Uptown Oracle Reads… Into The Crooked Place

Into the Crooked Place
Alexandra Christo

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The streets of Creije are for the deadly and the dreamers, and four crooks in particular know just how much magic they need up their sleeve to survive.

Tavia, a busker ready to pack up her dark-magic wares and turn her back on Creije for good. She’ll do anything to put her crimes behind her.

Wesley, the closest thing Creije has to a gangster. After growing up on streets hungry enough to swallow the weak whole, he won’t stop until he has brought the entire realm to kneel before him.

Karam, a warrior who spends her days watching over the city’s worst criminals and her nights in the fighting rings, making a deadly name for herself.

And Saxony, a resistance fighter hiding from the very people who destroyed her family, and willing to do whatever it takes to get her revenge.

Everything in their lives is going to plan, until Tavia makes a crucial mistake: she delivers a vial of dark magic—a weapon she didn’t know she had—to someone she cares about, sparking the greatest conflict in decades. Now these four magical outsiders must come together to save their home and the world, before it’s too late. But with enemies at all sides, they can trust nobody. Least of all each other.

Creje is a gritty and bleak place where children must become dark and morally grey in order to survive. Into the Crooked Place follows our resident child gangsters as they uncover a mystery and have to plan a heist. Honestly it’s a premise that I normally wouldn’t go for except I got told there’s a bit of magic involved and I was hooked.

We follow a ragtag bunch of misfits in different POV chapters, allowing you to read into different backstories and motivations throughout the story. We start with Tavia who sells magical wares and has a way with street magic that no one else does. Wesley who is far too deep into this fantasy Mafia to truly be safe without it. Karam a strong boydguard with something to prove. And Saxony a warrior hellbent on revenge whilst rebelling.

Similar to To Kill a Kingdom, Christo perfectly writes flaws into her characters without making them too unlikable (although at some points you do get very angry with people’s actions!). Each character has their own unique voice – which I love when it comes to multiple POVs. But their differences make it overly complicated for them to work together (at first of course – you know how this story goes don’t you?).

Whilst it’s funny that it’s almost predictable for that point, I did find that here were a lot of twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting too. As we watch them learn to work together in order to get to the bottom of the magic-linked mob boss, we see them all develop too. The storyline takes you on a journey which captured my attention almost immediately so I couldn’t put it down.

The magic system is super confusing – however it’s completely to do with the story being told so I kinda got on board with it. Other than that – the strange magician slight of hand style of magic was pretty different to usual fantasy books.

Overall I loved Into the Crooked Place. It’s a wonderful fantasy heist that I found to have multiple qualities that were unique compared to other books I’ve been reading recently.

Positives of Into The Crooked Place

• Characters personalities and motivations
• World building

Negatives of Into The Crooked Place

• Some slower pacing

I received Into the Crooked Place by Alexandra Christo from the publisher. This is an unbiased and honest review