Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, 1)

With The Gilded Wolves, Roshani Chokshi has constructed a unique fantasy heist novel that also functions as a commentary on cultural theft under the guise of historical preservation. Séverin Montagnet-Alarie thought he knew his place in the world, as heir to House Vanth. But when the other heads of the Houses of France turned him away, denying him his rightful place as the next patriarch of House Vanth, Séverin made it his mission to steal back what had been taken from him. With a team of smart and unusually gifted individuals, Séverin has caused a myriad of trouble for the Order of Babel, the organization in charge of the Houses of France, stealing back artifacts belonging to his own House and returning stolen cultural artifacts to their countries and peoples of origin. When Hypnos, patriarch of House Nyx offers Séverin a second chance at claiming his inheritance in exchange for stealing a mysterious artifact from another House, Séverin’s blind ambition lands him and his crew in the middle of a conspiracy that will test each character’s resolve and pit them against a dangerous organization.The Gilded Wolves has one of the best casts of characters I’ve come across. I love how each character has their own personality, set of skills, and way of perceiving in the world. Chokshi excels at creating characters whose cultural and sexual identities are incredibly important to them. Identity is the driving force behind all of their motivations and heavily influences how they see themselves. Séverin is obsessed with reclaiming his birthright and isn’t afraid to take dangerous risks in order to do so. Though a natural leader, he isn’t always honest with himself and holds the faulty belief that if he can just become patriarch, he’ll have everything he’s always wanted. Tristan is Séverin’s closest companion, having grown up in a number of foster homes alongside him. Tristan is more interested in his pet tarantula than his adopted brother’s schemes, but they are both fiercely protective of one another. Laila is in her element when she is either in the kitchen baking or taking care of others. Masquerading as a courtesan becomes incredibly resourceful as she is able to gain access to places that would otherwise be closed off to Séverin and his crew. Laila’s past is the most mysterious. Save for Séverin, no one knows of her ability to read memories tied to objects. This gift, or perhaps more aptly a curse, is tied to her origins that even she doesn’t quite understand.One of my favorite things about this group of characters is the witty dialogue and no one exemplifies this more than the young historian Enrique. From the get-go, he had me in stitches. His humor is always a breath of fresh air and I really like that Chokshi’s doesn’t sacrifice the rest of his character for the sake of comedic relief. Enrique not only has a passion for history, but for his country’s freedom. The Philippines has been under Spain’s thumb for the last 300 years and Enrique wants to be part of helping his country gain independence. Zofia is more adequate when it comes to making bombs than making friends. Some of the most rewarding scenes in this one involve Zofia and Laila. The latter shows incredible patience, slowly helping Zofia come out her shell. The final character is the enigmatic Hypnos, the young patriarch of House Nyx, who was once childhood pals with Séverin. Hypnos is both arrogant and charming. Though regarded as more of an enemy at first, Hynpos feels draw to Séverin and his friends, to their camaraderie, for there’s no denying that Hypnos’s easy smiles actually hide a loneliness underneath.If you like fantasies rooted in history, Chokshi’s latest novel is the one for you. Chokshi pays close attention to detail, bringing not only her characters, but this world to life. It took a little bit of time for me as a reader to be comfortable moving through this intricate world, but once I did, it was one I wasn’t quite ready to let go of with the closing pages. Forging was an aspect that I really wanted to explore more of. There are individuals in this world able to manipulate matter and the mind, the latter of which is highly regulated as it includes the ability to control minds and create illusions. The former takes on many forms, including the ability to manipulate metal and stone into different forms, even lifelike creatures.If you like tragic heroes, found families and impossible heists, Roshani Chokshi’s The Gilded Wolves is one you don’t want to miss. I’ll be spending the next year eagerly anticipating the sequel and reeling from this one’s gut-punch of an ending.

I’d been meaning to read Roshani Chokshi’s work for quite some time, and when I heard about The Gilded Wolves, I immediately knew I wanted it to be my introduction to her stories. I’m a big fan of historical fantasy, especially stories set in real places but crafted very differently from what those places actually were in that setting, and I’m a sucker for a good heist story with lovable characters, both of which were facets Gilded promised to deliver.“I don’t want to be their equals. I don’t want them to look us in the eye. I want them to look away, to blink harshly, like they’ve stared at the sun itself. I don’t want them standing across from us. I want them kneeling.”Luckily, Roshani is just as delightful of a storyteller as I anticipated she would be, because I was captivated from the beginning and found myself head-over-heels in love with this series by the end. The writing is so much fun, full of hilarious, laugh-out-loud banter and sweet, tender moments (I swear I highlighted half the book), and the heists and puzzles craft an air of endless suspense and intrigue.Even better, the characters in this story are some of the best I’ve ever met. They are all incredibly complex and real, and you’d be hard pressed to dislike any of them because they all have such lovable quirks and bits of their personalities. I never get tired of a good “squad” and this little gang of misfits has to be one of my new favorites! Oh, and there is a romance in this book that has some of the best romantic tension I have EVER read in YA (without ever being even remotely explicit).In fact, can we just stop right here and talk about these characters? Because, honestly, I tried writing this review without taking some time to gush over each of them individually, and I just couldn’t do it.→ Séverin 💀 half-Algerian, clever, criminal mastermind, total grump-butt in the best way→ Laila 🍰 Indian, #squadmom, baker extraordinaire, sweetest and most loving little ball of sunshine ever, has a beautiful story arc regarding the importance of dance in her culture/homeland→ Zofia 🔬 Jewish, Polish, autistic (and so well-done, written with such obvious care and research), scientist/genius, wickedly funny, probably my actual favorite??→ Enrique 📜 Filipino/Spanish, queer, adorable, pouty, historian, has endless internal monologues about feeling erased, suffering racism/microaggressions, etc., made me cry a million times→ Tristan 🕸 precious soft little bean, has a pet tarantula he never shuts up about, needs to be protected and cared for at all costs→ Hypnos 💎 black, queer, doesn’t always have the best motives but is generally the actual softest, killer taste in fashionI have only one complaint about this book, and honestly, I loved the story overall so much that it pains me to even include this: I struggled with the world-building for quite a while. You’re kind of dropped right into the action from the get-go, and you’re forced to catch up on the run, which I normally love, but this world is just so intricate and has such a large-feeling magic system that I feel I would’ve benefited a bit from being given more of a primer before launching into the main plot.I actually have heard a few friends say it feels like this book needs a prequel novella in order for the world-building to fully function, and while I don’t agree that it’s entirely necessary, I do think it would be an AMAZING addition if Roshani ever chose to follow that route later on.Minor complaints aside, though, The Gilded Wolves still feels like an easy 5-star read for me because I adored the characters so much and had such a tremendous amount of fun with the adventure and obstacles that really come into play in the second half. I cherish these characters so much, and in the two weeks it’s now been since I finished reading, this story has only grown more and more dear in my heart. I am beyond excited for the sequel and can’t wait to see what Roshani will do to indubitably wreck my life as the saga continues.Ultimately, I’d recommend this to any fans of historical fantasy, “squad” groups, and lovable, diverse characters, as well as readers who don’t require a tremendous amount of back-story or a slow pacing in fantasy. I also wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who enjoys fun, flirty or otherwise humorous banter in their books.

Oh, I so wanted to love this book.First thing’s first, I’m in the minority here. So many people loved this book, and for the most part I think this might just be a case of me not quite gelling with Chokshi’s writing style, but I had a few issues with this book that I’m going to unpack here.I don’t think Chokshi is a bad writer, but I found it really hard to clearly picture pretty much anything in this book. I didn’t think the magic system – known as Forging – was explained all that well; I’ve just read an entire book where it was used a lot, and yet I couldn’t tell you what its rules are. It seemed to have a (literal) magical solution to all of this story’s problems, which meant this was a heist novel in which I was never worried that this group of characters wouldn’t succeed, and because I wasn’t worried I didn’t care if they succeeded or not.In fact Forging didn’t really seem to fit in with this setting. The Gilded Wolves takes place in an alternate late 19th century Paris, but this is still an alternate France that has seen the French Revolution, the reign of Napoleon and the growth of the French Empire, and yet I never quite got a sense of all that history. There were a few French words here or there, but the dialogue and even Forging itself felt so modern that I couldn’t help wondering why 19th century Paris needed to be the setting at all. At no point did I feel like I was in Paris.I wish that Chokshi had either written a straight up historical fiction heist or that she’d set it in a fantasy world of her own, because the times when she did explore the characters’ personal histories were really interesting. Having said that, the writing style also meant that I sometimes forgot whose point of view I was reading from even when the characters’ names were mentioned at the start of each chapter. Laila and Zofia, in particular, I was always mixing up and I shouldn’t have been – they’re very different!This is a set of characters that I was hoping to fall in love with, and I didn’t. I did like them; Zofia, in particular, I liked a lot. She’s a Jewish girl on the autism spectrum and I did really like how Chokshi explored her autism (though I’d like to read some reviews by own voices reviewers to see what they thought!) and how she finds logic so much easier to understand than people and their small talk. Enrique I ended up liking a lot, too; as someone who is mixed race, he’s not Spanish enough for the Spaniards but he’s not Filipino enough for his fellow countrymen either. Their stories are what made me yearn for more history than fantasy in this story.I really liked how this is a very diverse group of characters, and I loved how Chokshi explored how the French Empire stocked its museums with stolen objects from other cultures and turned those cultures into titillation for white, wealthy Parisians. Unfortunately, I felt a little beaten over the head with that message. It’s such an important message, I just wanted a little more nuance.I think there was an attempt at this with Séverin, who is the main character of this group and is mixed race himself with a white, wealthy father and Algerian mother. He was discouraged from acknowledging his mother, particularly in public, and that was heart-breaking when we learn how much he adored her.But I still thought Séverin was kind of a dick.It could very well be that that’s the point of Séverin as a character – I don’t want my characters to be perfect people by any means – but I couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable about how he treated the others, who we’re led to believe are his friends before they’re his employees, considering he’s the most privileged of all of them in terms of his finances and his place in society. He is mixed race and it’s that part of him that’s led to him missing out on the true inheritance he’s seeking to regain throughout this novel, but he’s hardly struggling. He still has his late father’s money and he runs a very, very successful hotel in the centre of Paris.In other words, I never quite got why he was so desperate to reclaim his true inheritance other than that he’s a rich boy who doesn’t like to be told ‘no’. I know there’ll be people who loved this book hissing at that summation, but he’s a character I never warmed to because I could never quite place him. He was friends with these people and he’s the leader of this gang, but he could never quite decide whether he was a friend or a leader first, which ultimately meant he was weak in both roles.I also found his relationship with Laila boring. I loved that this is a YA novel that acknowledges that teenagers (how old are these characters? No idea – I don’t think it’s ever mentioned) can and will have sex, and that these are a pair with a sexual history was compelling, but theirs wasn’t the kind of angst that made me root for them. I just wanted them to stop namby-pambying about and admit that they liked one another.In fact a lot of this novel read as rather juvenile and silly to me. It almost read like an MG novel rather than YA – not that MG is juvenile and silly – and this would have been fine if I didn’t go into it expecting a YA heist novel. Whatever this novel was, it didn’t feel like that. The villain was disappointing and the ending was rushed despite the book as a whole dragging for me. I almost considered DNFing it but I forced my way through it, constantly hoping it would improve because I wanted it to be the diverse, historical heist novel I’d hoped for.Ultimately, this book just wasn’t for me and I’m very sad about it. I loved Chokshi’s idea, but it was never fully realised for me here and I found the magic system took up too much of this story without enough information for me to fully understand it or care. I am very much in the minority here, though, so if you think you’ll enjoy this novel give it a try – I hope you enjoy it as much as I’d hoped to!

I genuinely don't understand some of the harsh reviews about this book. It was a very fun, fast-paced romp with an engaging cast of characters - and everything I ever wanted in a historical fantasy fiction that also addresses colonialism and has actual POC and mixed race characters front and center of the story. True, I wasn't always so clear on how forging worked, but I didn't feel like that detracted. Personally, I loved all the references to historical symbolism and numbers. Those were some of my favourite parts.I also found the chemistry between Laila and Severin off the charts - but I have a weakness for broody protagonists who haven't fully understood what they're feeling yet and need to learn the hard way.I read this in like, two sittings and can't wait for the sequel. Would definitely recommend.

Quando vi falarem que este livro é uma mistura de Six of Crows com Código Da Vinci na Belle Époque, tive que comprar! Sempre procurei um livro parecido com Six of Crows, adorei O Código Da Vinci e amo ficção histórica, principalmente as que se passam no século dezenove! Personagens diversificados, magia, aventura e Paris no ano da exposição que trouxe a Torre Eiffel para nossas vidas (amo a torre, admito!), não tinha como ficar melhor! Ainda tenho algumas críticas para fazer, mas já posso respirar aliviada, porque The Gilded Wolves é realmente ótimo e aguenta fácil o peso da expectativa que eu coloquei em cima dele!Infelizmente, essa comparação com Six of Crows, na verdade, foi algo que dificultou um pouco a leitura dele para mim! Os personagens têm algumas características que me lembraram demais dos de Six of Crows, como a Laila trabalhar em um cabaret e sua fantasia ser de pavão (me lembrou da Inej) e o Séverin ter uma posição no grupo que é tão parecida com a do Kaz no outro livro. Isso me atrapalhou, porque eu não conseguia separar a personalidade deles. A Laila é bem incrível, mas ficou difícil no começo eu ver isso, porque só conseguia me lembrar da Inej quando ela aparecia. E o Séverin é bastante diferente do Kaz, então compará-lo não poderia levar a nada bom.Chegou a um ponto em que eu percebia que estava imaginando-os como os personagens de Six of Crows e me forçava a parar e tentar esquecê-los. Não foi fácil, mas talvez seja só porque sou extremamente apegada a eles. Se você não leu Six of Crows (meu deus, o que você está esperando? Faça um favor a si mesmo e comece o quanto antes!) ou se simplesmente não é seu livro favorito, vai conseguir desfrutar dos personagens aqui bem mais!No final das contas, meus grandes favoritos foram Enrique - o historiador filipino espanhol e bi, que é super sarcástico e amado! - e a Zofia - a engenheira polonesa judia e autista que eu queria guardar em um potinho! Melhor ainda, só a interação entre eles! O Tristan foi bacana também, apesar de não ter me conectado tanto a ele (talvez por ser um dos que não tinha ponto de vista na narrativa). Até cheguei a achar que ia compará-lo ao Wylan, mas eles são bem diferentes para isso. Adoro o jeito inocente dele, como tem afinidade com as plantas, mas principalmente seu amor pelo Goliath, sua tarantula de estimação! E o Hypnos - o "socialite" rico, negro, francês e haitiano e gay (ao que tudo indica) - é tão legal! Mesmo nas horas em que era para eu odiá-lo, não conseguia! Espero que no próximo livro ele esteja cada vez mais presente!O enredo do livro todo é muito legal! Está sempre movimentado, mas não a ponto de ser só ação e você mal conseguir respirar. Adorei as partes em que me senti em um jogo de Tomb Raider e queria mais dessas! Mas até os problemas comuns das missões deles foram super interessantes! Além disso, a ambientação em Paris ficou bacana! Senti que às vezes poderia ter sido mais intensa, que me colocasse mais naquela época, mas acho que o que impediu isso foi o sistema de magia.Aliás, a autora em nenhum momento chama de magia. É como os poderes Grisha, na verdade, (da duologia Six of Crows e outros livros) uma habilidade com afinidade para certas coisas, mas que precisa de um trabalho em cima daquilo, que não sai literalmente como mágica. Eu achei a ideia interessante, mas tive dois problemas com ela. Primeiro, a autora explicou demais e mesmo assim ficou confuso. No começo, tem explicações claras, praticamente infodumps, mas que não teriam me incomodado tanto se tivesse ao menos ficado bem claro como tudo funciona. Acho que teria sido melhor também se não fosse por outra coisa, que é o segundo problema que tive: não dá para entender quanto o resto do mundo sabe sobre essa habilidade. Em um primeiro instante, fiquei com a impressão de ser algo secreto, mas depois vi tantas e tantas coisas que tinham sido feitas por essa magia, que não tinha muito jeito de ser secreto. Mas, se for algo aberto para todo mundo, que todo mundo sabe que existe, fica difícil acreditar que a tecnologia da época continuaria no mesmo nível que esteve no nosso mundo real, entende? Aqui, o máximo que essa tecnologia/magia parece mudar é em detalhes decorativos ou recreativos, em vez de coisas mais práticas. Por exemplo, com engenheiros que têm essa habilidade mágica (como a Zofia), não faz sentido eles ainda usarem cavalos em carruagens na cidade, pelo menos, não a alta sociedade.Essa não foi a única coisa que ficou incerta aqui. Nesse livro, existe uma Ordem de Babel, à qual fazem partes Casas (famílias) diferentes em países diferentes. Confesso que toda essa separação e o propósito desse sistema fez pouco sentido para mim também. Tenho certeza de que vou reler o livro, só para poder entender melhor! Essa Ordem foi outra coisa que deu a entender ser secreta, mas faziam bailes enormes e cheios de convidados para ela. A autora menciona demais a matriarca de tal Casa, mas se esqueceu de deixar bem claro que, apesar de não serem os chefes das Casas, todos os membros das famílias também fazem parte da Ordem. Se pelo menos algum tivesse sido nomeado, nem que fosse com "o filho da tal", juro que teria ficado mais claro. Só posso deduzir mesmo que é assim que funciona!Além disso, e juro que vai ser minha última ressalva, o mistério que eles desvendam, o simbolismo e as charadas, é um pouco confuso também. Quer dizer, as explicações são claras, mas as teorias e tudo mais vêm de tantas culturas diferentes, que ficou um pouco complicado de sentir mais firmeza nas respostas. Eu tenho cadernos de resumos dos livros que leio (porque leio mais livros do que minha memória aguenta!) e super precisei escrever o resumo desse para me ajudar a entender! Mas não chegou a ser algo que atrapalhasse mesmo a história, confesso! E gostei de ver que as culturas não são ocidentais!Para quem está esperando romance nesse livro, preciso avisar que ele é só um detalhe! Dá para ter vários ships - eu tenho dois, confesso, - mas a autora claramente não queria correr com o romance, já que será uma trilogia e esse nem poderia ser o foco da história! Estou, afinal, bem satisfeita com isso!Por último, só queria ressaltar o questionamento dos personagens sobre preconceito, já que, na Exposição Universal de 1889, eles tinham uma "Vila de Negros" a qual visitavam como se fosse um zoológico. A raiva que me dá só de escrever essa frase é absurda! Imagina pensar que realmente aconteceu! Mas não é só em relação a essa visão completamente doentia dos europeus daquela época, como também sobre antissemitismo e a diferença que a cor da pele faz, mesmo entre pessoas da mesma raça. Mal posso esperar pelo próximo livro, que os levará à Rússia na época em que já estavam perseguindo judeus por lá, porque sei que posso confiar na autora para questionar e abordar esse preconceito sem medo!Pois é. Tive bastante coisa para falar! A verdade é que esse não é um livro fácil, mas foi muito bem feito e tem uma ideia excepcional! Mais do que isso, até, os personagens são excelentes e a história é muito apaixonante! Eu lia cinquenta páginas ou mais sem nunca parar para ver em que página estava (sim, eu tenho a mania de acompanhar o número da página, então isso é raro para mim!). Recomendo absolutamente!

One of my new favourite books! I literally could not put it down! I’d give it more than five stars if I could.

3.5 starsI'm having a hard time getting my ducks in a row when it comes to my feelings about this book. I want to say I had a good time reading it, because I did, but there is something unconcrete nagging at the back of my mind when I write that down.I think one of the biggest reservations I have about the book was some things about the ending. Overall The Gilded Wolves made a ton of decisions that I did not see coming, which I mostly enjoy, but some of these decisions lead to actions I simply did not like. Other decisions, however, were delightful, and I especially enjoyed everything about Hypnos.I generally liked the characters. I won't go in detail about them - other reviews do that much better than I could and also list their various marginalisations - but I want to say I adored what a diverse bunch they made! I wish all of them had gotten POV chapters - one of them doesn't, but he was also the most passive of them all and... yeah.The one thing I wasn't a big fan of was the romantic subplots. I liked them in theory, and the execution wasn't bad at all, it was more of a decisions-I-simply-didn't-like thing. One of the couples just felt predictable, while the other would have been great if not for how some of the surrounding stuff was handled (view spoiler).The characters also had great banter, making me laugh even if it didn't always feel natural. The crew is already well-established from the very beginning, which made it a bit hard to get a good read on their relationships and their personalities beyond what's on the surface, but I still ended up liking them well enough.The plot was very exciting, with a lot of... I hesitate to call them twists, but a LOT of stuff happened, and it wasn't straightfoward at all, even if a lot of things happened very quickly. I wouldn't say there were plotholes, but a lot of the small details of the "aquistitions", as they are called, were glossed over and just too convenient. Several questions I had about smaller things on the side and side sentences were not answered - there will be a sequel, of course, but due to some events at the end I wonder if I'll ever get answers.This ties in a bit with the magical worldbuilding. Forging was cool, no doubt, but it felt more like a tool to make the (mis-)adventures of the protagonists more exciting/dangerous than anything else, a means to an end rather than a well-integrated part of the world. The rules weren't mentioned much aside from if it was relevant/a convenient loophole for the crew, and frequently new items were found, or the characters created them in an off-hand sentence, when they were needed, without much mention of the hows.This didn't bother me much, but it was noticable.A very cool touch was the frequent illustrations of the riddles and puzzles the crew (well, mostly Enrique and Zofia) solves! They weren't the best thought out riddles I've ever read, but they were entertaining, I could follow the lines of reasoning for the most part, and the sheer amount of them impressed me.A lot of people mention The Gilded Wolves's similarity to Six of Crows and... yeah, I can see why. There really are a lot of parallels. For me the feeling of the two books was entirely different, however, providing very different reading experiences.Content warnings include: racism, ableism, violence, character death; mentions of violent antisemitism, homophobia, lots of talk about colonialisation, torture, child abuse.