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A review by the_novel_approach
The Water Thief by Jane Kindred
2.0
For eight years Sebastian Swift has been locked up at All Fates Asylum for murdering his twin sister. The Water Thief begins with Sebastian waking up while being held down by two orderlies in a tub of cold water. After being dragged out of the tub by the same two orderlies, he is then hosed down with more cold water after he’s vomited and urinated on himself. He’s ordered to get dressed and is then led into his room, where he’s placed under lock and key. This seems to be par for the course at All Fates in how they deal with troublesome inmates. Especially with Sebastian, since he’s always breaking the rules and getting himself into trouble. But on this particular evening, there’s a storm brewing, and with that storm comes a mudslide that forces the collapse of the building that houses Sebastian. Through the rubble, he encounters the ghost of his sister, August, who leads him away from the Asylum and towards…safety?
It’s at this point that Sebastian stumbles across Sven, who takes Sly (aka Sebastian) under his wing at a place called Thievesward. Sebastian soon learns through Sven that not only is his Uncle Emrys doing quite well for himself since Sebastian’s incarceration, but so is the man’s bastard son, the Earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod. Sven then tells Sly he’ll take him in and teach him a few things—if he’s willing to do something in return.
Okay, this is where The Water Thief started to turn south on me. I really didn’t feel comfortable reading about how Sven had sex with Sebastian up along the side of an outhouse with spit as lube. I know that Sebastian is twenty-one and all, but he’d just escaped from an asylum, and here he has this skank of a man wanting to jump his bones in exchange for his continued safety. And Sebastian is okay with this because it doesn’t matter. After all, he’s no virgin after being taken willingly, or not, at All Fates. There was just something so eeeew about Sven, and I was sad for Sebastian.
It was made worse, though, as I found out more about Sven, which made him even skankier. Then later on in the story, through Macsen, Sebastian/August finds out that for years he’s been harvested for the magic he didn’t even know he had, a method that’s involved filling his lungs with water. Sebastian’s magic enables him to control water and to open up portals to higher realms or dimensions, as I’d like to call them. It’s why his Uncle Emrys has had him locked up in an asylum—to steal this magic and use it to control the people of the land.
What happens in The Water Thief is quite complicated, and some of the situations were just too much for me to follow. Although I did my best to not give up on this one, I did do lot of head shaking at some of the situations that came up while reading this novel. Let’s also add to it that the head hopping between Macsen and Sebastian didn’t help with the flow of the story.
I’m sorry to say that The Water Thief wasn’t my cup of tea, and if this review sounds a bit messed up… Well, that’s how The Water Thief made me feel after I finished reading it. Out of the whole of the story, I came to like Macsen’s character because he, like Sebastian, was a victim of all his father’s plotting, and he worked hard to make things right. Macsen and Sebastian’s characterizations were the only ones that made any sense, while the secondary characters were all over the place.
Reviewed by Kim for The Novel Approach Reviews
http://www.thenovelapproachreviews.com/review-the-water-thief-by-jane-kindred/
It’s at this point that Sebastian stumbles across Sven, who takes Sly (aka Sebastian) under his wing at a place called Thievesward. Sebastian soon learns through Sven that not only is his Uncle Emrys doing quite well for himself since Sebastian’s incarceration, but so is the man’s bastard son, the Earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod. Sven then tells Sly he’ll take him in and teach him a few things—if he’s willing to do something in return.
Okay, this is where The Water Thief started to turn south on me. I really didn’t feel comfortable reading about how Sven had sex with Sebastian up along the side of an outhouse with spit as lube. I know that Sebastian is twenty-one and all, but he’d just escaped from an asylum, and here he has this skank of a man wanting to jump his bones in exchange for his continued safety. And Sebastian is okay with this because it doesn’t matter. After all, he’s no virgin after being taken willingly, or not, at All Fates. There was just something so eeeew about Sven, and I was sad for Sebastian.
It was made worse, though, as I found out more about Sven, which made him even skankier. Then later on in the story, through Macsen, Sebastian/August finds out that for years he’s been harvested for the magic he didn’t even know he had, a method that’s involved filling his lungs with water. Sebastian’s magic enables him to control water and to open up portals to higher realms or dimensions, as I’d like to call them. It’s why his Uncle Emrys has had him locked up in an asylum—to steal this magic and use it to control the people of the land.
What happens in The Water Thief is quite complicated, and some of the situations were just too much for me to follow. Although I did my best to not give up on this one, I did do lot of head shaking at some of the situations that came up while reading this novel. Let’s also add to it that the head hopping between Macsen and Sebastian didn’t help with the flow of the story.
I’m sorry to say that The Water Thief wasn’t my cup of tea, and if this review sounds a bit messed up… Well, that’s how The Water Thief made me feel after I finished reading it. Out of the whole of the story, I came to like Macsen’s character because he, like Sebastian, was a victim of all his father’s plotting, and he worked hard to make things right. Macsen and Sebastian’s characterizations were the only ones that made any sense, while the secondary characters were all over the place.
Reviewed by Kim for The Novel Approach Reviews
http://www.thenovelapproachreviews.com/review-the-water-thief-by-jane-kindred/