The Lies of Locke Lamora
RECOMMENDED: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is $1.99! This is a gritty fantasy with an anti-hero protagonist. I loved this book and it’s a lot of fun. I also believe it was recommended by Sarah’s husband on a previous podcast episode. It’s a lot of fun, but definitely is heavy on violence and some gross stuff.
The Thorn of Camorr is said to be an unbeatable swordsman, a master thief, a ghost that walks through walls. Half the city believes him to be a legendary champion of the poor. The other half believe him to be a foolish myth. Nobody has it quite right.
Slightly built, unlucky in love, and barely competent with a sword, Locke Lamora is, much to his annoyance, the fabled Thorn. He certainly didn’t invite the rumors that swirl around his exploits, which are actually confidence games of the most intricate sort. And while Locke does indeed steal from the rich (who else, pray tell, would be worth stealing from?), the poor never see a penny of it. All of Locke’s gains are strictly for himself and his tight-knit band of thieves, the Gentlemen Bastards.
Locke and company are con artists in an age where con artistry, as we understand it, is a new and unknown style of crime. The less attention anyone pays to them, the better! But a deadly mystery has begun to haunt the ancient city of Camorr, and a clandestine war is threatening to tear the city’s underworld, the only home the Gentlemen Bastards have ever known, to bloody shreds. Caught up in a murderous game, Locke and his friends will find both their loyalty and their ingenuity tested to the breaking point as they struggle to stay alive…
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The Den of Iniquity by Anabelle Bryant is 99c! This is book one in The Bastards of London series. Readers loved the setting and the addition of gambling, danger, and intrigue. However, be warned that this isn’t full-length in terms of page count and sits in at just under 200 pages.
Welcome to the most notorious address in London…
Beneath the airs and graces of the Ton lies The Underworld – London’s most scandalous gambling hall.
The only thing darker and more debauched that the hall itself? The proprietor, Max Sinclair. As mysterious as the corners of the city he stalks, Max has vowed to take revenge against the men who murdered his mother. And The Underworld attracts London’s darkest characters – the perfect partners in crime.
But when Lady Vivienne Beaumont enters The Underworld, Max’s life becomes more dangerous than he ever thought possible.
Enter a world of lust, lawlessness and obsession with The Den of Iniquity.
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Corralled by Lorelei James is $1.99! This is the first book in the Blacktop Cowboys series. James typically writes erotic contemporary romance and this is no exception. So be warned – there is lots of sex in her books. Some people on Goodreads warn that this is “pure smut.”
In the rodeo arena, all you have to worry about is surviving.
But in the arena of love, things get much more complicated.Lainie Capshaw has been tending to injured cowboys long enough to know that a charming Western drawl combined with a fine physical form doesn’t mean you should fall for a man. As a sports therapist, she travels the rodeo circuits patching up riders—and fending off their sweet-talking, swaggering advances.
So no one is more surprised than Lainie when she finds herself interested in not one, but two different men on different circuits: Hank Lawson, a bullfighter, and Kyle Gilchrist, a bull rider trying to stage a comeback. She’s more shocked to learn Hank and Kyle are hometown buddies. But when the men offer to share her—in every way—she knows that both of them are going to try to win her, body and soul. And even as their sensual journey becomes the ride of her life, Lainie must choose which cowboy is worthy of her heart….
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!A Passage of Stars
A Passage of Stars by Kate Elliot is $1.99 at Amazon! This is the first in a trilogy that was originally published in 1990. It’s since been republished with a new cover. According to reviews, there also seems to have some romantic elements. Have you read it? Do you think it holds up?
In the crackling first book of Kate Elliott’s Highroad trilogy, strong-spirited Lily Ransome leaves her home planet—and the life she’s always known—to rescue an abducted friend
Willful as well as physically brave, Lily Ransome is dissatisfied by the options available to her on Unruli: She can either join her family’s lucrative mining business or begin procreating. When Heredes, her beloved martial arts instructor, tutor, and father figure, is kidnapped by alien bounty hunters, Lily spurns the expectations of her home planet and ventures into space to find him. Befriending a persecuted minority class of humans called the Ridani, she becomes involved in an intergalactic rebellion and finds love in an unexpected place—as well as true strength within herself.
A Passage of Stars is the first book of the Highroad trilogy, which continues with Revolution’s Shore and The Price of Ransom.
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Lies of Locke Lamora is definitely a darker book. I DNFed after someone’s body was found in a barrel of horse pee that had been closed up and thrown over a waterfall, if that gives anyone an idea of how graphic/gross things can get.
Also, anyone else not having their browser remember their commenting info for SBTB lately? Just the past week or so.
Anne Stuart’s A ROSE AT MIDNIGHT is on sale for 99 cents.
https://www.amazon.com/Rose-at-Midnight-Anne-Stuart-ebook/dp/B00BMQU89E/
A seminal romance, finally available again. Ghislaine de Lorgny wants just one thing in this life — revenge on the man who destroyed her life. Nicholas Blackthorne wants two things — to keep Ghislaine from killing him and getting her into his bed. Kidnapping her and taking her, kicking and screaming, across half of Europe is only the beginning to their adventures. Nicholas has a black heart and a remorseless soul, Ghislaine has fierce determination and a score to settle. If only she wasn’t falling in love with her kidnapper.
If you’re in the UK, Amazon has T. Kingfisher’s Clockwork Boys for £0.99, and I am stewing in my envy.
@Katie Lynn: It’s a GDPR thing since the end of May. Lots of sites aren’t storing cookies at the moment, even if you click “yes, fine, cookie away.” It’s a real pain when you use a different name at all your internet homes and can’t remember who you *are* where you are.
The Lies of Locke Lamora is fantastic, though I did find the part Katie Lynn mentions very difficult to read. (That’s the whole thing, though; it doesn’t describe it in more detail than that.) If you like heist novels, I’d definitely recommend it.
Deffo recommend Locke Lamora, but as readers above mentioned, can get gross. Each book in the series takes on a new set of genres, so Locke Lamora: revenge/thriller story, Red Seas under Red Skies: pirates/art heist, The Republic of Thieves: romance/political thriller. The Thorn of Emberlain will be a war novel, but it was scheduled to be published years ago, so who knows. :((
tl;dr — if you’re unsure about TLoLL, don’t be afraid to try the other two books. Republic in particular is a perennial fave, and has a similar vibe to TNT’s Leverage (RIP).
I LOVE The Lies of Locke Lamora and its sequels Red Seas under Red Skies and The Republic of Thieves. Probably my second favorite fantasy series overall, and that’s even with it being (as yet) unfinished. It is pretty dark, sure, but nothing in it really bothered me and Lynch is a pretty awesome dude in general, so I trust his stuff. It’s YMMV for sure, but if you can stomach the more violent stuff the series is so worth it, for their overall quality and the wonderful characters and relationships. Romance, too; esp in the third book you get a really interesting love story that is both a takedown of youthful romanticism (by Locke) and a relationship you can (or I can) root for.
And I love Lynch’s female characters in general; they’re not immune to the horrible stuff or to dying, or in any way more superhuman than the boys, but are actual equals. And I really love that Red Seas is in part a rebuttal to the ridic part of the Pirates of the Caribbean film where we’re just supposed to accept that Elizabeth stops being a pirate b/c baby.
So, yeah, IMO they’re great books. Highly recommended…
The second book of Den of Iniquity is Into the Halls of Vice it’s also on sale for 99c (Kindle)
I enjoyed the first two Locke Lamora books, but the romance in the second puzzled me. IIRC it was like, “I imprinted on Awesome Woman the second I saw her, and all the superhot ladies who are throwing themselves at me are all ugly to me compared to her, because that is how monogamy works.”
Since the series was rec’d to me by polyamorists, I kind of wanted to take them aside and go “uhhhhh, folks, that is not how monogamy always works, fyi. Like, that has not ever been my experience. Just sayin’.”
I think it was meant to be romantic? I just felt like I was / people like me were being weirdly misconstrued by an outsider. Not maliciously, just misunderstanding. I didn’t want any more of that, so I wandered off.
snek, thank you for your thoughts on The Republic of Thieves! After loving Lies, I was surprised by how much I struggled to get through the sequel, and figured the rest series just wasn’t for me. (Not a huge deal; I tend to not be much of a series reader anyway.) Based on your rec, I’m going to give the third book a go.
I have feelings about The Lies of Locke Lamora and they are
Also I can’t do tags. *sniff*
@arielibra – no worries, friend. I fixed it for you. 🙂
I will admit that the body count in ‘Lies’ left me seriously jumpy when I approached ‘Red Seas’. Every time they introduced a new lovely character I’d be muttering to myself – ‘Not the kid, don’t kill the kid… and not the mom either, I LIKE her!’ – and then at one point, a basket of kittens shows up and I was chanting ‘DEAR GOD, NOT THE KITTENS!’ as I read.
I was also a DNF on Lies – I’m primarily a romance reader (just shy of RoGTFO) and I thought it was going to be Tricks! Fun! Heist! Hijinks! Camaraderie! Then everyone started dying. I did some internet plot peeping and decided the series was way too dark for my precious entertainment hours.
Talk about varied mileage – I liked TLoLL although it was a little frothy for me. I was excited for the sequels but found them boring. Ultimately I recall the whole series as a little too PG13 somehow. The darkness and violence were kinda Broadway musical to me, all telegraphed and showy, but the characters were so real I didn’t mind that their shenanigans weren’t.
@Katie Lynn – yes I’ve also noticed that my browser is no longer remembering my name and email in the comments fields. At least on my phone (Safari on an iPhone SE).
First time round, the Highroad Trilogy was published under the author name of Alis Rasmussen – mentioned because I just went through the very confusing process of thinking for sure I’d read a really similar trilogy, but it wasn’t by Kate Elliott. (I also remember it being a fun read)