Blurb:
A non-stop, fantasy adventure set in a unique and expansive magical world, perfect for fans of Samantha Shannon, Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jackson Bennett.
Ailyanna was one good con away from her ticket East and escape from the looming war, and instead she’s locked in the palace dungeon staring at a lifetime sentence. You scam one prince and suddenly you’re the captain of the constable’s personal obsession.
While Captain Kresta would love for Ailyanna to rot in that cell forever, she cannot ignore the reality. To the North, the invasion of the magical empire Lamore creeps ever closer, and civil war threatens to tear her home apart before they can hope to defend themselves. Kresta must squash a duke’s treasonous plans, and to do so, she must release the thief she spent years tracking down. Through gritted teeth, Kresta offers Ailyanna a royal pardon, and her precious ticket East. Used to working alone, Ailyanna’s saddled with weapon obsessed twins, a locksmith too handsome for his own good, and the captain who’s promised to chase her to the ends of the earth.
Ailyanna needs that ticket to keep escaping Fate, but time is ticking, and the past never forgets.
Review:
SFF Insiders is here to provide you with our official rating for the finalist book, The Honorable Con by Michele C. Shaw! Check out what our SPFBO judging team had to say below.
Amanda
Ailyanna is a talented con, Captain Kresta a talented soldier who's been tracking her down for years and finally has her in her grip. But with war at their doorstep and civil war brewing, the two must strike a deal to prevent certain catastrophe for their kingdom. Along with their newly formed crew, Ailyanna will try to earn her freedom to the East.
In the beginning, Ailyanna felt a little like a Celaena from Throne of Glass, a character I had a difficult time with because she was postured to be the very best with very little evidence of it. We were told much, but you needed to trust the process to see it. Ailyanna did grow on me though and as her secret became clear, I was bought in. Kresta on the other hand started our very cookie cutter for me and though she does develop, I wasn’t always convinced. I did like the people around them, despite them feeling a bit static at first, and when banter was on the table it was quite enjoyable.
For me, the prose was where I got caught up. It was a bit stilted at times and needed a good proof read. The pace helped mask this aspect for me, but it was noticeable. I don’t want this opinion to overshadow the story’s merits. But if this is something that trips you up in a book, you’ve been informed.
That said, this didn’t ruin my enjoyment. The world was a fun place to be, and though I would have loved to explore its histories more, it had nice nuance and interesting politics. I loved how there was a good mix of magic and mechanics and gave our crew a dynamic world to navigate.
Everyone is hiding something and the deceptions made for an entertaining plot. This was, for the most part, a plot driven story, where we were holding on to our hats with the characters. As the con unravels we’re pulled down some pretty fun, and nail biting, trails. Shaw kept a good deal in her pocket as the story unfolded, and left the ending with plenty of intrigue for the coming sequel.
Though the stakes were high in this story for the characters, as a reader this felt like a low stakes, high entertainment book, which is exactly what I need sometimes. It had its issues but, with its quick pace and fun hijinks, I would recommend it to someone looking for an easy read.
Jon
On the way back from a conference I was attending, I was at a train station, waiting for a train delayed by about half an hour, starting to read "The Honorable Con" by Michele C. Shaw. By the time the train arrived, I had swapped out one of the three water bottles I had gained from the earlier mentioned conference for a new one (each one was 1 liter, or about maybe 1/4th of a gallon, do not ask me to convert metric to imperial, I am a poor help there), and about 50ish pages into "The Honorable Con". About two or three hours later, I had finished the book, and my phone was finally able to rest after being on life support via a conveniently charged powerbank. What I took away from the novel is that steampunk, oppression, and nebulous entities beyond a border of an empire alongside magic work. And that the shenanigans were basically an infiltration mission but the reason was purely out of pride and narcissism.
To start with, we have the characters, Ailyanna and Kresta. There are a few more, but as they are not mentioned by name, just know that they are a locksmith with a delusion complex, twins that like weapons a bit too much and an aide to Kresta, the captain of the constable.
Ailyanna is a thief, or more accurately, a con artist who scammed the wrong person, namely a prince. As a person, she has her ethics, stopping short of murdering, she'll scam people in order to escape from the war that is looming. The other person, Kresta, really wants to do her job well and looks for validation in doing her job well. One wrinkle in that though, Ailyanna. She has been chasing her for a while and now loathes that the con artist will get a pardon. Do the personalities of the two change throughout the story? Yes, to an extent, with more the backstories of the characters revealing why their actions are the way they are slightly overshadowing it. Still intriguing to see where it went though.
Then there's the plot. The whole novel can be split into two parts, the first part, the set up, the gathering of souls to get the con started. Up until that point, not much happens besides the recruitment of Ailyanna to the whole thing. The second part, now the second part is where all the shenanigans happen. Like most nefarious secret plots, the secrecy makes it more difficult, and watching it unfold is akin to watching someone have a vase, break it, say they can fix it, and whip out the duct tape and superglue to do so. There's a mixture of shock, disbelief and horror. Beyond that though, there are a few more shenanigans, with the ending hinting at book two. Which I briefly looked at, but haven't yet read.
Lastly, there is the world building that "The Honorable Con" is set it in. There's Lamore in the north, with magical powers that make them a unstoppable army, so the Empress of Lamore decides to become a Napoleon. And then there's the East, and the Center, where the whole debaucle within this novel takes place. Somewhere around there, there's also an ancient cult that was supposedly destroyed but there are still some hang out hanging out. Furthermore, this is steampunk, so guns are a thing. Not yet at the same scale as they are now, so it's more a wield a sword in one hand, gun in the other situation.
Now if I had to critique one thing negatively about "The Honorable Con", it'd have to be the start of the book. It felt kind of rushed, and for the kingdom to be of the size it is, I'd have imagined things taking far longer than they did, with the capitol feeling larger than the city the con takes place in. But due to writing, or because of the speed of the beginning, it was the exact opposite, at least to me.
Naturally, that is my own opinion, and you shouldn't take my word for it, and read the novel for yourself as well.
Overall, if you like steampunk, heists, and magic, this novel by Michele C. Shaw is for you.
Grady
To rip the band-aid off, it pains me to say that The Honorable Con really wasn't for me. It features an inventive story with a rich cast of characters, but the pacing and plot failed to hook me from the start and it never recovered. Compounding this, the character voices weren't differentiated enough for me, with the many personalities all seeming to meld together. The writing style itself never quite clicked either, and so I found myself more often than not struggling to stay locked in on any given page.
From the start, the action is truly non-stop. I think for some this brisk pace is a positive, but with so much happening in such a unique world, I would have loved more room to breathe and allow the story to fill in more, and explore deeper character interactions. Magic systems and world-building were also tough for me to connect with; cultures were vaguely outlined and there wasn’t enough context for me to fill in the gaps left by the negative spaces. They felt more like chasms.
Toward the end, there’s a train sequence that grabbed my interest since it’s the same engine prominently and beautifully featured on the book cover. During these scenes I was excited for the payoff, whether it was great imagery, a crescendo of emotion for our characters, or even a dip into nerdy mechanical details to ratchet up the tension. Unfortunately, I felt like it instead ran out of steam, where these same scenes could have worked interchangeably with other confined settings.
The ending ticked up stronger as the political subterfuge came to light, but it was accompanied by a bit of a tonal shift that only took me further off-track. Sometimes that surprise is a delight, but for me the lack of consistency throughout left me lost at sea.
I feel horrible writing this negative critique. I was really intrigued by the premise of a criminal forced into one last con, and of a political intrigue to emerge from it. Though I failed to connect, I know many others have enjoyed it, so I fully see this as a personal failing of my own, and for that I continue to feel badly and send author Michele C. Shaw my deepest sympathies.
Khan
Ailyanna is one good con away from a ticket East and a clean escape from the war bearing down on her homeland. Then she scams the wrong prince and lands in the palace dungeon, facing a life sentence. The woman who put her there, Captain Kresta, would happily leave her to rot. But the magical empire of Lamore is creeping in from the north, civil war is brewing at home, and a duke is plotting treason. Kresta needs someone who can lie her way into rooms soldiers can't enter, so she grits her teeth and offers the thief a royal pardon.
That premise is the hook, and Shaw doesn't waste it. The book is quick from the first page, and the con at its centre moves with real momentum: plans shift, alliances wobble, and each scene nudges the stakes higher. Shaw writes with obvious confidence, and the plotting holds together. Watching all the pieces click neatly into place is one of the book's real pleasures.
What lifts it above a standard heist story is the characters. Ailyanna's redemption arc isn't a tidy moral conversion. It grows out of what she chooses when the escape hatch is right in front of her. Kresta is no cardboard lawkeeper either, and her grudging partnership with the thief she spent years hunting has a prickly tension that gives their scenes bite. Even the supporting crew get more depth than side characters usually do, and each of them earns their place.
Which makes the ending more frustrating. In the final stretch the reveals arrive thick and fast, until they stop feeling like payoffs and start feeling like scaffolding for book two. The biggest of them is one the story hints at early, so when it finally lands it reads more like confirmation than shock, and the closing chapters lose some of the tension the rest of the book worked so hard to build.
Those closing pages are clearly written with the sequel in mind. There is plenty of this world and its conspiracies left to unpick, and this first instalment is laying foundations. I do understand the logic, but it comes at a cost. The bonds the team forms over the course of the con are among the best things in the book, and by the end they feel pushed to one side, as if the plot has bigger business elsewhere. Having grown so attached to those relationships over three hundred pages, I found that easily the hardest part of the ending to accept.
None of that undoes what works. The Honorable Con is a fast, well-crafted fantasy with characters worth caring about, and its flaws are those of a series opener reaching for its next chapter a little too eagerly. If you like your thieves clever, your lawkeepers stubborn and your plots full of moving parts, it's well worth your reading time. I'll be reading book two, mostly to see where Shaw takes this crew next, and what the past still holds for Ailyanna.
Kristen
Going into this story, I was ready for an engrossing heist, and Shaw certainly delivered! What followed was a tale that kept me guessing with its many twists and turns.
To start off, one aspect I particularly enjoyed was the incorporation of magic and technology. This usually isn’t something I gravitate towards in a story as combining the two can sometimes feel a little overwhelming and personally pull me out of the story. However, Shaw managed to weave these elements into the story quite smoothly.
The relationship between Kresta and Ailyanna was another fun aspect to explore. Kresta, our steadfast constable, very much embodies the firm unwavering hand of justice. On the other side, we have Aliyanna. She is every bit the clever and crafty thief. Their contrasting personalities made for an entertaining dynamic from the very beginning. Their chase at the start of the story left like a choreographed dance, with Aliyanna always managing to be one narrow step ahead of Kresta. However upon capture, their relationship dynamic felt like it took a dramatic shift.
One thing I did experience around our cast of characters was that, at times, their voices felt a little too similar. For example, when Ailyanna initially meets Benjie and the other new recruits on the train, everyone’s mannerisms and dialogue were a tad difficult to distinguish. There were moments when I had to pause and backtrack to previous pages to get a better understanding of the flow of the conversation. Eventually, I became more accustomed to the different characters as the story progressed, but I did find this a little distracting initially.
The ending of the book does leave readers on a bit of a cliff hanger. I can see and understand how this serves as a setup for a sequel, especially with the number of possibilities left open at the end. Personally, I felt that I was left with a few unanswered questions. While I enjoy an ending that leaves me wanting more, I also found myself wishing for just a little more resolution before closing the book. That being said, it certainly accomplished the curiosity factor that has me eager to pick up the next installment!
SFF Insiders Rating: 6.5/10
