The first book in a fantasy trilogy Foundryside.
Format: Audio
Length: 19 hours 34 minutes
Publication year: 2018
Narrated by: Tara Sands
Sancia Grado is a very good thief, thanks to her magical abilities. In this world, all magic is called scriving and you can only scrive things, not people. Sancia lives in the city of Tevanne which is ruled by four powerful merchant houses. Since she's not a member of a house nor a wealthy person, she lives in the Commons where there are very few laws.
Someone has offered Sancia a very lucrative job to steal a box from the harbor but she must not look inside. She can't say no so she's heading to the harbor to steal the box. Her fence, who gave her the job, also gave her magical objects. Even though the job is harder than she thought, she manages to steal the box. But then her problems only start: someone wants to murder her. That someone kills her fence and forces her on the run. She also looks inside the box and finds a very powerful magical object, a key that can talk right into her mind. He calls himself Clef and can change the balance of power in the city.
The magic system is fascinating. Magic is used in an industrialized manner and is also described like technology. It has firm limits. Carving ancient sigils into things changes them: makes them better at what they already do or changes what they can do. Carving sigils into people has been experimented on but it hasn't worked. Except with Sancia and only because of her past. Even she has headaches when she uses her power too much.
She has the ability to talk with objects, for example, make a wall tell her where its weakest spot is or make a lock tell her how to pick it. It's a fascinating ability and of course, makes her an exceptional thief. However, she can't turn it off. Unless she's wearing gloves, she "reads" everything she touches, including people's skin. She's been on her own for years and doesn't trust anyone. The fence was the closest thing she had to a friend. Perhaps not unexpectedly, she uses a lot of sarcasm and snark.
Sancia is the main POV character but we get also multiple other POV characters later in the book. Clef has a wry sense of humor that makes the tone lighter despite some of the heavy themes, such as slavery and fighting oppression. The second POV is pretty much the opposite of Sancia. Gregor Doanldo is the only son of a powerful merchant house and he's a soldier. But he loathes injustice and wants to make Tevanne a just city. To do that, he wants to establish a city watch. However, the merchant houses, including his own mother, are against it. Another POV is a scriver who carves the sigils into objects.
This was a great start to a wonderful series. I loved Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy and this trilogy feels that it can be just as great.
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