Series: The Queen's Thief
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Fantasy, YA, Historical
Book Description: 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.
Thoughts:
This is a reread for me, but it had been such a long time since I read the book that I really felt like it was my first time reading it. I did enjoy it more- it was a quick and immersive read, I read it in only two days.
This book laid the foundation for the rest of the series. It introduces us to this world, as well as the mythology and politics surrounding them. We have governments divided into kingdoms, the Queens and Kings are in laying and setting up their power and struggling to avoid wars and conquest from neighbors. It also introduces us to our main character, Gen, he's a likable character even as he's portrayed as an argumentative and sarcastic young man. It does feel like a YA or younger type of book. It's action-packed and it tries to be fun to read.
One of my points in favor is that there is no romance in the story, it's so refreshing to find a book series where we don't have an instant romantic or sexual tension between characters.
The writing style really worked for me and if you like adventure it should be right up your alley, it is a slow book because it's mainly setting up for the whole series so keep that in mind.
To get into details:
Gen is lingering in the dungeons for stealing from the king's Magus. And he got caught because he was bragging that he would steal something from the king's Magus to an undercover agent of the Crown in a bar. In his defense, he did manage to steal it anyway but was promptly caught. It kicks off with Gen being broken out of prison by the Magus and a few of his disciples. They need his thieving skills to get their hands on a mythical object, legend says it's a gift of the gods to the ruler of the kingdom and it's possession assures you the position of Queen or King.
I liked the thief himself. Gen is a funny, sneaky, and extremely unreliable narrator, who holds a lot back while he tells the story in his own words, he remains very anonymous throughout his adventures. I thought it was a very interesting way to tell the story. We do get to know the characters and start to care for them, this story has a big focus on characters and their interactions with Gen. Which makes sense as he's the one who's narrating the events.
I don't want to spoil anything more about the plot. The rest of the story is a fun fantasy/heist with lots of cool mythology, and quite a few twists and turns. I just love Heist stories!
Now, I wasn't surprised by any twists the story took, but I'm assuming that the target audience (this is a YA story, which I didn't know when I first picked this book up) probably won't immediately recognize all the signs pointing directly at said twists. With that said it's still an enjoyable ride, my advice is to not waste your time looking for clues and anticipating the plot twists and just enjoy the great writing and the wonderfully built world.
This was used for the following challenges:
ReReads
Continue Series. I want to finish the series but it has been such a long time since I read this first book that I need to start over
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