A Hazardous Engagement is a novella by Gaie Sebold.
Finished on: 30.8.2019
[I won this book in a librarything Early Reviewer give-away.]

Plot:
Madis is a thief and she knows that she is a good one. As does her brother, who still didn’t want her to join his gang, though. Now he presents her with a challenge: if she can manage to steal a magical belt of a bride on her wedding night, he will share the profits with her and finally accept her into the gang. Madis takes him up on the challenge and puts together her team.

A Hazardous Engagement is a fun all-female heist story. Entertaining and light, I really wouldn’t have minded if it had been more than just a novella.

If there is one thing I’m not entirely sure about, it’s that the second chapter is set before the first chapter (narratively-chronologically speaking – of course, you read the first chapter before the second). I think I would have liked a straight chronological telling in this case better. But that is a minor thing – other than that, I absolutely loved A Hazardous Engagement.

Not only features it a completely female heist team, which is in itself already great, but the characters are also really good and I liked them a lot. And even if that hadn’t been the case, I’m a sucker for a good heist – and this one is definitely a good one. It does stick to all genre conventions, but still make the story feel fresh and it just works.

I really wish that it hadn’t “just” been a novella – I will definitely look at what else Sebold has written – I see some entertaining reads in my future.

Summarizing: pure entertainment.