Michele C. Shaw

The honorable con is an adventure fantasy , where we follow Ailyanna the professional con-artist. Typically she gets her mark and gets away, This time however she’s caught by the Kresta , the captain of the guard.

Kresta would love nothing more, than to see Ailyanna locked away in that dingy cell forever. Really, nothing would bring her more joy than seeing her rot in that cell. However, the Kingdom has other plans to leverage Ailyanna and her , annoyingly impeccable con skills. As the Northern Empire Lamore, starts closing in they are worried about a civil war. There for they are sending Ailyanna in to get close to Duke. She isnt going alone she has the twins, who are a little weapon crazy, the Captain who is there to keep an eye on her, and a locksmith who is just as good at being eye candy as he is at picking locks.

The title leads to being a story about a con artist, where Alyanna is one, it ends up being much more than that. The story lends to a political drama as well and the story will take you in a direction that you dont see from the start.

The pacing was well done, nothing felt like it was dragging on or that it came out of no where. Its a smooth read.

Character wise, everyone was pretty flushed out, no one really stands out to much though. I didn’t feel like anyone was really fighting for the attention on the page. There is character development , however its spread pretty evenly through the lot of them.

The overall explanation of how magic works was a tad confusing, this is the one part that I wish had more information. I did realize at the end why this was done. However , I think there could have been ways to get a bit more into it without spoiling the ending.

The world building is done in a way where you understand what’s going on, without being overdosed with to many details , or extra content that isn’t relevant to the actual plotline.

This most certainly lends itself to being a great start to a series. The world and characters are buildable. There is still more to learn about magic. Plus the ending does leave you wanting more.

I will admit this is not what I thought this book would be when I started. I rather enjoyed it more this way I think. I will gladly read book two to find out more!

Thank you NetGalley and Michele C. Shaw for the Digital ARC for review.