Book Review: The Queen of Days by Greta Kelly

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

The Queen of Days by Greta Kelly

Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Book 1/Stand Alone

Publisher: Harper Voyager (October 24, 2023)

Length: 384 pages

Author Information: Website

Greta Kelly’s The Queen of Days initially held great promise for me, especially following my positive experience with her brilliant Warrior Witch duology. The prospect of a new adventure—a heist story, no less, which is like catnip for me—set in a world teeming with gods and demigods immediately piqued my interest. Ultimately though, I believe the novel would have benefited from a more in-depth exploration of the individual characters and their dynamics.

When the story begins, readers are introduced to Balthazar, a former member of the ruling class whose entire life was upended when his family fell under the attack of a vengeful political rival. Only Bal and his younger sister Miraveena survived, along with a few members of his extended family like his half-brother Malakai, cousin Zeelaya and her husband Edik, all of whom are now on the run. Forced to steal to survive, they become thieves for hire, targeting the nobility that had let them down. But now, they’ve been offered their biggest score yet. Bal’s mysterious patron has hired their crew to steal the idol of Karanis at the grand gala to celebrate the construction of the new temple to the sea god. Sure, it would be difficult in front of all those in attendance, but the pay alone would ensure all their futures. To Bal, nothing is more important than his little sister, and if they pull this off, Mira would be set for life.

There’s only one problem. For unknown reasons, their patron will only give them the job if they agree to take on a sixth member, the legendary thief known as the Queen of Days. Unwilling to let this chance of a lifetime slip through his fingers, Bal reluctantly strikes a deal with the mysterious figure, who introduces herself as Tassiel. When asked about her fee, however, she asks him to pay with thirty days off the end of his life and the same for each of his crew. Skeptical and disbelieving, Bal accepts.

This is just the beginning of what promises to be a whirlwind journey that will challenge not only our characters’ skills as thieves but also their very understanding of the rules that make up their universe. As they’ll soon discover, there is nothing traditional or even ordinary about the ceremony they’re about to crash, and the idol they’ve been tasked to steal is a magical artifact of immense significance, one that will change the fate of both mortals and gods. For Bal, this will mean fighting to maintain the fragile unity of his crew and learning to trust in Tassiel, at least long enough for them to survive this whole ordeal.

Yet while Kelly succeeds in portraying this band of thieves as a loveable found family, I felt that having an ensemble cast both strengthened and challenged the narrative. Yes, having more characters undoubtedly made the story more interesting, but because the focus was also very divided, I found it more difficult to connect to any of them. Notably, the author should have made a stronger case for Bal as the mastermind, the role traditionally filled by the crew’s leader in a heist story. There were several reasons why I found this unconvincing, the main one being his poor decision-making skills and lack of good judgment. His impulsiveness was not a good look and made it harder for me to feel sympathy for him or even root for his success.

Needless to say, I preferred Tassiel’s chapters over Bal’s, though the point-of-view shifts between the two from first-person to third-person took some adjusting. It also resulted in putting a bit of distance between the reader and her character, though in the end, it didn’t prevent me from warming to her personality as more about history was revealed (meanwhile, the more time I spent with Bal, the less I liked him).

This being a heist story, it should also come as no surprise that it stuck hard to heist crew archetypes. That said, I wish we had gotten more complex characters and that the plot moved beyond the usual predictable patterns. Granted, this was by no means a bad book, but nothing about it truly surprised or inspired me.

In other words, unlike Greta Kelly’s The Frozen Crown which I felt was a glorious debut, this one simply didn’t shine quite as bright. Don’t get me wrong, for readers who are looking for a pacy, entertaining, and action-packed heist story set in a fantasy world, I think The Queen of Days will be perfectly satisfactory. Nevertheless, those who are very familiar with the conventions of the genre and are looking for something more by way of characters and plot may find it somewhat wanting.