Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst–Review

Summary: In Sky Hawkins’s family, leading your first heist is a major milestone–even more so than learning to talk, walk, or do long division. It’s a chance to gain power and acceptance within your family, and within society. But stealing your first treasure can be complicated, especially when you’re a wyvern–a human capable of turning into a dragon.

Embarking on a life of crime is never easy, and Sky discovers secrets about her mother, who recently went missing, the real reason her boyfriend broke up with her, and a valuable jewel that could restore her family’s wealth and rank in their community.

With a handpicked crew by her side, Sky knows she has everything she needs to complete her first heist, and get her boyfriend and mother back in the process. But then she uncovers a dark truth about were-dragon society–a truth more valuable and dangerous than gold or jewels could ever be.

Review: 3 stars

This book took two of my favorite things to read about, heists and a fantasy world, and put them in the same novel. I had pretty low expectations for this book, but it was actually really cool. Wyverns, or dragon shifters, were a really fun fantasy species to read about. They all steal and have a horde of treasures, so theft is part of the culture and looked upon highly if properly pulled off without getting caught.

The characters, in my opinion, were the downfall of this novel. They were rather vanilla, boring and felt run-of-the-mill. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t anything special either. I had a hard time finding this book as interesting as it should’ve been because the characters were so dull.

The plot was what kept me reading. The author said she wanted to write Ocean’s Eleven, but with dragons, and she did. The planning of the heist takes up a good portion of this novel, but the execution of it is glossed over. There is a fun fantasy twist that helped keep some of the excitement, but I think the planning of the heist should have been explained less and execution of the heist explained more. The tension and excitement are not brought for what should have been a very interesting part of the book.

It was okay overall, but a lot of things could have been done better. When I think of combining fantasy with thievery I think of Six of Crows, this came nowhere near the heights that novel reached. Fire and Heist could have been done way better, but it was still a fun fast read.