The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (The Queen's Thief #1)

Original Title: The Thief

Year Published: 2005

Published by:  Greenwillow Books

Number of Pages: 208

First Sentence: "I didn't know how long I had been in the king´s prison."

Goodreads Rating: 4/5

Plot:

The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.

My thoughts:

I have to be honest with you. When I first started this book I thought I would either finish it and hate it or not finish it at all. I turned out to be wrong. It's slow to begin with but as soon as it picks up the pace it turns out to be really interesting.

Gen, or Eugenides, is the main character of this book. When we first meet him he is in a pitiful state. He is looked in a prison and pretty much on the brink of death. He is saved by the king's magus, who approaches Gen with an offer (read order) to tag along on an adventure. Gen agrees (not like he has a choice) and off they go. As a character Gen is wonderful. He is sarcastic, good hearted and very honorable for a thief.

The other characters grow on you as well. Gen has four companions (perhaps jailers) with him on the adventure. The magus, who I hated at the start, turns out to be an ok guy. I won't tell you why, because spoilers. The three other characters, Sophos, Ambiades, and Pol, all play their part in the plot. Two of them you will get very attached to, and one you will come to dislike very much.

The plot then. The point of the adventure is to steal an artefact from a neighbouring kingdom. Since Gen is an excellent thief despite being captured he is of course chosen to do the actual stealing. But it is of course not that simple. The artefact is very well hidden and many covet it and its powers. A big part of the plot is the journey to where this artefact is being hidden. The first part of the journey is the boring part, but after a while, it gets really interesting as Turner begins to develop the characters. And of course it doesn't end with the stealing of said artefact, because of course Gen succeeds, but that is just the start of a new adventure.

Do I recommend it? 

Yes, I do.

ARC Review: Rend the Dark by Mark Gelineau and Joe King

Original Title: Rend the Dark

Year Published: 2015

Published by:  Gelineau and King (an arc was kindly provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Number of Pages: 78

First Sentence: "The boy felt it before he saw it."

Goodreads Rating: 4/5

Plot:

The great Ruins are gone. The titans. The behemoths. All banished to the Dark and nearly forgotten. But the cunning ones, the patient ones remain. They hide not in the cracks of the earth or in the shadows of the world. But inside us. Wearing our skin. Waiting. Watching.

Once haunted by visions of the world beyond, Ferran now wields that power to hunt the very monsters that he once feared. He is not alone. Others bear the same terrible burden. But Hunter or hunted, it makes no difference. Eventually, everything returns to the Dark.

My thoughts:

Gelineau and King have quickly become favourites of mine. The stories are short (becuse they are novellas) but packed with entertainment.

In this installment, we meet Ferran, who has the ability to see the monsters that haunt his world. From being terrified by those monsters as a child, he is now a hunter who hunts them down. Despite being the sort of main character, Ferran doesn't actually star in it that much. Sure, he is very important but he isn't the actual narrator for the majority of the story. Instead, we are guided by Hileon, a young magistrate who meet Ferran when monsters threaten his peaceful life. Just as Hileon is being accompanied by his fellow magistrate Riffolk, Ferran also has a hunting partner, Mireia, a badass female huntress.

It is impressive just how well Gelineau and King develop their characters within the limited amount of pages a novella can hold. It really felt like you got to know the characters and by the end of it all, you care deeply for them at the end (which comes way to quickly).

The story is very engaging and well written. It's the perfect combination of adventure and suspense. There is violence and some graphic scenes, but they aren't horrible to read. In fact, they swish by so fast the slight gore in some scenes quickly fade from your mind. I won't spoil the story for you, but I will tell you that it is thoroughly entertainment and the pages will fly by, not because there are so few of them, but because you will be so entranced by the story.

Do I recommend it? 

Yes, I really do.