The Spirit Thief

The Legend of Eli Monpress, Book 1

By: Rachel Aaron

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

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. He’ll just steal something that no one will miss - at least for a while.

Something like a king.

©2010 Rachel Aaron (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"After a slow start, debut author Aaron pulls the action together and turns in a romp of a lighthearted fantasy starring an absolutely darling rogue." ( Publishers Weekly)

Great start to the series!

I bought this because it sounded promising and because I am a big Luke Daniels fan. I was not disappointed. The story is an interesting one, and it kept my attention the whole time. I'm not sure why, but Josef reminds me of Inigo Montoya. Great book, I bought the next two books and can't wait to start listening. Luke Daniels is great, as usual.

Very fun book.

What made the experience of listening to The Spirit Thief the most enjoyable?

The narrator was wonderful. The characters had different voices and the pacing and emphasis on words was perfect.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Spirit Thief?

I loved how much fantasy was in it. I am a older reader and I found the whole tone of the book refreshing.

Have you listened to any of Luke Daniels’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No i have not

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Not really I just found it interesting and enjoyable.

Fun story with promise of more.

Luke Daniels is perfect for this series. I may need to listen again to the last bit to keep straight all the characters fates.

Talking doors?

Enjoyable but hard to conceive of the concept
Narrator did an Enjoyable job of reading the book

it was fine

The book was fine. I expected a light, breezy fantasy novel, I wanted a light breezy novel and I got it. I don't regret listening to it, and the characters were fun, but I didn't fall in love with any of them and don't feel the need go and buy the sequels. If I found them at the library I'd probably read them, but I don't care enough to spend money on it.

fun adventure, looking forward to a sequel

It was a fun adventure, worth a listen. I will look for more in this series.

Entertaining light fantasy

This is the first book in a series and IMO, it is the weakest of the three. That said, this is a charming fantasy that introduces really entertaining and endearing characters and a really interesting system of magic. Because of that, and because I wouldn't want a first novel to turn people off of the series as a whole (which gets better and better with each book) I am still giving the story four stars for this review.

Basically everything is the world is imbued with a certain amount of 'spirit' or self-awareness and power. Most little spirits are asleep most of the time and owe a sort of allegiance to greater spirits who correspond to different elements such as Air/Winds, Earth/Mountains, Water/Rivers, Fire/Volcanoes, etc.

There are wizards who make deals to align with certain spirits to carry them around in rings on their fingers, making friendships and trading their protection for the ability to call on the spirits' powers when needed. These 'Spiritualists' also protect the spirit world and try to make sure that the spirits aren't being misused or taken advantage of.

Into this comes a Thief, Eli Monpress, who is determained to have the highest bounty ever taken placed on his head. He has a secret ability that helps him in his work that is explained during the book and is basically your charming rogue character- but he is REALLY charming and fun to listen to.

He travels with a swordsman who carries an 'awakened blade'- a self- aware sword that is unstoppable when it is in tune with its wielder. The swordsman, Johan, also has a mysterious young girl as a companion. She wears a huge magical coat and and manacles.

A young Spiritualist, Miranda Lyonette, who is talented and takes her work VERY seriously, is dispatched when the Spiritualist Court learns that Monpress has kidnapped the king of a country that doesn't even believe in magic. She rides off on her companion Ghosthound Gin (think sort of like the dragon in the Neverending Story- you totally want one, you know you do!) and they ride off to apprehend Monpress.


But things are much worse than either group bargains for and the Thief and the Spiritualist end up forming an uneasy alliance. One thing I particularly enjoyed is that the author stays away from any cliched romance and really is interested in developing each character as a person.

When you throw in things like an all-powerful demon trapped under a mountain, a mercurial Lady who seems to be the mystical protector of the world with an unhealthy interest in Eli Monpress, an eerie 'League of Storms' who have the job of hunting down smaller demon seeds which have escaped into the world, a bunch of panicked and mostly useless courtiers and a resourceful librarian- this story goes from action to farce to magic to combat and back very comfortably and I had a fun time following it.

I like heavy-duty real, gritty, violent fantasy very much. But after some George RR Martin or Joe Abercrombie, these books are really refreshing! Well written and the characters and world only get more interesting as the books go on. These are clever, and the combat scenes, while less gory than the authors I just mentioned, are well thought out and suspenseful. I've read all the books so far in the series and will be getting the others from Audible too. My 12 year old son is listening to this book now and also really enjoying it.

Intresting Concetp but not there yet

The story was an interesting concept of a thief who is also a magic user, who is out to raise his bounty, nothing else. He generally seems like a nice enough guy, though there are points where is just wishy washy between good guy and callous jerk.

I enjoyed the concept and l where it looks like the story is headed. This is the first book of a trilogy, so I understand not explaining everything write a way. You want to dangle hints to make readers go deeper into the next books. However in this particular series I feel like EVERYTHING was left dangling and nothing was explained. Even about the world.

The world issues: Magic - there is spirit magic, where the mages work with the spirit of everything. Okay got it. They can't really use the human spirit and why isn't really explained in fact all you know if that they can talk to spirits, make deals with them, ask them to do stuff, or in some cases forcibly control them, and that is just plain wrong. that's it that is all you know about the magic in the world, until along comes another organization that is also mages but use a different type of magic or use spirits differently, or something. Its not really explained expect they are not huge fans of the spiritualist and the feeling is mutual.

Main character issues: He's mage, a spiritualist, But I guess was never trained as one? He's a thief, and apparently the greatest thief ever, but why he is a thief, or how he got his reputation, not really sure. He is stealing things to increase the bounty on his head, that's it. That's all he wants, but why? You can guess but its never explained. He has 3 odd companions (we'll get to their issues in a moment) but why they are together, where the loyalty between the three of them is coming from, is left completely open and it is a fairly strong loyalty.

Companion characters issues: Booth the Thief's and the main Spiritualist have companions, the thief has two. Both with VERY potent secrets of their own, which you do learn, (YAY information) some of them. But what you don't learn ANYTHING about is how these 3 ended up together, and why the bond between them is so strong, there is definitely a story there, you get hints at the very end about it, but nothing more, nothing to make you invest in any of them. The Spiritualist has a dog (ish) a very large, intelligent beast, with its own powers. A loyal companion as dogs are. except he is not a dog, and I venture to guess even more powerful then she is, yet she is his master and his loyalty complete, he will die for her and his faith in here is beyond that of servant to master. He is her companion for a reason, you can tell that and you figure out toward the end its by his choice. But what happened to her, or what is she, or what did she do for him to earn that, nothing is mentioned.

Perhaps all of these will be addressed in the next two books, but book one, which should hook you, left me with nothing to grip on the characters except questions, and I HATE series that drag you along and reveal everything at the very end, I like my information spread out or at least enough hints to make me WANT to delve in, there is nothing here to get me invested in the story besides the fact it could be a really great concept if fleshed out.

Fantastical and witty, but not very well-read

Interesting Premises, held down by mediocre narration. The magic system is especially unique
It's pretty back-loaded as far as stories go, but I still found it engaging and fun
the narrator was quite robotic. though. He didn't sound like he was speaking naturally.

Great start to a new series

This thoroughly enjoyable story was satisfying in itself and only made more so by knowing that there is more to come.The narration is excellent which, in itself, goes a long way towards making a great audiobook. Since the author chose to skip throwing in gratuitous sex and violence to divert the reader's attention away from her storytelling abilities, the use of the language and the development of the characters and plot have to carry the full weight of the book. As it turns out, that is not a problem for this author. I will be downloading the second and third volumes tonight and hope that there will be more to follow soon.

Long live Eli Monpress.