The Elysium Heist is the debut novel from author Y.M. Resnik and it piqued my eye when I saw it compared to Rebecca Fraimow's Lady Eve's Last Con (a book I loved last year) - especially as a queer sci-fi heist romance novel with a Jewish connection. The novel features 5 women as its point of view protagonist characters that, when combined with an AI* character form a trio of romances that develop throughout the book (with an awful LOT of pining). And the 5 women set their aim on a truly heinous target: a man who would blackmail one of them with an illicitly made/obtained sex tape and would deny his orthodox Jewish wife (another one of them) a divorce (a Get), luring him to a Casino Tournament in an attempt to take back what is theirs.
* An Actual AI, not some LLM nonsense. I hate that I even feel like I have to explain that.
The result is a short book that is really good on the romance department - although you may pull your hair out at both pairs of protagonists pining for the other without recognizing that their interest is mutual for sooooo long - even as it might struggle a little bit at times with aspects of the setting. Specifically, if you're very big into casino games and how they work....well, unless you really like queer romance, this might drive you a little batty. And the heist stuff is very very underwhelming to be honest. But the romance and interpersonal developments here were really enjoyable, making this one still a recommend.
Trigger Warnings: Sexual Harassment, and mention of Sexual Assault/Marital Abuse is prominent, but no sexual assault occurs on page or is described and none of it is gratuitous.
Plot Summary:
Finley Starchaser was once one of the galaxy's most notable gambler/card-counters, a person feared in any casino....until addiction almost cost her everything.
Kiyokimora ("Kiyo") GoldWeaver is the heiress to the most prominent jewelry manufacturing dynasty in the known universe, who is about to step onto the galactic stage as chief of the corporation.
Ilaria Faith GodsFire was born a member of an UltraOrthodox Jewish sect that almost never leaves their planet of Thillov. There, she's supposed to be a dutiful wife to her husband, even if she does work on the side using some explosives skills she picked up from her family's firecracker business.
The three of them should have nothing in common, but all three come together to the Elysium, the universe's most incredible and most pleasurable casino, where the three plan a dangerous mission: to get revenge and plan a heist on Ilaria's abusive husband Shaul, a man who not only refuses to give Ilaria a divorce and her freedom, but also is blackmailing Kiyo and threatening to upend her life at any moment.
Still, the only chance the three of them have to pulling it off is to get the assistance of Psalome Shipmen, the universe's most famous Dazzler who works to pay off her debt to the Elysium by dealing, dazzling, and tantalizing everyone who visit...and doing everything but offering her body as a prize. Psalome's skills would enable them to pull it off under the Elysium's nose....except that getting Psalome on board means also getting Psalome's sister Psylina on board, and Psylina is in a relationship with the AI behind the Elysium itself.
It'll take them running a careful coordinated plan to pull it all off - but with the Shaul's dangerous aggression, the unexpected romantic feelings between Ilaria & Psalome and Kiyo & Finley, and Psylina's burning guilt about deceiving her own life, it could all come falling apart at any moment.....
Jeez, that's a longer plot summary than I usually give for books I think, but I really wanted to emphasize the five main characters in Finley, Kiyo, Ilaria, Psalome, and Psylina, because their characters, relationships, and developments are really the best thing about The Elysium Heist. And I mean that largely in a really good way, because the book does a fantastic job building these characters, their relationships, and their romances. And each of the characters' are delightfully different, even as they fall into relationships with one of the others (Psylina excepted). Are they a little tropey perhaps? To some extent, but they work really well so that isn't a bad thing at all.
Take Finley and Kiyo for example, two characters who begin the book extremely in love with the other without realizing the attraction is mutual. Finley absolutely loves and is addicted to the thrill of winning in games of chance...and of using her card counting (See below) in blackjack and poker skills to beat the casino and the other plalyers with ease. But that addiction almost led to her own destruction through other substance additions until she met Kiyo, the woman who saved her just out of the goodness of her heart, a saving that means the world to Finley...if she could only believe Kiyo could want her despite Finley's non-wealthy origins. And while Finley is willing to be extremely (pan)sexual, Kiyo is much more introverted, not helped by the trauma she feels from what happened in her only ever attempt at sex resulting in her partner's death through a drug combination. She is utterly stunned and in love with Finley, but also can't quite imagine that Finley would be willing to deal with someone so unable to accept physical contact easily like her...and is deathly afraid Finley might relapse in the casino. The two pine for each other hard for most of the book, and you may want to yell at them for it, but their feelings feel extremely real and it just plain works.
Ilaria and Psalome are similarly different but connected in ways that are fascinating and delicious to read. Psalome is the emblem of illicit appeal, the sex icon that never actually gives away her body but tempts everyone in the casino into games of chance and drinking and whatnot. And yet the innocence and meekness (yet not meekness) of Ilaria simply stuns her like no other person has since her childhood, years before her life was sold to the casino. Meanwhile, Ilaria is the orthodox Jewish girl* who has never been off her conservative planet before, and while she has a love of explosives, she has no idea what to do with games of chance, of sex appeal, and of this girl in Psalome who is so beautiful and stunning and so unlike anything she could have experienced before. And then of course there's Ilaria's faith and her desire to get back at her Husband...so that she can reclaim her Jewish faith in god and the universe...something Psalome can give her as well, which works so well.
*As a Jewish reader, I for the large part appreciated the Jewishness of Ilaria, whose sect kind of takes aspects of modern and ultraorthodox sects in its description and features the very real and horrifying real world concept in some such sects of men refusing to give their wives a "Get" - a Jewish Divorce. Ilaria's motive being to reclaim her faith, and her ability to be Jewish with Psalome on another world in the end are much appreciated, although I kind of wish there might have been room to try to educate Psalome on Ilaria's faith.
And then there's Psylina, who is already in a romantic relationship with "El" - the AI of the Elysium Casino itself. Psylina herself is basically asexual and has no interest in physical touch, but the way the Casino tries to mold its programming to please her and the way she does in turn absolutely thrills and completes her.
The five characters and their relationships, along with the repulsiveness of the main antagonist Shaul really work in this one. To be honest, the setting and heist plot kind of don't. The book tries to take use of the casino setting but its use of casino games is really really bad and might break immersion for anyone who is well aware of such games of chance - for example, Finley's card counting is treated like a magical skill that allows her to seemingly rack up wins on a moment's notice whenever she turns it on (not at all how actual card counting works, which will result in slow and steady course of winning with ups and downs) and her poker skills have one hand shown which is utterly ridiculous and treated as if it was utterly normal (a Royal Flush beating four of a kind). The book doesn't really go into depth as to much of the casino action, and you can see why: the author either doesn't know much about these games or doesn't care to, which honestly is a waste of such a potentially fabulous setting. Meanwhile the heist plot seems heading to a pretty mundane and boring outcome before a last second switcheroo, and while the switcheroo is well done, it's all very abrupt: the best Heist novels tend to feature some very complicated plans that seem to go awry before the reveal of how they were actually pulled off is made - here, the plan at first is super simple, so it's kind of just like "wait that's it" before the reveal pulls off the switcheroo (Thankfully).
And yet, despite all of these complaints about the setting and plot, The Elysium Heist still very much works thanks to those characters and romances. Definitely worth a read for SciFi Romance fans, especially those looking for queer/lesbian relationships.
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