James Riley (4) (1977–)

“Think about it this way. You thought of yourself as alone for many years, fighting against Dr. Verity. But there were hundreds, even thousands of readers on my world who lived with you. Who felt every victory, every defeat, and want more than anything for you to win. Who cried, actually cried when they thought you died. Those are the people you’re trying to make suffer, the ones who’ve been on your team this entire time.”

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Have you ever wished to meet show more your favourite character from a book or wondered what it would be like to live their life? I bet you have because I know I have. We’re just like Owen, a young boy who finds real life to be incredibly boring and dull. With the help of his librarian mother, Owen constantly loses himself in books but mostly the stories of Kiel Gnomenfoot. It isn’t until he sees one of his classmates - a quiet girl named Bethany - climb out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with chocolate on her fingers that he realizes he might actually get to meet his hero. All he has to do is convince Bethany to take him into one of the Kiel Gnomenfoot books.

The thing is, Bethany has always kept to herself because of what happened during her fourth birthday party - when she jumped all of the guests and her dad into a book but lost her dad on the way back. She’s terrified of what could happen if anyone finds out her secret. But she wants a friend and she thinks Owen just might be that person. Little do either of them know, things are about to get a little too real.


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While reading this book, I had many moments where I couldn’t help but gush about it to my boyfriend and best friend. They’re basically the only people I have to talk about books and even they said that it sounded amazing from how I was describing it. I don’t think I’m going to go as in depth in this review as I did when talking to them about it. So here are some things that I absolutely loved about Story Thieves, in bullet points:

- Bethany. She was my absolute favourite character and it wasn’t just because she was half fictional (although that did play a big part because seriously? How cool is that). Following along as she changed right on the pages as if I was the author writing her story was the best part. She was so cautious and afraid to let anyone in at first. When she finally took Kiel’s advice and embraced the fictional half of herself, it was like watching as a caterpillar turned into a butterfly.

- The twists and turns. I never expected that Owen would have to play out the last book as Kiel or that the Magister was going to end up being bad or that there would be a robot heart to save the day. There are so many more examples I could give as to why this book had me hooked from the very first page. I was pleasantly surprised by this, to be honest, because when I first started reading I was expecting it to be something like “a T-Rex loose in New York” but with a fictional character running rampant in the real world but it took that idea and made it into something amazing.

- The manner in which each chapter jumps back and forth between Bethany and Owen and their respective quests. It left so many scenes hanging and had me excited to find out what would happen next.

- The development of all the characters. Even if it was a negative development (like with the Magister), it was still incredibly to watch the characters change. The main characters - Bethany, Owen and Kiel - changed so much in just 383 pages that it’s almost unbelievable. The trials that the face - and the fact that they almost lose their lives multiple times.


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James Riley definitely doesn’t disappoint with this tale of magic and evil and technology and monsters and real people versus fictional characters. Story Thieves was such a fun read. Although it was intended for a much younger age group, it was fast paced, hilarious and all around incredible. show less

I'd say this book goes into the fun category. It's a magical mixed up scenario that kids should enjoy. Here's the story in a nutshell.

Bethany has a special ability to jump in and out of books. Why can she do this? Well, oddly enough, her father is a fictional character who managed to get out of a book and meet her mother, so she's half fiction, half real. Yeah, I know. Bizarre. Problem is that Bethany's father has been missing since Bethany accidentally lost him in one of her book show more excursions.

Owen, and apparently a good portion of the population, is a boy obsessed with the Kiel Gnomenfoot series. Unfortunately for Bethany, he sees her jump out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and there begins the craziness. He convinces Bethany that if she will take him into his favorite book for just 5 minutes, he can steal a spell that will help her find her father, but secretly Owen wants to be a hero in the book and change the ending. Bethany knows the problem that will occur if the story is altered.

As you can imagine, everything goes wrong. Owen ends up telling the master magician, Magister, that he is a fictional character written by another person. Magister freaks out about this and is upset that his whole life has been out of his control. He and Kiel end up getting out of the book when Bethany is under a spell and wreaking havoc in the real world as Magister tries to free all the characters from books. Bethany gets stuck dealing with that while Owen's dream comes true when he an entity called Nobody inserts him into Kiel's character until he can bring Kiel back from the real world. Throughout the remainder of the book we go back and forth between Owen playing out the plot in the Kiel book and Bethany trying to get the Magister out of the real world.

It's a fun read. The two girl characters, Bethany and a book character called Charm who interacts with Owen/Kiel are feisty. They don't put up with nonsense and constantly let Owen know that he is an idiot. He is the one who caused the whole fiasco in the first place. There are also thematic questions to ponder. Is it really bad for the characters to lack free will? After all, they make millions of people happy when they read the stories. Do we need a magical, action filled life to be happy or is it better to just visit those fantasies through books?

My only frustration with the book is that I didn't understand who the Nobody character was. He is not part of a story or in the real world, so who is he? I guess that will be explained in one of the sequels. show less

A great start to The Revenge of Magic series. This world has seen terror and some have seen grief and I am glad that they have found magic to help fight back. I feel bad for Fort, he seems to be hell bent on revenge. That started to change throughout the story, as he found friends, but the ending left me wondering if that need for revenge isn't coming back.

Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

I love the concept and the story overall, but the writing bothered me. It wasn't very good, and seemed like the author was thinking "oh, I'm just writing for 12-year-olds, they won't care if the writing's just okay." Or maybe that's just James Riley's style? I probably would have enjoyed this book more if I was 10 at first read, not a young adult.