THIEF WITH NO SHADOW - Stunned

I'm completely stunned and blown away by THIEF WITH NO SHADOW. If I had not been busy all day, I probably would be done with it by now, because it has been so difficult to put down.

In most fantasies, the public stakes are huge. A world is at risk, or at the very least, a nation. In THIEF, the world does not seem to be in any danger, nor is any nation, or any city, or even any town or village.

So what is at stake? A family. Or rather, the remnants of two families. In each family, a brother and a sister are all that is left. There is a curse at work, and perhaps even more than one. It is so rare to have such subtle stakes in a fantasy. Yet, you are so drawn into the story, the stakes are so enormous at a personal level that I cannot imagine the stakes getting any higher. Yet Emily Gee keeps piling it on and on.

In her interview on Nalini Singh's blog, Emily Gee promises a happy ending, but at this point, 4/5ths of the way through the novel, I sure don't see how that's going to happen. However, that's exactly what authors are supposed to do with us, isn't it? I am learning a lot from this novel.

I'll probably finish this up by the end of the weekend.