THIEF - Finished!

I finished THIEF WITH NO SHADOW this morning.

The ending was understated, yet I would not call it subtle. I kept expecting the story to lead one place when it lead in another place instead. There were some things that were obvious to me that the characters should have thought of, but did not. For example, Melke should have used the salamander scat to disguise her scent, rather than pungent oils. That way, they never would have known she was there.

I expected the salamanders to bestow a curse of their own. But a certain sacrifice prevented that from happening.

The romance at the end was definitely forced. It might have been better for the author to allow a little time to pass before trying to force the romance in there. It would have been even better if Melke and Bastian could have had more of a rapport established earlier in the story.

However, I loved the story. It was completely different and wholly new. I don't think a sword was drawn throughout the entire book. Yet, there was plenty of magic and tension and conflict and horrible consequences for failure. I didn't want to put the book down, and I love it when authors do that to me.

I'll try to put up a post about the book as a whole by tomorrow night.