2 stars

Admittedly, there wasn’t much good to say about the book, which is a shame because it was one of my most anticipated June books. Les Misérables mixed with Six of Crows and the Jungle Book? Count me in.

Throughout the book; there were time jumps of about 3/5 years, depending on area of the book.
Because of this, the writing and scenes were very choppy and made it hard to really get into the book.
Also, the love square.... Not only do I detest love triangles, much less love squares. Especially when the female heroine doesn’t return any of those feelings to either love interest. At all. In the end, she basically just uses them to do her bidding and they follow like little puppy dogs. Like no thank you.
Another point was the heroine herself. Special snowflake alert. She, of course, was the best thief in the entire place. Overcompensation.

In conclusion, unfortunately, the book was a disappointment, who had huge potential to be great (looking at the summary). Unfortunately , in my eyes, that potential was not explored in a good way

Originally I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley. Unfortunatley I did not manage to get to this prior to publication and for this i apologise, however I pre-ordered a copy from Waterstones and also received another from my Illumicrate subscription box. I have to say the book is stunning.

Now I have given this book 4 stars as it did really suck me into the world. Only up to a point though as too often I was pulled out but this in my opinion is not the fault of the book itself. Let me explain, I like to read physically whilst listening to the audiobook to get completely immersed into a story. Here is where the problem was. Unfortunatley the audiobook changes too much of the written story with whole sentences in some cases being added or removed. I am really not a fan of this and had I not been enjoying the story as a whole I would have dnf’d just because of this. Now this will not be an issue for anyone just reading physically or just listening to the audiobook but I thought it really should be mentioned for anyone like me who enjoys both at the same time.

As a whole this book was very intriguing, there could have been slightly more world building and character development but I believe this book has set itself up to be the start of a great series. I look forward to the next instalment and just hope that the audiobook does not stray from the source material too much like this one.

An enjoyable read with some issues.

My main issue with the Les Mis comparison was Gavroche. I was disappointed in the lack of Gavroche in this book. He was the highlight to me when I read Les Mis. He is (*spoiler*) the younger brother of Eponine in the original story, but in this book, he is a quiet boy who doesn't really stand up to much. I wanted more from him. And I wanted a more powerful Gavroche.

Not much worlds building needed. We are in Paris around revolution time and around Les Mis times. The criminal world with an all its Lords and Ladies are well explained and the law of the guild is slowly feed in pieces.

It's well done, but slightly small ad limited.

I didn't feel like Paris made any appearances. Paris is this big grand city with tons of history. And in Les Mis, it's almost a character in itself. You feel like you are in the city. However, in the Court of Miracles, the city didn't matter. We could be almost anywhere. Almost. The city didn't feel like it was alive it felt like a prop.

The writing was fair. I felt it was a tad simple. I had an e-ARC and there were a few spelling mistakes which I presume are fixed in the final editing. Apart from that, I had no issues with this book :)

In the end, I did enjoy it. I didn't love it. But I want to check out the rest of the series so thumbs up!

I had a most wonderful time reading this book. It was truly lovely, well paced, great plot, engaging characters. Honestly enjoyed it so much. 4.5 stars and would have been 5 if it wasnt for the use of french which felt a little jarring at times. I think because there wasnt really a need for it maybe? Nonetheless I loved it.

The Court Of Miracles - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

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World Building

Ok so, the world of The Court Of Miracles was probably my most favourite part. It was gritty and sinister, brutal and without mercy. I loved the splendor of the royalty to the contrast of the guilds and the courts. Famine and Revolution was a prominent theme in this and I thought that the horror of that Kester portrayed fantastically. The world as a whole isn't one to be glorified, but one to be feared and to feel completely at its mercy.

Characters

So, this is where I also think the strengths lie. I loved St. Juste, he was positively exquisite. Ettie had this bountiful helplessness about her, which I thought was extremely relevant because it made her a mouse in a cats world. Then we have Nina, goodness bless her. She was absolutely brilliant. It was so refreshing to see a female MC so badass and full of strength that even when the odds were against her she grit her teeth and took the cards that the world had dealt her.

General Storyline/Authors Writing Style/Pacing

In general, I enjoyed this book. The read was well received and the way Kester writes is lush and without sparing a thought for detail. The overall story lacked in the beginning, I felt it needed something more in the first half to bring a bit more excitement to it. It felt very slow in building (especially Nina's) character and creating this plot that was (in the second half) fast-paced and stole your breath away. This goes hand in hand with the pacing, the second half you didn't know where to look, but in such a good way! I couldn't tear my eyes away because I NEEDED to know the outcome of a compromise, it was riveting and the second half truly saved this book from being a lower rating.

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I went into this excited but a little dubious (just a personal fatigue of retellings) but was delighted to find how original and magical this story is. Can't wait for more from Kester Grant!

I absolutely adored the Court of Miracles. Once I started reading it I didn’t want to stop. It had a great storyline and awesome characters

This book is very well written, and I read it in one sitting.
The main characters are likeable, and more than that, I loved revisiting one of my favourite pieces of writing in literature (Les Misérable by Victor Hugo) with a fresh take on some of the characters.. I really enjoyed that there the author gave voice to the women, and that meant I could overlook the occasional historical inaccuracies, plot gaps, or the weird love square - which luckily was not developed as Nina did some seem inclined for romance.

I'm giving it 4 stars, and will for the next instalment of this series.

This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I'd heard a lot of positive things from early reviewers. I guess my expectations were a little too high?

I had a really hard time reading The Court of Miracles. I had high expectations for it, but I just ended up struggling through it instead. Everything about this book fell flat for me, and even after finishing it I'm still having such a hard time coming up with anything positive to say. I'll try and keep it spoiler-free, but be warned, this will be a very negative review.

The Miracle Court was the thing that really interested me when I first heard about this book. It's basically the criminal underworld of Paris, with each type of criminal belonging to different houses. There are alliances between the houses, and a very strict law, but still there are people like the Tiger who seem to go unchecked. This could have been such a great basis for this book, but it felt very underdeveloped. There was a little explanation but it only came when it was convinient to the plot. I wish they would have spent more time on the rules and ways of the Miracle Court. We get to see Nina joining the court, but it was a short scene, so it just felt like a missed opportunity for more development.

Speaking of development, all the characters in this book were so two dimensional. Every important character seemed to have one defining characteristic, and that was their whole personality. Nina is a thief so she takes any opportunity. Ettie is a target so she is beautiful and timid. St. Juste is a rebel so he's stubborn. Montparnasse is an assassin so he's strong and silent. Kaplan is a villain so he's ruthless. When I think about these characters the only thing I remember is those stereotypical characteristics. There was just no depth to them.

This book also felt very oversaturated with 'important' characters. There were so many named characters introduced in such a short period of time that you're just expected to remember them without any kind of reminder. I had no idea who anyone was for such a long time, and even now I still hear certain prominent names and can't picture them or their role in the story. There were just so many of them!

This issue goes hand in hand with the plot. It tried to focus on so many things at once that everything just fell flat. There was a revolution, a kidnapping, a revenge plot, a royal infiltration and also world issues like famine. It all felt so incomplete because it was trying so hard to create layers of plot. The time skips really didn't help anything as they just made it feel like I was missing half the story. Something would be introduced, not mentioned for ten chapters and then suddenly the plotline is in its end stages. I'm usually good with stories that have a lot to them, but I really needed someone to hold my hand and walk me through this one because I was totally lost.

I just really didn't get along with this book, and it's unfortunate considering how I excited I was to read it. But we can't love them all. I definitely won't be continuing on in this series, but I may check out some of the author's other work when it gets released.

3.5 stars.

There's been a lot of hype surrounding The Court of Miracles. I've seen it advertised for weeks on Twitter and the publishers website - and when this hype was combined with a beautiful, shiny cover and promises of seedy criminal underworlds in a Les Miserables retelling I knew I had to get my greedy little mitts on it.

I will say from the off that this is a loose retelling of Les Miserables, set against the backdrop of a failed French Revolution and the destruction the might of the nobility have left in their wake. Our protagonist is Eponine, known as Nina, the daughter of the Master of the Thieves guild - one of several guilds among the Court of Miracles, a forum created to gather together and control those that linger in the shadows. The assassins, the smugglers and those who deal in flesh. The forgotten children of the streets. All are welcomed as family at the court, where deals and alliances are easily traded and no-one can be trusted.

The court itself is the shining star of the novel, often taking on a life of its own with its own history, politics and backstory. The various guilds are fascinating (although woefully underused) as each takes on a personality of its own with its own cast of secondary characters and characteristics. The descriptions of the city and its despair are also well done, with rich discriptions of an affluent city that hides it's true colours of famine, death and disease beneath a veneer of gold. The atmosphere feels dirty and threatening.

The plot is also pretty decent, fast paced and well written - although I will say that this is a very loose retelling at times, taking a number of liberties with the original story, to the point where I often felt that this should have just been an original story, dropping some of the more obvious references to Les Miserables. We also get a lot of time skips throughout the book, jumping months and sometimes years into the future. This lessened some of the emotional connections between the characters, as well as make Nina's development a little less impactful as I wanted to see her plans come to fruition rather than merely be told how she teaches a certain conclusion.

Speaking of Nina, I did find her to be quite stereotypical of the YA genre heroine. She's that girl who seems to be able to do the impossible without much explanation as to how or why she has the skills that no-one else has. She's also the girl that has that one weakness that everyone knows about and exploits to their own advantage. That said, I thought she had a decent enough backstory and development to carry the story and I found her entertaining. Especially in her conversations with the other Guild Lords.


In terms of the other characters, referencing back to my earlier comment about dropping a lot of the Les Miserables references...a lot of the more obvious characters such as Javert just seemed a bit superfluous and didn't add anything to the main story. I found myself a lot more interested in the Tiger, the assassins and the Ghosts than I ever did about Jean Valjean and Javert. Even Ettie (Cosette) doesn't really get a decent enough backstory (she just randomly appears at the tavern as a ward one day) for me to care enough, and I didn't really find Nina's attachment to her all that believable - although their relationship does improve a lot towards the end. The Dauphin unfortunately didn't really appear enough for me to form a definitive opinion of him - although I do find his infatuation with Nina quite endearing.

I loved the Guilds and atmopshere of this world, and the strong writing and fast paced story are enough to keep me interested and entertained in the sequel. I'm really excited to see where the story will go now it's not restricted to the boundaries of its retelling. Fun, fast fantasy fiction.

I truly don’t understand any of the comparisons the blurb makes to other books, Les Mis and Six of Crows. It all felt very disjointed, the timeskips left me very confused and the narrative does not flow well at all. Nevermind the characters all feeling like caricatures of the original namesakes summed up by a single characteristic. I just really didn’t enjoy this at all unfortunately.

Les Miserables meets Six of Crows? Yes please!

Imagine the excited of hearing that a book has been written that is described as a mix of two of your all time favourite things? That is exactly how I felt when I read the synopsis of ‘The Court of Miracles’. I had high expectations going in, because the world Kester Grant created sounded so intriguing.

One of the things I was most excited for going in was the world building, and so I was thrilled with how well Grant did. Admittedly, the first chapter or so was a tiny bit of a info dump, and I was slightly confused about what the structure of the Court of Miracles at first. However, it is very well developed, so I caught on pretty quickly and it just got better and better from there. I loved that it was a retelling of Les Mis, and every time a familiar characters was mentioned I practically squealed with excitement!

There was never a dull moment, it was definitely a plot driven novel, but the characters were strong too. Character development and relationships were not at all sacrificed for the sake of plot. Nina is strong and kickass and such an enjoyable character to follow, I loved watching her grow throughout the book.

Although there were elements of flirtation, and Ettie was desperate for Nina to find love throughout the book, I enjoyed that the focus was on family rather than romance. Nina is less concerned with the men in her life and more with saving her sister, which is commendable and refreshing.

I loved the historical fantasy setting in 19th century France. I love both historical fiction and fantasy, and so the combination of the two was a match made in heaven. The historical backdrop helped with the world building and meant I could fully immerse myself into the story, whilst the fantasy twist added a new later of depth and intrigue.

Overall, it was such a fun and intriguing story and I can’t wait for the next book to delve back into the world. I highly recommend it for fans of Les Miserable, and fantasy such as Six of Crows!

I’m on the fence on whether I’m enjoying this book or not. I think it might be my mood but as of now I’ve decided to put it down at the halfway point. The historical inspired setting is lush and enamouring to read but I’m not feeling much of a interest in the characters so far. Which is making it hard to read. I also haven’t read/seen any of the material this is inspired by so maybe that means I’m missing something? As a whole what I’ve read isn’t bad at all it’s just a personal preference. I’m hoping I’ll revisit it at some point when I’m feeling more drawn by the story but for now it’s a miss. (3 stars so far)

Truly miraculous. This book is so engaging it left me feeling exhausted as I kept up with little cat throughout her trials and setbacks. Little cat may sound a cute name but this cat has claws which she can use to climb sheer walls. Novel is set in Paris in the 1800's, packed with familiar locations and building. Story is fantastical, a fight against evil by a wronged. girl who is betrayed, beaten and abused.
Loved the descriptions of places and characters, this would make an am an amazing film..

Nina is just one black cat, but she soon proves she has the skill to impress the guilds of the Wretched.
On a mission to save her sister, there is nothing she will not do.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book takes the characters and setting from Les Mis, and creates a court, guilds and law for the Wretched - the beggars, thieves and spies etc.
It focusses on Nina (Eponine) - her sister Azelma is sold to the Flesh guild by their own father, and the only way that Nina will be safe from his drunken rage will be if she joins one of the guilds.
As an adept thief, she is soon welcomed in.

Nina is devoted to her guild, and stands by the laws of the Wretched, believing they will protect her, and anyone who needs them. But her adopted sister Ettie (Cosette) is so stunningly beautiful that the Tiger and his Guild of Flesh would do anything to possess her; Nina starts to realise how rotten the court has become.

I really enjoyed most of this book. Despite the fact that it is based on possibly one of the most depressing stories (I cried like a baby at the musical) - the story never forgets its roots, or the harshness of the world, but it was easy to follow Nina on her passionate crusade, with her adorably naive sidekick Ettie.
Nina dares to go where no thief has (successfully) gone before, and the plot is entirely fresh and different from the original.
I thought Nina was incredibly clever, rarely allowing her emotions to cloud her from the bigger picture. She has the growing attention of several men, but in this version, she's not violently in love with any of them. (Not yet anyway)

The not-so-good.
The jumps in time were the biggest issue. They really disrupted the rhythm. There's no warning or explanation, and it takes a couple of pages to work out that there had been a time skip of 5 years, or 2 months, or 2 years.
Skips are fine, but I think these could have been orchestrated better.

I know this is a weird thing to say with all the beatings and hardships that Nina endured, but each of her big plans seemed to go too smoothly, even when they didn't go to - um... plan.
I don't know, maybe it's because it was so focussed on Nina's skill and confidence, that I never felt she was going to lose.

Overall, I enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

This was a fantastic story set in Paris and inspired by the wonderful Les Miserables, I adored this story from start to finish, the world and story swept me away, I didn’t want it to end.

My favourite part of this book was The Court of Miracles itself, a criminal underworld thriving in 19th Century Paris amidst the June Rebellion. I found the political structure of the Court fascinating and enjoyed the exploration of the individual guilds we saw throughout the course of this novel, my favourite of course, being the assassin's guild.

I thought that the atmosphere was also well done, I enjoyed the glitz and glamour of the court alongside the more seedy and grimy elements of the underworld. Alongside this we also have glimpses of the lives of the common people during the June Rebellion, who were dying of starvation and illness. Overall, the atmosphere, setting and political aspects were my favourite elements throughout.

Where I feel this book was slightly lacking, is in the development of both characters and plot. Years were skipped over so that we could accelerate to the more interesting and relevant parts of the plot. However I found that crucial bonds were built in the years that the reader does not see and so I felt a disconnect between myself and the characters, I was being told that Eponine and Cosette were close, but I did not truly feel it.

In a lot of ways, especially throughout the first half of the book, I felt like the narrative was very episodic, and things came to Eponine too easily. Impossible tasks were posed to her, that she overcame in a handful of chapters and these elements of the book also felt like they served as a guide to the Court of Miracles as it seemed every mission was related to a different guild.

Overall I would recommend reading this. I enjoyed it a lot and can't wait to get my hands on the sequel, I just think with a little more development it could have been phenomenal and also held a lot of emotional impact.

This is an incredible debut--I have no prior knowledge of Les Mis, so any similar names or plot beats didn't actually resonate with me. All I know is that I enjoyed the heck out of this!!

Kester has been on my radar as a writer for 4 years or so now, and I eagerly awaited her book the second I heard about it. It didn't disappoint me. While I had to re-read some parts to fully understand it (I read late at night so might just be me) I was swept along.

I really enjoyed this reimagining of Les Miserables. I was very quickly hooked by the story of Nina - a member of the Thieves Guild - who aims to protect her adopted sister - Ettie, like her sister did for her. This aim brings her into conflict with The Tiger - the leader of the Flesh Guild.

This story is set in 1828 Paris and brings Nina inti contact with the student revolutionaries and the royal family. Both are well portrayed and you are absorbed by the history.

I will be awaiting part 2 with eagerness and will be purchasing part one for my library.

WELCOME TO THE COURT OF MIRACLES, where criminals are divided into guilds and there are rules to follow and loyalties to observe.

“Wretched is the name given to all children of the Miracle Court. What binds us is our guild. It is a bond stronger than family, thicker than blood.”

I was first drawn to this book by the blurb: “Les Misérables meets Six of Crows“. I instantly knew that I had to read it because Six of Crows is one of my favourite books. And then I saw the cover. Have you seen it? So beautiful, shiny, and sparkly… I could stare at it for hours. Finally, I was lucky and my Netgalley request was approved. I got the chance to read it earlier and I was hooked right away. I was catapulted in 1820s Paris, a Paris divided in half following the failure of the French Revolution, a Paris half belonging to aristocrats and half belonging to criminals.

“There are no family names in the Miracle Court, no race or religion.”

Thieves, assassins, crooks, and beggars are all reunited in the Court of Miracles and among them is the Black Cat. Nina would do anything to protect the people she loves, even join the Court of Miracles and becoming a thief, a favourite of the Court, the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild. She breaks into houses, she steals, she forms alliances with other criminals and princes to get what she wants… and she does.

I loved the characters in the story. They are strong, engaging, and very well-crafted and I am already looking forward to see what happens next to them. The story reminded me of Six of Crows, but it is still unique, completely captivating, and with a fantastic world-building. I loved how the Court of Miracles is structured, with its various guilds, its rules, and its alliances. Thanks to the beautiful descriptions and the author’s exceptional writing style I could imagine each scene in my head and it was really really hard to put the book down. The Court of Miracles is the first terrific novel in a fantastic new series and I can’t wait to read more. And you, are you ready to join the court?

A huge thank you to HarperVoyager and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of the novel.