Wintour’s Game
Wintour's Game, Book 1
Author: Brían Dungan
£8.99
In stock
Buy from Bookshop.orgBuy ebook nowAlex Wintour: orphan, teenager, oracle, thief.
Alex has only got this far in life by living off her wits. Well, that and an ability to see glimpses of the future – a useful talent when you need to stay one step ahead of the law.
Then a robbery goes wrong, and her path is set on a collision course with the enigmatic teen millionaire Colman Reece. Like Alex, Cole is a Temporal – someone who can manipulate time – and he needs Alex’s help for a heist that only she can pull off.
But with the clock ticking, the sinister Temple on their tail and the hunt for a mysterious weapon underway, Alex soon learns that even being able to see the future doesn’t always give you the winning hand…
The first in an action-packed new series, perfect for fans of ARTEMIS FOWL, ALEX RIDER and LOCKWOOD AND CO.
EJ Croll –
Thank you for this eARC!
A teenage thief and oracle is roped into a scheme to steal a mysterious weapon from a sinister sect of time-magicians.
This book was fast-paced from the first page, and didn’t stop until the last!
Alex’s character was established clearly very early on, and once Cole was introduced, their banter was perfectly judged. I liked the side characters, especially Murray, though I feel there could have been more development for some.
I did struggle at points to follow the plot, which is unusual when I read this age group. I think the slight issue was there were lots of proper nouns (Acolyte, Gates, Chronolith), and a lot of uncertainty in the plot— the characters are trying to steal something but they’re not 100% sure what it is, while avoiding someone whose identity they don’t know, whilst Alex specifically is pursued for reasons unclear to her. I still mostly bought into it, and the pace of the book propelled me through, but in general I prefer books with a little more clarity. I also understand that this was all necessary for the big reveal at the end, and it was a cool reveal—but I wanted to feel a bit less lost before we got to that point!
The action scenes were a highlight of the book for me, and there was a really cinematic feel overall. My favourite thing about Wintour’s Game was that made me very nostalgic for the books I grew up reading—Alex Rider, Artemis Fowl, etc. True Lower YA is something of a rarity nowadays and it was super refreshing to read. More like this!