Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for A Plain-Dealing Villain by Craig Schaefer starting on August 15, 2025.


Happy Reading!

First Story mega-series:

Revanche Cycle -- political fantasy, papal setting, multiversal ties to rest of this mega-series

1) Winter's Reach (Jan 15) [LINK]
2) The Instruments of Control (Feb 15) [LINK]
3) Terms of Surrender (Mar 15) [LINK]
4) Queen of the Night (Apr 15) [LINK]

Daniel Faust -- Urban Fantasy, criminal elements

1) The Long Way Down (May 15) [LINK]
1.5) The White Gold Score (May 15) [LINK]
2) Redemption Song (Jun 15) [LINK]
3) The Living End (Jul 15) [LINK]
4) A Plain-Dealing Villain (Aug 15) [LINK]

Start inter-weaving the spin-off Harmony Black Books (mostly for Easter Egg timeline stuff, I think, been awhile) -- UF, law enforcement:

Harmony Black -- Harmony Black #1 (Sept 15) [LINK]
The Killing Floor Blues -- Daniel Faust #5 (Oct 15) [LINK]
Red Knight Falling -- Harmony Black #2 (Nov 15) [LINK]
The Castle Doctrine -- Daniel Faust #6 (Dec 15) [LINK]
***(BRs not requested yet, past this point)***
Glass Predator -- Harmony Black #3 (Jan 15, 2026)
Double or Nothing -- Daniel Faust #7 (Feb 15)
Cold Spectrum -- Harmony Black #4 (Mar 15)
The Neon Boneyard -- Daniel Faust #8 (Apr 15)

Wisdom's Grave -- Mega-Series finale trilogy

1) Sworn to the Night (May 15)
2) Detonation Boulevard (Jun 15)
3) Bring the Fire (Jul 15)

Post Mega-Series Daniel Faust and Harmony Black Books:

Right to the Kill -- Harmony Black #5 (Aug 15)
The Locust Job -- Daniel Faust #9 (Sept 15)
Black Tie Required -- Harmony Black #6 (Oct 15)
Down Among the Dead Men -- Daniel Faust #10 (Nov 15)
Never Send Roses -- Harmony Black #7 (Dec 15)
Dig Two Graves -- Daniel Faust #11 (Jan 15, 2027)
Snake Oil Bullet -- Harmony Black #8 (Feb 15)

Availability: all the ebooks are on Kindle Unlimited, Audio available on KU for Harmony Black 1-4
NEW: All audio is available on Audible Plus... no idea how long this'll be true...

Looking forward to it!

Zoomed through my re-read this morning... another great entry...

Near the start, for a second, i was unsure if I'd mixed my plots, and the bigger plot started here, but it seems I was right and that's the next book... just the first hints happen here in the prologue and a bit elsewhere...

This book is the literary equivalent of Lucky Number Slevin (the Josh Hartness movie with Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, and others)... (view spoiler)[ both book plots revolve around a Kansas City Shuffle... taking advantage of the mark thinking they know what's going on, and using that against them...

This is my first readthrough, tho, where I got to the end, and realized Craig/Heather Schaefer bamboozed us as readers, and also pulled a Kansas City Shuffle on US... you read the book expecting and getting a typical Faust heist book, and then the final chapter(s) pull the rug out from under us, setting up the next book(s)... (hide spoiler)]

Reading this today. About 40% of the way through, and it's interesting having a straight-up heist plot, at least at the beginning... I've not seen Lucky Number Slevin. (view spoiler)[And now the bad-news they stole something from is holding Faust's friend's soul hostage... yikes.

The Egyptian aspects are interesting. (hide spoiler)]

Finished this a couple weeks ago but never came back to comment on the rest of the book. So of course I've forgotten the rug-pulling moment that Iain mentions by now, (view spoiler)[but I remember bits, like Faust winning a card game against a demon, or someone trying to convince Faust not to trust... Charlotte? Is that her name? I was both glad that Faust rejected them, and also felt like that wasn't the end of it... (hide spoiler)]

rug-pulling: (view spoiler)[Faust stole the object, lost the card game, but it was a setup so his dad could win for realsies... Kansas City shuffle...

This was all a job for the Texas Tycoon, who was a prisoner of his assistant who worked for the mysterious guy from the prologue...

But this whole job was a misdirect inside a misdirect, and Faust returns home and is framed for murder and hussled off to jail... and his identity has been swapped with The Thief by the mysterious guy and assistant... and this ties into the First Story Meta Plot...

This is another of the archetypes like Witch and Knight... Faust wasn't supposed to be The Thief, but now he is... and this is supposed to give the mysterious guy an advantage, but you just know Faust will throw a wrench in the gears somehow...

Either at the end here, or quickly in the next book, we find out that the original Thief ends up a quadruple amputee, to take him out of the picture... keep him alive but useless... avoid any cosmic hijinks with the Thief archetyping and rebirth cycle...

But for now THAT'S the 2nd Kansas City shuffle I say Craig Schaefer pulled on us... Faust was sent off on a usual heist mission as expected, but in the end that didn't really matter, the rug was being pulled on us all along, back in Vegas, offscreen... expectations... (hide spoiler)]

Thank you! I knew Iain would come to the rescue.