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A review by afittingdistraction
No Heart for a Thief by James Lloyd Dulin
3.75
I'm such a sucker for a grumpy older protagonist getting pulled back into everything they ran from. Especially when its combined with them accidentally adopting a kid who reminds them too much of their younger naive self.....and this book has that in spades!
And it's tied with the magic system for my favourite thing about No Heart For A Thief.
Its such a interesting take on elemental magic: the world has an invisible force referred to as the Song and a rare few are blessed by spirits to call upon the Song and channel it through dance to manipulate an element. Water, the earth, shadow, etc. It reminded me a little of Avatar The Last Airbender.
As a younger boy, Kaylo, our main protagonist has the power of The Seed (earth manipulation) until he starts to hear the sound of other people's magic and decides that though he's probably cursed, he might just have stumbled upon the solution to save his people from the empire that stole their magic.
Even though I enjoyed Kaylo's interactions and training of the younger Tayen, I definitely preferred the past storyline mainly because not a whole lot happened plot wise in the present one until later on in the book BUT I can give first books in fantasy series a little leeway when it comes to that sort of thing since they have to establish a lot.
With books whos whole plot hinges on their anti colonialism themes like this one does theres always the worry of it being executed poorly when its being written by someone with no experience of that sort of opression but I think it was well done partly because Dulin is very well aware of this fact. I really enjoyed his author notes at the end of the book, including him highlighting his favourite books with these same themes by POC that he loves &/ inspired him to write this series. Definitely appreciated!
Although I don't feel in a great rush, and I've got other book 2s looming in my immediate tbr to priorise, I enjoyed this one enough that I'll probably continue on with the series at some point!
Thanks to the author for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
And it's tied with the magic system for my favourite thing about No Heart For A Thief.
Its such a interesting take on elemental magic: the world has an invisible force referred to as the Song and a rare few are blessed by spirits to call upon the Song and channel it through dance to manipulate an element. Water, the earth, shadow, etc. It reminded me a little of Avatar The Last Airbender.
As a younger boy, Kaylo, our main protagonist has the power of The Seed (earth manipulation) until he starts to hear the sound of other people's magic and decides that though he's probably cursed, he might just have stumbled upon the solution to save his people from the empire that stole their magic.
Even though I enjoyed Kaylo's interactions and training of the younger Tayen, I definitely preferred the past storyline mainly because not a whole lot happened plot wise in the present one until later on in the book BUT I can give first books in fantasy series a little leeway when it comes to that sort of thing since they have to establish a lot.
With books whos whole plot hinges on their anti colonialism themes like this one does theres always the worry of it being executed poorly when its being written by someone with no experience of that sort of opression but I think it was well done partly because Dulin is very well aware of this fact. I really enjoyed his author notes at the end of the book, including him highlighting his favourite books with these same themes by POC that he loves &/ inspired him to write this series. Definitely appreciated!
Although I don't feel in a great rush, and I've got other book 2s looming in my immediate tbr to priorise, I enjoyed this one enough that I'll probably continue on with the series at some point!
Thanks to the author for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.