The Magic Thief: Lost

“The lizards are watching.”

Written in Wellmet’s Runic Alphabet, author Sarah Prineas penned this coded message beneath her signature of my signed copy of THE MAGIC THIEF - LOST, the second in the series. This is but one example of the creative, personal touches readers will find throughout her novels: From her unique writing style, to the recipes in the back for Benet’s Biscuits.

Enter a world where wizards rely on a living-magic power source and locus magicalicus stones to cast their spells and protect their cities. Connwaer, a wizard’s apprentice, thief, and master lock picker, needs a new locus stone (having lost his in book one) to speak to the magic. Until then, he uses pyrotechnics to hear the magic murmur, despite Master Nevery’s warnings. With each explosion the magic warns of a threat to Wellmet, and all he holds dear. THE MAGIC THIEF – LOST takes Connwaer out of the only place he’s known, to the city of Desh where he must use his wits and will to save the people and the city he loves.

Sarah mixes a pinch of the familiar with equal parts original and extraordinary, creating this wonderful story of magic, belonging, adventure, and friendship. Nothing simply moves, it: jink-clink-kajink, tap-taps, shuffs, or scritch-scritches. The main character, Conn, so consistently honest, even when it is to his disadvantage, breaths freshness and humor into this story.

But it was the number of twists, dangers, and precarious situations Conn finds himself in that had my mouth dropping with each turn of the page. I thought, this has to be the low point for Conn, surely things will start to turn around for him, right? Not so. Again and again, trouble threatens to bury Conn until, honestly, I had no idea how he would ever get himself out from under. This, in combination with the vivid images of darkness, shadows, and the “dreaded magic” makes this tale one any lover of fantasy will stay up all night reading.

To read more about the author, visit her blog here.