Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target in revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught.
Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus’s rules.
As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the gilded cage that has trapped both their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father’s thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he’s dreamed of, or the boy he’s come to love. Reaching for both could be his greatest triumph—or it could be his downfall.
Trigger warning : child abuse and neglect. There is nothing explicit, but the character shows signs of being beaten at some point.
Review:
Dear K. Ancrum,
Your book came up as an Amazon recommendations and I thought it sounded good, a reimagining of the Greek myths is always something I would want to at least check out and then I remembered that I have read and enjoyed one of your books already and I one clicked without reading a sample. I loved the book, the only small thing I want to suggest to the readers is, when you look at the Amazon blurb, to ignore the blurbs from the reviews if for no other reason than one of the review claims that this is a YA fantasy. This is *definitely* YA and I guess has the elements of suspense and beginning of a romance between two young people. But what does this book has to do with *fantasy*? I have no idea.
Oh, it is meant to have some call backs in the narrative to the Greek mythos for sure, but it is a contemporary story and at some point the main character even jokes that he is not named for the famous character from the myth, he is named for something completely different (no, I am not telling you that).
The most interesting part to me when I was thinking about the connection with the myth though, was the last chapter of the story when the author retells the part of the myth which I always considered the most impactful. The emphasis was changed completely! I am not saying this in order to criticize, quite the contrary, I feel that she molded the famous story to fit her message as I see it and I find it more interesting than if I would have read the simple retelling of it.
But maybe enough about the mythological basis. As the blurb tells you, our story is about a father and son and basically Angus brought up his son (who is actually a very talented artist himself) to be a thief, a cat burglar and to only steal art with the sole person they steal from being one collector, Mr. Black. This is basically a revenge for the role Mr. Black had in Icarus’ mother death.
And you see the problem right? Icarus’ dad does not at least abuse him physically, but it is not hard to see from the blurb alone how much psychological abuse is inflicted on him from an early age. Because a child wanting to please his father and do whatever he says at first, does not mean that child would enjoy having his childhood basically stolen from him to satisfy Angus’ desire for revenge. God forbid no close friends, only acquittances, do not go to their houses etc., and work has to come before anything else.
We meet Icarus when he is almost eighteen, and he has had enough of the life of a thief already and he is making plans to leave as soon as he is able to. Differently from some YA novels Icarus is actually quite popular at school even if he is trying to keep the people he likes (and who may like him, too) at arms length. One of the most enjoyable parts of this story for me was how the people who liked him and wanted to be close friends kind of broke his barriers and offered real help to him while he was trying to help Helios whose situation was much worse than his. This was a tender, gentle book when we saw kids interacting with each other, I liked that.
I do highly recommend checking the sample though before buying: the prose was lovely to me, but it was very bare I guess? Without any extras whatsoever. The chapters were very short and some title chapters made no sense to me but the book still worked for me.
“Helios clamped his hands firmly beneath Icarus’s arms, spanning the width of his ribs, so tight that it hurt. But Icarus was frozen, staring at himself in the collage of mirrors. Head thrown back, arms bent and solid, but placed in exactly this way. Arched in exactly this way, he looked fragile and graceful and vulnerable in Helios’s grasp. He looked, for the first time in his life: pretty. Icarus stared back at himself desperately trying to sear this image into his mind. Helios’s chin was pressed to the cut of Icarus’s stomach, using Icarus’s own musculature for balance. Helios took the momentum of the lift and turned it into a spin so he could let Icarus down gently.”
Oh and the ending was super satisfying for me.
Grade: B+
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Sirius
Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.
