Sunday, July 14, 2013

Book Review: Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell


Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell
(Widdershins Adventures #1)

Genre:
 Fantasy

Published:
Published February 21st 2012 by Pyr

Source:

Pages:
273

My Rating:
 ☆☆☆

SYNOPSIS:

Once she was Adrienne Satti. An orphan of Davillon, she had somehow escaped destitution and climbed to the ranks of the city's aristocracy in a rags-to-riches story straight from an ancient fairy tale. Until one horrid night, when a conspiracy of forces-human and other-stole it all away in a flurry of blood and murder. Today she is Widdershins, a thief making her way through Davillon's underbelly with a sharp blade, a sharper wit, and the mystical aid of Olgun, a foreign god with no other worshippers but Widdershins herself. It's not a great life, certainly nothing compared to the one she once had, but it's hers. But now, in the midst of Davillon's political turmoil, an array of hands are once again rising up against her, prepared to tear down all that she's built. The City Guard wants her in prison. Members of her own Guild want her dead. And something horrid, something dark, something ancient is reaching out for her, a past that refuses to let her go. Widdershins and Olgun are going to find answers, and justice, for what happened to her-but only if those who almost destroyed her in those years gone by don't finish the job first.
MY THOUGHTS:
 Adrienne Satti, also known as Widdershins, an orphan turned thief finds herself amidst a small group of people worshipping an unsanctioned god outside of the Pact. This god showers her in riches and she quickly rises within the aristocracy with the help of Alexandre Delacroix who takes her in as a sort of daughter that he never had. But when her fellow worshippers are slaughtered before her own eyes, she is forced to leave behind the posh life and take to thievery again. Being the last of her god's worshippers alive, Widdershins is followed and aided by this unseen 'god' while being tracked down by several groups of people out to get her. Constantly on the run, she tends to fall into all sorts of trouble and she quickly learns that having a god on your side isn't everything it takes to survive.

I put off writing this review for a few days because I just wasn't sure what to say about it. I went into it hoping it would be something like Scott Lynch's 'The Lies of Locke Lamora'. The biggest comparison is the fantasy world and the orphaned thieves, and because I loved 'The Lies of Locke Lamora', I thought I would love 'Thief's Covenant'. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. I didn't dislike it but I found it to be lacking.

It was a little hard to get into, though. The time transitions were a little hard to follow. It kept skipping to different time periods only a few years apart in the main character's life and I found it a little difficult to stay on track. I think it the author had included a year at the beginning of each transition, it would have made more sense.

I also found it really hard to identify with the main character. Even when she got herself into bad situations and/or lost a loved one, I felt like she was very flat and unemotional. We know she starts out as an orphan but there is little to no explanation to why she is an orphan. It seemed as if she had 'back story' with a few other characters that wasn't really explained at all, either. It was kind of like the author threw in a 'friend' to save the day but didn't want to bother letting us know where this friend came from or how they even knew each other, let alone why they trusted each other. The same thing happened with one of the 'enemies'.

Even though I'm not a big fan of religion and/or religious elements in fantasy, I enjoyed the plot line of Widdershins having a 'god' in her head. It was an interesting concept and brought a lot of depth to the story.

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