Disclaimer: I bought this finished copy from a book box. Support your authors! All opinions are my own.

Book: Sorcery of Thorns

Author: Margaret Rogerson

Book Series: Sorcery of Thorns Book 1

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: Tall MC with anxiety. Bisexual character who uses a mobility device.

Recommended For...: young adult readers, fantasy, romance, demons, bookish book

Publication Date: June 4, 2019

Genre: YA Fantasy

Age Relevance: 14+ (violence, death, murder, gore, misogyny, abelism, attempted sexual assault, parental death, anxiety attacks, romance, PTSD)

Explanation of Above: There are some scenes with sword violence, death, murder, and blood gore. There are mentions and one showing of parental death. There are some instances of misogyny and abelism. There is an attempted sexual assault stated in vague terms but nothing is shown or mentioned and the actions are dealt with. There is an on page anxiety attack and PTSD is shown as well. There is some romance.

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Pages: 456

Synopsis: All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

Review: For the most part I really loved this book. I thought it was really well done and I loved the bookish elements combined with fantasy. I thought the story was pretty unique as well. The story revolves around Elisabeth who is training to work in one of the Great Libraries who becomes an unintended participant in a mystery when Library directors start dying and the books start attacking. The mystery leads her across the map on an adventure to figure out what’s going on. I felt that the character development was great overall and the world building was magnificent. The pacing was on point as well.

The only issue that I had with the book is that it felt very chosen one tropey and I wasn’t expecting that. The book was great and I loved it, but I didn’t expect it to lean into the chosen one, almost early 00s flavor style of it, pretty hard.

Verdict: It was great! Loved it!