Thief's Covenant

Today’s post is on “Thief’s Covenant” by Ari Marmell. It is the first in the Widdershins series. It is published by Pyr publishing. The cover is white with the main character, in black, on top looking down as she going to steal a statue. The intended reader is older young adult but anyone who likes good sword and sorcery tales will enjoy this. There is some language and the violence can be graphic but no sexuality in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- 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.

Review- This book starts a little slow but hang with it because it is a good book. Now the Prologue is interesting but then things slow down as Marmell  is doing world building and he does it well. Widdershins is an interesting and fun main character and she is the driving force behind the story; as it should be. Marmell is normally an adult writer but I think that he makes the transition into young adult literature well. I think that is why there is a little lag in the beginning because he normally writes big, thick, wonderful adult fantasy and he is learning how to write for a younger reader. The bad guy is interesting and the reason behind it is very important to the story and I think to future tales. The action scenes are fun, the secondary characters are engaging, and the relationship between Widdershins and Olgun is fun, funny, and interesting. Marmell pulls from D&D for one of the questions in this book which is- What happens when a god dies? The way that the gods and magic work in very well done in this book and it is simply done. No big overdone reasons for why things work because they are the gods and I am good with that. I would recommend this book to young adults who are starting to get into high fantasy and sword & sorcery.

I give this book Four out of Five stars for the slow start. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my library.