388 pages
Published 2018
Read from January 21 to January 31
Rating: 3 out of 5
I had expected this to be a grand novel of fantasy intrigue, of masked balls and subterfuge and magical secrets, perhaps like a gayer Parisian update of Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint. While there are elements of that at times, I was surprised to find that The Gilded Wolves is primarily a book about too-cool-for-school teen thieves pulling off magical heists with the aid of arcane gadgets and doodads. There's the aloof orphaned leader who runs a hotel with his family's wealth while he plots to steal back the magic inheritance that was taken from him. There's the elite superspy who can read the history of objects with her touch, and leads a double life as a burlesque performer for high society. There's the suave young head of a rival magical house who cons and flirts his way into the group in part because he wants to experience true friendship. And whatever each heist might throw our way, you can depend upon our autistic-coded young engineer to have created exactly the right enchanted contraption for any emergency.
At times it can read like a Belle Époque Spy Kids. There’s even a scene where our heroes have to tiptoe through a room filled with red lasers. For maybe the first two-thirds of the book, there's no sense of stakes or peril; someone will inevitably have the correct gadget to get themselves out of any fix, so it felt like a disconnected series of teen Mission Impossible vignettes for far too many pages. And worst of all, somehow it felt less gay than Swordspoint.
The novel's characters, thankfully, were much better than its pacing. Chokshi's characterizations might stray toward popcorn cinema, but her cast of outcasts were precious vulnerable angels that, before too long, I would happily defend with my life. Zofia the engineer was my favorite. Really, the only one that didn't click for me was aloof leader Séverin; his whole schtick of "my tortured past means anyone I get close to will be harmed" got old real fast, and at the end (mild spoilers?), it feels like he hasn't grown beyond it one bit.