I would like to thank Nazia from Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Orbit

Published – Out Now

Price – £8.99 paperback £7.49 Kindle eBook

Clara Johnson can talk to spirits - a gift that saved her during her darkest moments, now a curse that's left her indebted to the cunning spirit world.

So when a powerful spirit offers her an opportunity to gain her freedom, Clara seizes the chance. The task: steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the District.

Clara can't pull off this daring heist alone. To pull off the impossible, she'll need help from an unlikely team: from a handsome jazz musician able to hypnotize with a melody, to an aging actor who can change his face.
But as conflict in the spirit world begins to leak into the human one - an insidious mystery is unfolding, one that could cost Clara her life.

I’ve talked before about my soft spot for a good heist and con. I love the idea of a found family going a little rogue, the art of the misdirection and the fast thinking on light feet make them a joy to read and watch. In Leslye Penelope’s excellent new novel The Monsters We Defy a heist becomes an important element in a fantasy novel that delivers so much more with a mix of wonderful characters, disturbing magical beings and exploring a time and place that very few have brought to life in such an evocative way.

In 1920s Washington DC Clara Johnson juggles a role as a typist with her unpaid role of dealing with the mysterious spirits known as Enigmatics who can offer a Charm to give you what you’ve always wanted but there will a price to e paid in the form of a Trick which may prove wishes are dangerous things. Clara herself is in debt to an Enigmatic known as The Empress but a chance to escape both this and her powerful Charm and Trick presents itself. People are slowly losing their memories, sense of self and then disappearing. The Empress signals a former opera singer married to a notorious gangster owns a ring that is behind all of this and if it can be retrieved the disappearances will stop and Clara will be freed. Clara needs a team of people with various Charms who can help with this theft including a man who can be anyone but himself; her best friend who can fight and steal with wild abandon never getting caught and a jazz singer who can hypnotise with his tunes. But the Enigmatics can rarely be fully trusted so can Clara really escape their powers?

This is a delight to read and one of the most impressive boos of the year. A magical heist tale that also is based in a historical setting that in Penelope’s writing comes to life and on top of which we get an assortment of historical and magical characters that we care for and enjoy watching them try to break the law. Clara Johnson is our lead character, and she is unusual an introvert who hates the spotlight, fiercely intelligent but very prone to getting into arguments and fights when she feels she is being ignored or insulted. She is also someone who likes to help her community and yet knows her work with he spirits may help people but also condemn them to some additional unhappiness. She is sympathetic but also carries a mystery that is slowly hinted at and explained (and indeed we find in the auth’s afterword that she is based on a real historical individual). Clara is our Mastermind pulling the team together and coming up with plans to find out what is going on and how to get this powerful object, but she is also the person we care about he most and as we understand her better, and we really want her to get some well-earned rest from the magical debts she has to constantly pay back.

I won’t break down all the characters but three other key characters to enjoy are Zelda – Clara’s roommate and definitely not best friend no way. An albino black girl that was sold into the circus and learnt the art of theft, acrobatics and fighting in the process before moving into pool hustling – very much the Thief! Then with Aristotle a man who can be anyone is the master of disguise who is very essential to the story but also, we get to see the darker side of the Tricks as he can never be himself with anyone. Lastly the enigmatic Israel Lee a jazz singer who in high in demand but holds a few secrets and constantly crosses Clara’s path as they discover they have a lot on common. His growing and touching relationship with Clara is a really nice human dimension to the tale and for me felt very organic.

A heist though needs a good setting and here we get Washington DC in the roaring twenties. But Penelope opens up a world this UK reader si very unfamiliar with. Penelope sets the story within the Black communities of the city so we find only circa 60 years on from the Civil War (a period quite a few still remember and carry the scars of) a community that ranges from the poor and working class to the new elites of Bankers, lawyers and academics on top of which there are charities, nightclubs and a speakeasy or two. What jumps out the most is how alive Penelope makes this world; we don’t see a single community but instead various interacting groups and classes all building a new way of life and settling themselves into being US citizens which is still a work in progress and not as Clara’s backstory shows a safe one. It’s a story which creates depth using history and culture and many real-life figures and locations that it feels fresh - this is a new world being made by these citizens both good and bad and its just as important a character to the story and as we will see the wider plot.

What helps location and character come to life is Penelope’s writing and this story opts for third person narration, but the narrator themselves is invested and interested in the story. This is an great example of storytelling as we shift focus to get little interludes giving us an explanation of who a character is and where they come from; plus there is a wry sense of humour often as Clara gets close to losing her temper. But when Penelope wants to shift the action up a gear, we can also get moments of creepiness and horror with the use of the Enigmatic who use various folklore about the dangers of trading with magical beings. In those scenes we move from the human world into the fantastical and it feels dangerous and eerie too. Penelope really understands heists and the story is fast, intricate and the addition of magical characters and locations bring that all important life and flow to the story which make us get invested in seeing crime pay!

Like a good heist The Monsters We Defy is extremely well plotted, comprises just the right team of characters and delivers a story that is immensely satisfying as everything comes off perfectly. Penelope shows a spotlight on a time that is very much worthy of attention and also creates a magical fantasy I would love to re-visit in a future adventure sometime to see what happened next. It was a joy and a pleasure to read; and I’ll be looking to read a lot more by this author in the future. Strongly recommended!