• Author: Seann Barbour
• Series: Standalone
• Genre: Fantasy
• No. of pages: 271
• Dates read: 21.06.24 – 27.06.24
• Publication Date: 18/07/2024
• Star Rating: 5 stars

Plot: New Alms is a city of sin and vice, populated by all manner of criminals. The ruling Cerenite priests can barely keep order; not that they—or anyone else for that matter—ever try too hard. It’s a den of cutthroats and thieves, and there ain’t many thieves out there as talented or as skilled as Jackson Balor. When Jackson’s hired by a priest to steal an old mask, he thinks it’s just another job. But that’s before he sees the blasphemous shrine it’s housed in, before he starts getting followed around by bugs and birds and three-eyed cats, before he finds out that the mask was a vessel for the Wild God Ferengris, and that by filching it, he’s invited the Enemy of Civilization to take up residence inside his head. Now to save his own mind, Jackson’s gonna have to team up with the very Wild cult he stole the mask from and take it back from the Cerenite Temple. But the priests have their own plans for the Wild God’s artifact. They have their own ambitions for New Alms—and Jackson’s about to learn that there ain’t no room in their design for no-good criminal scum like him.

I haven’t done a proper book review since March 2024!!!! How crazy is that. I just haven’t had enough time to properly sit down and type one out. But today is the day it changes. I was approached by the author to read and review this before publication and this was the second time an author has reached out to me to review there book so I was nervous.

Now, I don’t know why I was nervous because this was a grand old time. This book was with me for many a commute so I really got to knuckle down and spend time with these characters and this world.

So on the surface this book is great for fans of Luke Arnold, Josiah Bancroft or Scott Lynch. If any of those authors appeal to you then you will find something of them in this book whether its a cracking narrative voice, a fun fantasy take on a real location or just a good old amount of heisting and thievery!

The stand out element of this book to me was the narrative voice. Told in a first person, and slightly meta, voice Barbour gives us a feel of sitting around the campfire as his hero commands the floor with tales of his exploits. There were multiple nods to the audience in this book which I personally love and it made me feel more connected with the character. It’s as if I am sitting there with him as he’s telling the story. The writing style did a great job of balancing the light-hearted and funny parts of the story with the more sombre notes as we get further down the plot line. By the end of this book you truly feel like you know Jackson which I think is great. There were a couple of times with this voice where I feel because, I believe the intended affect, you are meant to feel like you are sat by him as he tells you his tale, occasionally the text becomes a bit hand holdy. A bit of telling rather than showing. It didn’t take away from the experience but some things were over-explained a tad bit too much.

Now I don’t mind urban fantasy stories. I think they are fun. But what I prefer is a made up fantasy city. I would rather be in New Alms with all its magic and technology rather than a fantasy version of New Orleans. I like to be somewhere brand new and the city of New Alms was perfect. I could fully see Barbour writing more and more stories in this city as it’s so vast and we only scratched the surface of it with this book. Barbour did a great job of placing you firmly within the streets and alleyways of New Alms and my favourite had to be the character Lady Imogen’s manor. My god that place sounds gorgeous!

The characters in this book were great. We have a great narrator at the helm but I really enjoyed getting to know the other inhabitants of this tale. Barbour did a great job of creating a solitary figure character where the story doesn’t feel lonely because while ‘he may work alone’ the side characters he meets are so great and exciting. The best character has to be Ferengris. His back and forth dialogue with Jackson was so funny and he was by far the most compelling of the additional characters. There were times where Ferengris and Jackson’s dialogue did read very similar and at times that was a bit confusing as I didn’t picture a God Of Chaos sounding like a normal dude from New Alms but I think the vessel storyline might be the reasoning for that. Overall though watching these two characters live in each others head for 200+ pages was a right laugh!

If you want a funny, action-packed urban fantasy story with chaos gods and magical cats with 3 eyes then genuinely look no further than The Thief and the Wild by Seann Barbour.