Released May 25, 2021 

 

The Blacktongue Thief 

By. Christopher Buehlman 

@Torbooks 

P. 416 

Format: eArc 

Rating: **** 

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I received an e-arc from @Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

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The Blacktongue Thief is the start of a new fantasy series by the seasoned author, Buehlman. However, this is the first book that I have read of his. I was not disappointed. 

 

The book is told in first person from the perspective of Kinch Na Shannack a trained thief who owes his guild money. Up front Kinch tells you two truths about himself, and then you spend the whole rest of the novel wondering if he lied to you straight out. Kinch is a very unreliable narrator. He is very honest about this though. It adds a certain humor to the narration, but can leave the reader feeling a bit baffled. It was brilliantly done. 

 

Overall, the tale is pretty dark. It is Kinch’s own perspective that lightens things up a bit. But be warned that the novel is full of death, violence, and sex. On that end, it is a male authored fantasy with a male narrator that enjoys thinking about women. Although, while I could have done without the frequent ogling of women, I found the role women take in the novel refreshing. See all the men died so women basically took over and became the warriors, and everything else. It makes for a fairly liberated fantasy novel. I also appreciated that Kinch tended to focus his sexual obsession on one women so I no longer had to hear about him propositioning every female in sight. 

 

It was an interesting read and series that I plan on continuing with.