Thief Errant: #1 Starcrossed by Elizabeth Bunce

Thief Errant: #1 Starcrossed

by Elizabeth Bunce

16-year-old Digger thrives as a spy and sneak-thief among the feuding religious factions of Gerse. But when a routine job goes horribly wrong and her partner and lover Tegen is killed, she disguises herself in a group of young nobles and sneaks out of the city. Accepted as a lady-in-waiting at the stronghold of the powerful Nemair, she finds new peace and friendship (and some new targets). But when an old client from the city comes to the castle, she realises her hosts may be planning the ultimate uprising against the king-and rather than true peace, she may be at the heart of the rebellion.

Reviewed by ladygrey on

3 of 5 stars

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I now have read two books titled Starcrossed. One was a HarperTeen book and this was the other one. Harper's [b:Starcrossed|9462795|Starcrossed (Starcrossed, #1)|Josephine Angelini|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1358266716s/9462795.jpg|10862992] has everything you expect from a good HarperTeen book: vivid romance and excitement and petulant heroines and hot guys. This one is decidedly different, quieter and more grounded; less vibrant but with more richly realized and diverse characters.

If you could combine the best elements of both books, you'd have something really spectacular. You couldn't call it Starcrossed anymore, you'd have to call it SuperNova.

I liked this book a lot and I wanted to love it. [a:Elizabeth Bunce|800019|Elizabeth C. Bunce|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1227139898p2/800019.jpg] has a great sense of fantasy words and names; her vowels and consonants roll over one another fantastically. She has created a complicated religious political structure and seems to think the best way to acclimate the reader to it is to throw as many foreign words in the beginning as often as possible. She's right but it's damned annoying. Mostly I forgave her, though, because she is right and because her characters have such great names; they're fun to read even when you have no clue about context.

The other great thing about this book are the characters. They're so much fun and so well realized. But there isn't enough of them. I wanted more Durrell Decath and more Raffin. I loved how Meri developed but wanted more of her interactions with Digger and Maryltte and even Phandre. And I love Weirolf and how his relationship with Digger developed. The character interactions were the best part so it was hard for so much of the story to focus on Digger moving around by herself and unraveling the plot. The plot was good, and it made sense that Digger would do a lot of things on her own. But I still would have enjoyed more interplay with all the other characters, because they were great.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 17 January, 2012: Finished reading
  • 17 January, 2012: Reviewed