Name: City of the Uncommon Thief
ISBN: 9780525555322

Lynne Bertrand

Passing his teenage years under an open sky on the rooftops of the mile-high iron guild towers that surround their mysterious city, Errol Thebes witnesses the first uncommon event in his life when a guildmaster breaks tradition to protect her child.

City of the Uncommon Thief

Story Eater

A brilliant, sophisticated tale told from the perspective of one Odd Thebes, bard of Thebes tower, one mile-high tower in a city of a thousand towers that stand, lofty, above a mysterious surface that carries secrets no one could guess until the tale runs to its end. Odd tells of his cousin, Errol Thebes, and many others who make up the guild city of towers locked in a search for a set of guild spikes that are uncommon. How uncommon they are is for readers to discover once they crack open the pages of the book.

What makes this book brilliant is there is no world-building info-dump that usually accompanies fantasy novels. It puts the reader into the narrative and requires what anyone would need to learn when in any new place with new people and new language, and that is to pick up the language quickly to adapt to the surroundings and move through life there. The plot is a puzzle, laid out for the reader to solve. By the end of the book, the puzzle can be flipped over and reworked, for the back end of it is just as fun to put together.

I can’t complain about the book at all. I absolutely loved it. 

My thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC, for which I give my own opinion.

Samantha Bass

Cori McCarthy

First of all, I would like to thank Penguinteen for sending me an ARC through NetGalley! 

I think what I really liked about this book was the writing and the world-building. It was rich in detail, and I felt that I could imagine every scene that was told in the book. The only thing that I wasn’t a big fan of was it got a little confusing at times, and I would find myself going back a few pages because I felt that I was missing something that was going on. Also, I would find that I would get a little bored during during some scenes. But other than that, I really liked the concept of this book, and the whole system. I feel that this is a book that I would like to revisit one day, and maybe it would make more sense. 

This book comes out February 9, 2021 so mark your calendars! It was truly an interesting fantasy, and I can’t wait to revisit it in the future!

Final Rating: 3/5 Stars ⭐️

City of the Uncommon Thief

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