A Touch of Class by Jon Dixon

Welcome to the city of Draffe, where the rich get richer, the poor stay poor, and the money only ever flows one way. Master Alvius Fruckle, Second Assistant Treasurer of Pellenac's Exchequer, the second most prestigious bank in Draffe, would like you to know that he has had a very good quarter. He would like you to know it at some length. He would especially like you to know that the money was, in his own delighted phrase, entirely free…. Except, of course, to the small investors who lost everything. Fruckle, though, is on the way up and nothing can possibly go wrong! But Fruckle’s about to meet Meriva Secaret. Three years ago, she was the best thief in Draffe. Before she lost everything. Now she’s 23 years old, raising eight orphaned children in an abandoned warehouse on watery starchroot stew and stubbornness, and the money is running out. So when Fruckle comes to her attention she does what any self-respecting ex-master thief with no arms, no legs, and only one eye would do. She takes a pen between her teeth, and writes a list. Meriva might not be able to climb a rope or jemmy a window any more. But what she can still do is read a person the way she once read a lock, and Fruckle is a very simple mechanism indeed. And she has eight pairs of small, clever hands to help her pull off the perfect heist. There’s only one thing standing between her little family and the contents of Pellenac’s vaults. A touch of class.

New Adult • Fantasy/Cozy, Low, Mundane, and Slice of Life • Diversity Representation/Disability