The Court of Miracles mixes famous stories to create a magical new tale

Kester Grant’s The Court of Miracles is an exciting high fantasy tale of revolution and betrayal in a dark, magical court of outcasts.

Kester Grant’s The Court of Miracles is billed as a retelling of two famous stories: Les Miserables and The Jungle Book. That’s not entirely accurate – but not entirely wrong either. Instead, the story takes elements from both tales and mixes them in a blender with a richly imagined world that’s completely original inits own right. The result is something magical, that feels both familiar and strange at the same time.

The story follows Eponine Thenardier (here known as Nina), who lives in a dark version of Paris in 1823. There, an extensive criminal underground is comprised of nine Guilds ruled over by a governing body known as the Miracle Court. These groups engage in everything from thieving to drug trafficking to murder, all regulated by a council of “Lords” from each Guild.

When Nina is just nine years old her father Thenardier sells her sister Azelma to the villainous man called the Tiger, who is Lord of the Guild of the Flesh. (Which is exactly the horrifying thing you think it is.) Fleeing for her own safety, Nina finds herself pledging her precocious skills as a cat burglar to the Thieves Guild, which offers her its protection from the same fate.

(Much as in every version of Les Miserables – Thenardier is a terrible person!)

Despite the fact that the Miracle Court forbids Guild members from interfering in the business of other groups, that doesn’t stop Nina from trying to find her lost sister or from working to keep the Tiger from similarly buying Cosette, her father’s strikingly beautiful ward, who joins the family several years later. A brewing rebellion in the streets, an obsessed detective, a break out from Paris’ most famous prison, all combine with the constant spinning plates that are Nina’s complex plots to protect her adopted younger sister. The result is a fast-paced, thrilling plot with high stakes and real loss.

These plans involve making deals with everyone from the Ghosts, a Guild comprised of lost urchin children and the extremely terrifying guy who controls them (known, charmingly as the Lord of the Dead) and the deadly Assassins Guild, to befriending a ragtag group of college students who dream of being revolutionaries, led by a handsome boy known as Enjolras St. Juste. There’s fighting, plotting, thieving, and all manner of manipulation – is it enough to save Cosette? (And the question everyone’s thinking but not saying – until the do – is whether it’s all worth it to save just one girl?)

The Court of Miracles isn’t just Les Miserables with criminal teenagers, though. 

For those of you who are looking for a strict retelling of Les Miserables, The Court of Miracles isn’t it. It certainly takes elements from Hugo’s classic story – and the worldwide hit musical it inspired – and weaves them into a completely new tale that has nothing much to do with a former prisoner named Jean Valjean. Though, yes, Valjean does appear. As does Javert, and several other key characters. There’s even a semi-recreation of one of the famous scenes involving the barricades in the musical. (And, surprise, I’m something of an Enjolras/Eponine shipper now?)

But The Court of Miracles is also very much it’s own story, and though Eponine has always been my favorite Les Mis character, that’s not why I love her here. (This Nina is very different from Hugo’s Eponine, and is perhaps maybe what I think that version of the character might have been able to grow up to become, in a different world.)

Here, Nina is brave and reckless, smart and selfish, manipulative and loyal. The fact that she lives a life of petty crime on her best day means that she’s no angel, but she doesn’t need to be. She’s a survivor, and that’s honestly better, in the end. She doesn’t flinch from making hard decisions, and she always fights to try and save those she cares about. I can’t wait to see where this character goes next, now that the Cosette plot is largely resolved at the end of this novel.

The Court of Miracles is now available everywhere. If you’ve read it, let us know your thoughts!