| Series: A Thief’s Tale #1 | Genre: fantasy |
| Date of Publishing: February 29th 2020 | Publisher: self-published |
Quote of the Book
“Of all the rotten luck,” I muttered. Across the throat of the cleft, a web of gossamer loomed thrice Zak’rin’s height. No ordinary spider could’ve spun something that big. Just thinking about it gave me shivers. I’m not a dainty maid by any stretch, but I hate spiders with all the intensity of a hundred-woman harem. “Over there!” shouted the younger lad, Alk’ro. He left Fa’ria’s side to walk upslope from the web…“
Blurb
Exiled into a wasteland because of a heist gone wrong, Emelith vows to hunt down the one responsible. Except not all is what it seems in the haunted realm of the Cauldron.
Disclaimer/Personal Note
TBRindr review request from author.
Thank you to David M. Samuels for the request and the copy.
Song of the Book
Red by Unstoppable
Review
Emelith grew up on the streets after losing her family in a fire at a young age. A member of the Guilded Hands (a thief’s organisation), she doesn’t trust easily and only works with people she does. So, it is a huge blow to her when her long-time partner betrays her and escapes with the Exegesis, the very scroll, they were commissioned to steal, leaving her behind to pay for the crime – a sentence that means exile.
Bent on retrieving the stolen scroll and extracting a little revenge, Emelith sets out after her ex-partner through the desert world of the Cauldron where she quickly learns that all to do with the scroll is not as it seems.
***
This hit a lot of my buttons for fun, popcorn reading. Especially with the setting – tombs, creepy crawlies and magic, and the similarities to a couple of my favourite movies Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Mummy. It was the perfect storm of my likes and was just a lot of fun to read.
Emelith was a likeable enough voice. She is that typical snarky quick-witted POV that you find in a lot of adventure type books, with a good dry humour that knocks the edge off the sharpness of her character and because it’s first person it keeps the rest from getting too dark. She takes a while to warm to but as we learn more about her, she grows on you.
The world is that quick, learn as you go style and I appreciated just how much of world building was weaved in while on the go, keeping the pace up at a nice clip and making it hard to put down.
Great use of atmosphere – I really enjoyed the scenes in the past, and I liked how it was used to show us background to explain the goals of Marthelios. My other favourite scene was a dreamlike sequence with him and Emelith, a needed scene between the two that works doubly by giving us that personal connection to her friend and to Marthelios.
The plot had enough interesting world building add-ons, and a little character growth arc, to keep it feeling fresh and exciting, even if we do recognize the heart of the story or at least if you have seen every mummy movie made 247 times like I have, you will.
Fast paced, lots of atmosphere and cool magic (phylacteries, got to love it) sprinkle that with lots of fun fights with creepy creature monsters – always my favourite when it comes to action adventure type stories, it’s worth checking out.
Other notes
Irrelevant to the story but something about the book cover reminded me a lot of the covers dynamite comics did for the Daniel Jackson Stargate series. Colours maybe.
Thank you to David M. Samuels for the offer of a copy through TBRindr service in exchange for a review.
Our Judgement
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