Esme and Sybil are poor working girls, scraping a living by stealing posters off the walls and reselling them to collectors. When they are caught trying to sell a valuable poster advertising the Absinthe Undergound (the hottest nightclub in town) by the owner of the club herself, they are presented with a proposition: The woman needs a pair of thieves to journey to the land of the faeries, break into the Queen's castle on the night of the Equinox, and steal the Queen's crown jewels. In exchange, she'll make the girls wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. That promise (and the fact that the woman's offer cannot actually be refused) sends Esme and Sybil on a series of heists and a grand adventure into a world that they never before knew was real.
While the storytelling (with its persistent habit of overly convenient late reveals) annoyed me, the story itself is exquisite. Combining Belle Epoque with fantasy creates a beautiful setting for some nail-biting suspense as the girls work through a series of problems. Their very slow developing (and largely chaste) romance comes off with perfect timing. The characters themselves are distinct in numerous ways and well-developed. I enjoyed the humor, the writing, and the originality of the novel.
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