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.

The Improbable We Can Do Today by Jon Dixon

A collection of cosy fantasy mystery stories about resilience, ingenuity, love, belonging, and gentle justice. In the ancient, rain-drenched streets of Draffe, where temple bells mark the hours and secrets lie behind every door, the most sought-after researcher, information-broker, and investigator is a disabled ex-thief who can’t raise a hand or take a step. Meriva Secaret was once the very best of thieves. Until she lost her limbs. Now, with her retired mercenary partner, Custos, she makes her living finding what was lost, fixing injustices, outwitting the powerful… and still occasionally stealing just the right thing from just the wrong person. Her speciality is small problems with big consequences, puzzles and predicaments whose solutions require observation, ingenuity, and, above all, the ability to see people as they really are. Meriva is very good at seeing people. Perhaps because those people all too often don’t see the real her, but only what she no longer has. What she does have is a mind like a lock-pick, an ex-thief’s instincts, and attitude to spare. Plus a partner who loves her as she really is, and an absolute determination to live life on her own terms. Told from the perspective of a disabled protagonist who is capable, complex, and central to her own narrative, these whimsical, warm and often wryly funny stories invite you into the fiercely kind-hearted world she creates around herself, and will appeal to readers who enjoy small-scale, character-driven fantasy where the stakes are personal rather than world-ending, and where kindness always matters.