A Vintage Reads Review: The Thief

The Thief (Queen's Thief, 1) by Megan Whalen Turner, October 31, 1996. 220 pages. Published by Greenwillow Books. Source: library

The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.

First Sentence:

I didn't know how long I had been in the king's prison.

After hearing people talk about this book/series on Twitter on multiple occasions, I decided that I needed to see what the big deal was when it came to Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series. It was definitely worth looking into because now I have a new, to me, author and series to devour.

While The Thief may have started off a little on the slow side, there are so many reasons for me to have found myself loving this one. For one, I would say that writing of Megan Whalen Turner. She did such an amazing job with bringing her characters and the world to life. Just reading about the scenes where Gen was trying to retrieve the treasure from a hidden, rarely accessible, place and the how it tested his abilities and pushed him to his limit. Now that was some pretty intense reading.
    Even though at first I (dare I say it) did not care for Gen, the more I read about him and saw the little intricacies of the story and his endgame the more I liked him. Let's just say that I was so intrigued by him that there is no way that I am not finishing this series. I just really, really need to know where the author is going to take the story next.

So, what made this a most finish book for me, well, that is the writing. As I said above, Megan Whalen Turner's writing and ability to capture the characters' different flaws and quirks is one of the reasons I enjoyed this book. Her writing was, once I got by the first fifty pages, crisp and well paced; and the plot-line just drew me in because I wanted to know what exactly Gen was planning (because it sure wasn't playing along the magus' plan).
   The writing and plot are seriously good enough for me to recommend on those two points alone. Which is pretty good, in my opinion.

Even though I really enjoyed reading The Thief, it was a little slow in the beginning. The first fifty pages were some of the longest because you knew there was more to Gen then met the eye, but it took some time for the plot to fully emerge and for his true self to surface. Although, once the plot gets rolling, this is quite the read as Megan Whalen Turner brings it all together with excellent writing.
    So, if you can stick out the first fifty or so pages you will be in for a treat  with this thoroughly enjoyable read.

Final Verdict: The Thief- An excellent fantasy book with great storytelling and a thrilling plot.

The Thief earns 4.5 out of 5 griffins