"I was an excellent thief. No one ever caught me. Until now."
-A Thief of Treason, Jen Lynning
☆☆☆☆
This is another fantastic book in the world of Great Balance. Thank you, Jen, for sending me an ARC of this book! A Theif of Treason is the third and final book in the Great Balance world. This could be read as a standalone, but it is more satisfying to read it after the other two. We get to see some of our favourite characters from book two.
This book is set in the same world as the previous two but follows a different couple. Nalya is a thief, and Vasha is a duke. They have a great meet-cute when Nalya tries to steal his watch. This is the first book where the couples come from different classes. Nalya is very intelligent, especially when it comes to street smarts. I also love that Nalya has flaws, and we are able to see her change and grow. Vasha is presented as flawless, and we are only able to see him through Nalya's perspective, but as the story progresses, we are able to see him open up to his flaws. I love characters that are well-rounded because no person is flawless, so reading about a flawless character, in my opinion, is bland.
We get to see a different side of the world as Nalya is on the side of the True Balancers. It adds a lot of depth to the book and to the series as a whole. In past books, the world really leaned into the steampunk aspect, but nothing really screamed steampunk in this addition to the series.
In my opinion, this is the spiciest out of the three, and there is a lot of tension. I will say that the romance felt a little rushed, but it was still well done. All of Jen's books that I've read have had great romances, and this book was no exception.
I have to commend that the problem I had with books one and two did not appear in this book. If you read my review of A Scholar of Beauty, I noted that the plotline was very similar to the plotline of the first book. It was easy to predict what happened in the second book because of how similar it was to the first. This book did not fall into that pattern, and I was not able to predict some of the twists. I will not spoil anything, but there were twists that I did not see coming, and that did raise the stakes.
I'm sad to see this series end, but it has a great trio of books + a novella. If anything, I would like to see more of the world and the interwoven politics and magic. This is a great quick read if you want something to get you out of a reading slump. The plot twists kept me on my toes, and the romance was full of tension and love. It's a brilliant fantasy-romance with a historical-steampunk twist. I recommend this to anyone who wants a quick stand-alone read, but it also works perfectly if you want to dive into a new series. Again a huge thank you to Jen for sending me an ARC!
☪ Received an advanced copy but all thoughts and opinions are my own, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Kidnapping, torture, child abuse (neglect, manipulation), cults, classism, explicit sex scenes
RATING: 16+ high school readers
SPICE: 3/5
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