Tuesday 28 February 2012

FANTASY REVIEW: Widdershins: Thief's Covenant - Ari Marmell

Release Date: 28/02/12

SYNOPSIS:

Filled with excitement and adventure, this is an engaging fantasy novel for young adults. Once she was Adrienne Satti. An orphan, she had somehow escaped destitution and climbed to the ranks of Davillon's aristocracy in a rags-to-riches story straight from an ancient fairy tale. Until one night a conspiracy of forces - human and other - stole it all away in a mist 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 forces is 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 dark and ancient is reaching out for her. 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:

Ari is an author that is a little hit or miss for me, either I really like what he’s doing or its something that doesn’t quite click with me as a reader. In this title, it’s more of the later as I found the lead character not only dislikeable but also one that I felt I couldn’t get a real handle on as I did end up wondering if, at times, she was mentally ill as the god like aspect felt that it could have been a mental illness over a real deity acting within her world.

All in, this was a big miss for me as I felt that it never really got going, didn’t achieve much for me as a reader and after struggling right to the very end, was more relieved at having completed it than for enjoying the story. A great shame all round.

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