interesting premise, disappointing execution

With a classic fantasy introduction of a low born discovering they have great powers and an interesting world to explore I had high hopes for this book. The balance of power between the Thieves, the Magicians and the King could make for some truly interesting world building and political intrigue. Even getting a good deep dive into one of these factions would make for a solid read in my books. Unfortunately, I felt disappointed by the execution of the story.

I'll stay vague here to avoid spoilers. Overall I feel we spend the first half of the story dragging our feet with one faction without really getting to learn much about them or what their actual goals are. Once the inevitable second half of the story kicks off there's a chance for promise once more, alas, instead the focus is pulled into a cliche blackmail plot that really doesn't explore the world at all. And also doesn't really give our villain any motivation for the blackmail. I feel like the bones of this story had nothing to do with the setting.


Spoilers beyond this point:

Ok kicking off the plot we have a slum born heroine who turns out to have extraordinary magical powers. Cliche, but exactly my vibe and I was excited. We then spend the first half of the story with the thieves hiding our heroine from the Magicians. The thieves motives are not explored beyond "having a thief magician would be good" and we hardly meet any members beyond the leaders who negotiate with our heroine and the Magicians Guild. All we learn about them really is they hide in secret passages in the slums. Add to the fact that it's an expected conclusion that we will eventually join the Magicians guild and this whole section really overstays it's welcome.

This I could forgive if the second act with the Magicians guild was better. To be fair, it's a little better. More characters are fleshed out and we start to get a better vibe of the guild as a whole and how magic works..... until the focus is stolen by a clumsy blackmail plot. Our villain really seems made out of pompous Nobel cardboard. A bland evil character with general disdain for the lower class and a grudge against our hero. He lucks into the kidnapping of our heroines best friend and then clumsily blackmails her to become his apprentice? Apparently there's a step 2 after this that she'll have to complete but it's left as a vague concept and never really explained. The main frustration here though is that it seems like the worst ever blackmail attempt that could easily be solved by telling literally anyone what was happening. It's a relief when this plot is finally thwarted in a fairly anti climactic fashion.

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