Book Review: The Legend of Eli Monpress

 

BOOK TITLE: The Legend of Eli Monpress

AUTHOR: Rachel Aaron

DESCRIPTION OF BOOK COVER: Rakish young man perched on top of a protruding gargoyle head looking out with a grin.

GENRE: Fantasy

PAGES: 1029

BLURB:

Eli Monpress is talented. He's charming. And he's a thief.

But not just any thief. He's the greatest thief of the age - and he's also a wizard. And with the help of his partners - a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls - he's going to put his plan into effect.

The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he'll need to steal some big things. But he'll start small for now. He'll just steal something that no one will miss - at least for a while.
Like a king.

The Legend of Eli Monpress includes the novels: The Spirit Thief, The Sprit Rebellion, and The Spirit Eater.

# OF STARS: 5

***

This omnibus (and the two books that follow, but I will reread them for the eighth time later) is a comfort read of mine. I love these books because they are quintessential fantasy: adventure, tons of magic, humor, goddesses, demons, and some wonderful characters. Eli is charming and kind of self centered, Josef is gruff and loyal and Nico is… complicated! Miranda is driven to her goals to capture Eli at all costs to bring her Spirit Court back to a golden reputation (that Eli has been inadvertently sullying with his activities).

It’s easy to dismiss books like this as being too simple or the characters too heroic, but these characters aren’t very heroic. They are driven certainly, but their goals are more self-centred than heroic. Eli wants to prove his worth by driving his bounty to a jaw dropping one million gold standards; Josef just wants to prove he is the best warrior in the world and Nico is, weirdly, the most selfless character given her background. Miranda is very upright, but even she will do some questionable things for her goals.

Even the side characters aren’t 100% pure and are often doing things that are very… human.

These books mix the right combination of adventure, humor, nail biting ick moments, and you really end up caring for this mismatched band of thieves and criminals (and the spiritualist chasing them down and getting into a lot of her own trouble as a result). And the last book that wraps it all up (Book 5) is immensely satisfying. Plus, plenty of rich detail.

Pros: Character driven fantasy with a strong plot, unique world building, humor, and lots of adventures. The characters are tight with each other and even when they have their differences, they still come together. The magic system stays logical and consistent which is important for good fantasy.

Cons: If you don’t like fantasy, you won’t like it. This is a straight up fantasy/adventure. No romance and although there is some character drama, it does get solved relatively quickly. It’s also a bit of an investment of time in that there are five books, each 350-400 pages. And you do want to read them in order, or you’ll get a bit lost.

I do recommend the omnibus for the first three books as then you’ll have them all in one place and then the last two books are separately released. I have them all on my Kindle.

These are some of my favorite books and if you enjoy fantasy and adventure, you’ll probably like them too!