends a lot of time in our characters mind as they navigate the fallout of this heist. 

I’ll go ahead and say - this was not my favorite and I’m not sure if it’s due to when I read it or the book itself. It’s pacy, with short chapters and the ideas and most of the characters sounded good on paper. I also loved the magic and setup around the world but there was one big flaw for me, and that was the way the characters thought. We weren’t in a first person PoV, but a third person with access to our characters thoughts and by god they thought a lot. It was a lot and a lot of back and forth with themselves, actual arguments with themselves, and guilt about events that are constantly teased with reveals that are drawn out. 

They’re clearly very flawed characters, our one female character seduced and tried to break up her sister’s engagement just because she could. One of the male protagonists was too curious, finding dark secrets about the religion and magic of his world and getting booted from the church because of it. The third, the only redeemable character for me was a simple man who believed everything and anything, every saying or fairy tale, but who was a fantastic thief. But those two heavily flawed characters have constant guilt trips within their own minds, and that led me to being frustrated. All I was left with of the world was that it was cold and dark. I didn’t have a clear understanding of the magic. All that I had was clarity about guilt and how circular the characters thought processes were. 

Perhaps this is something that’s explored more as the books progress, and I’m not against giving the book a second go, but I was grumpy and annoyed by the end of this - not a good sign. It will definitely work for some but for me it was just… fine. Mostly a miss. 

P.S. It is very clear to me that the flaw of the female character is actually a very bad flaw where the male characters have what could actually be seen as positive flaws. I’m giving the book grace on this, hopefully this is not a trend with the other books.