Fantasy

The story of Skif, the thief eventually turned Herald who is mostly a child thief throughout this book. Abuse/neglect, and multiple references to sexual abuse of children though not in detail; Skif becomes a thief to escape his abusive uncle and then when his friends are killed sets himself a mission of revenge. Ends before he meets Talia. ( )

I like the books Mercedes Lackey writes, she is good at creating a believable world and people to populate it. While her writing is not the strongest I do find it engaging ang and enjoyable. I like a series I can live inside of and her books are ones that have characters I feel invested in and a world I believe could exist. ( )

Skif, the central character in this novel, was one of the main secondary characters in the original Herald books and in this novel, we get his back story from unappreciated orphan in his cousin's pub to trainee Herald via masterthief. This is mostly a lot of fun - Skiff isn't a particularly moral character and his life wasn't particularly fun filled but Lackey makes the life of a child thief rather fun even if it's as part of a gang of child thieves and their leader that would have made Fagin blush. The accents that Skiff and his fellows of Exile's Gate were a rather strange mixture of Dick Van Dyke Cockney and, I don't know what as well. ( )

http://allbookedup-elena.blogspot.ca/2013/12/take-thief-mercedes-lackey.html

We knew he was a thief, here's how he became one. And, how does a thief get chosen? Well, that's a funny story - one Skif didn't think was as funny at the time. I certainly did though. As I also did with the snorer's chorus he ran into on one of his adventures. ( )