Megan Whaler Turner - The Thief (and series)

The Thief is the first book in a four part series about a trio of small Kingdoms.

This is really a trilogy, with the fourth book wrapping up some loose ends and giving us a different point of observation.

I started reading this series over the weekend based on a review by Unshelved, a great site for illustrated recommendations of not-so-famous books.

The review they posted is pretty good, so I am going to direct interested readers there

A snapshot of Gene's review is below -

"Why I picked it up: I’ve never been disappointed with a book in this series. That puts it up there with Llloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles and Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea Books.

Why I finished it: Sophos’ long first person narrative had me a little worried, but by the time the story catches up with the prologue, I needed to see how he handled his new responsibilities. Turner’s novels sneak up on me like that -- the details build in a way that’s not completely obvious to me until I suddenly find that I’m 100% invested in the story and cannot put it down. Each of the other books in the series also has a satisfying twist that I didn’t see coming, and this was no exception. "

For my own review, my favorites of the books wereThe Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia. The first book served as a very nice prequel to the series and A Conspiracy of Kings was like a nice dessert cleanser for the palate. The hidden love story of the Queen and the King was just delicious!