Goblin Market - by A J Hackwith (Paperback)

Actual rating: 4.5 stars . *I received an eARC from Berkley Publishing Group | Ace & NetGalley and a finished copy from Ace. All opinions are my own.* . Goblin Market caught me off guard in the best of ways. I thought I was in store for a standard D&D like adventure with a quest to save a changeling’s sister and save the Market our Goblin Toast calls home. And yes, the solid bones of those stories are there, but this WORLD, these characters. It has no right being so darn charming. . The plot gets moving fairly quickly which had me concerned about how much time the initial conflict was going to stretch out, but I needn’t have worried. The world unfurled at the perfect pace and so many great and fun characters joined in - this story felt like the best kind of trinket shop - just chaotic enough and packed to the gills with so many cool things to take in you can’t stop looking. . There is a bit of an attraction between Toast and Knight Chevalier Valora (sidenote: absolutely hilarious to have the formal title of this Summer Court fey princess be essentially “Knight Knight” - very stupid and very D&D, and we all know how much I love stupid), however, it is not the focus of the plot. We have a few moments, but the romance is scaled back in order to give space to other characters and portions of the plot. While I would love a whole story just about them two (a lady knight and a goblin, I mean come on, how good is that??) - I also appreciated how much space the non-romantic elements were given to breathe. It suited the story perfectly. . I will say the ending reveal was a little on the cheesy, but it’s kind of what you expect when you have a story with classical fantasy romp energy, so I was left with much more of an “Aww” feeling vs an “Ugh” though I can see other readers having that reaction. . From the world, to the characters, to the pacing, and the story breadth, Goblin Market is as close to perfect as a quest based fantasy novel will get and I’m so glad I got to experience it and this one definitely has re-read potential. Will we see more of the Goblin Market again one day? 👀 Who knows? But I would be first in line. . Hisses & Kisses 🐍