The Nightmare Incarnate by WG Finch

Donovan has been taken in as an Enforcer in his Uncle's gang and after several screwups he's pretty much on his last legs as far as his Uncle is concerned. Donovan must hunt down the Renegades and bring the location of their hideout to his Uncle before his Uncle has him killed. Unfortunately, for Donovan he's pretty much the worst gangster in existence and he gets captured by the Renegades instead. Horrible gangster withstanding though Donovan is very good at surviving and he sees a silver lining in his capture as long as he can convince the people he's been trying to kill up until very recently not to kill him. 

Prince Lorenzo is the epitome of a spoiled prince. Spending most of his life drinking away he all of a sudden has taken an interest in politics. That interest being unsettling his father King Erod whom he views as an ineffective wastrel at best. With the whole kingdom mortgaged to the powerful Cyrus Gold Lorenzo begins scheming with the beautiful Marabella, but as she lays out plans for an assassination Lorenzo realizes that he may not be quite cut out for this game of thrones. 

This is a 3.5 stars rounded to four. The characters hold quite a bit of promise as well as the story does but I see this being a down the road thing. Lorenzo and Donovan especially had incredibly contradictory personalities and while Donovan does see some growth towards the end of the book his character is very oddly written throughout most of it. One second he hates being a gangster the next he's plotting to get back into his Uncle's good graces. Lorenzo is just an absolute moron and I believe he was meant to he written that way. He's a selfish, spoiled brat who is clearly being taken advantage of. Cyrus Gold reminded me of Scrooge McDuck. Genuinely, he's even got a giant money bin. 

The thing that really got me here though is I never felt like anything was really that bad, it was difficult to take Gold seriously as this horrible face of capitalism, Gianni Winters, Donovan's Uncle and the Nightmare Incarnate never came across as very intimidating. We get some glimpses into why this kingdom is as bad off as it is but not enough for me to support anyone, including the Renegades, who are these Robin Hood like characters. 

That all being said I believe the story had promise. I think if it had been a little longer that would have helped significantly. I also think that Finch is truly onto something here; no one in this world is inherently good and thats a hard thing to establish in a book, especially if its your first one. So I will read be reading book 2. 

As always thanks to NetGalley and Victory editing for the eArc!