【 MEDICI HEIST 】

Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Adult
Author: Caitlin Schneiderhan
Published: August 2024
Publisher: Atom
Pages: 432 (paperback)

This was a lot of fun! Apart from having a stunning cover, I was totally drawn in by the fact that it’s set in 16th-century Florence and following a cast of characters who are attempting to pull off an epic heist. Historical fiction + impossible heist? Yes please!

This was like if Six of Crows teamed up with something Philippa Gregory or Elodie Harper would write. It was epic! I loved the setting and the oppulence of Florence, particularly as the characters are trying to embed themselves in the Medicis’ world, which is as rich as rich could get.

And I loved all the POVs. There are a lot in this book, there’s no denying that. But you can’t have a heist novel without a full suite of characters. Each one had a different role to play, and none of them felt like boring chapters. Unlike some other books, I never found myself sad that a particular character’s POV had come around again because it was slower or less interesting; they were all fun, pacy and exciting, so it just rolled from one thing to another.

I thought that the heist plot itself was also intriguing. Rosa is our main protagonist, and she’s also the brains behind the operation. It was good fun trying to work out what she could possibly have planned to pull off the heist, but you as the reader are mostly kept in the dark about the intricacies of the plan – so that it all comes out as a big reveal to you, too.

The relationships, both platonic and romantic, between various pairings of the characters were fantastic, as well. I won’t go into details, so as to avoid spoilers, but I did enjoy the breadth of types of relationships that were covered in the story. There was a little something for everyone.

One of the things that really keeps you on your toes is all the little secrets each character is hiding that come out and bite them on the bum at the worst times. Of course, this sort of thing comes naturally to this sort of book, but it raises the stakes so much higher and makes everything all the more intriguing. This book is clever without ever feeling like it was over-labouring the point to achieve that.

I’m looking forward to whatever Schneiderhan writes next, because this was rich storytelling that was highly immersive and hard to put down, and that’s not always easy to do over a 400+ page book.

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Title: Medici Heist
Author: Caitlin Schneiderhan
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Welcome to Florence, 1517, a world of intrigue, opulence, secrets, and murder. The Medici family rules the city from their seat of wealth, but the people of Florence remember the few decades they spent as a Republic, free from the Medicis and their puppet Pope, Leo X.

Sharp-witted seventeen-year-old con-woman Rosa Cellini has plans for the Pope and the Medicis – and, more specifically, the mountain of indulgence money they’ve been extorting from the people of Tuscany. To pull off the Renaissance’s greatest robbery, she’ll recruit a team of capable Sarra the tinkerer, Khalid the fighter, and Giacomo, the irrepressible master of disguise. To top it all off, and to smooth their entrance into the fortress-like Palazzo Medici, Rosa even enlists the reluctant help of famed artist and local misanthrope, Michelangelo.

Old secrets resurface and tensions in the gang flare as the authorities draw closer and the Medicis’ noose pulls tighter around Tuscany itself. What began as a robbery becomes a bid to save Florence from certain destruction – if Rosa and company don’t destroy each other first.

Get ready for an absolute swashbuckling riot, beginning with a ‘mud’ pie to the Pope’s face, and ending with a climatic heist that would give Danny Ocean a run for his money. Bursting with snark, innuendo and action, Medici Heist is your next un-put-downable obsession.