by Lian Turner
278 pages of adventure fantasy
I’m going to work to see if the Imitation of Nothingness works – it would be very handy!
After I finished the Museum of Thieves I had so many questions that I was uncertain of how I felt about the book. I wasn’t sure of the main message – was it freedom, was it being wary of the cruelty that comes from lust for power, was it listening to the voice within and acting on what you know in your heart to be right? Why was the museum alive with wildness? Is wildness good?
Some of those questions still remain now that I have completed the second in the Keeper Trilogy, The City of Lies, but I am not bothered by the wondering. I am looking forward to the Path of Beasts to see if I will find the answers. (I hope so.) The city of Jewel is still troubled but is recovering from the floods and the warped greed of the Fugleman and the Blessed Guardians. Goldie is trying to decide if she is needed more by her parents or the museum. She has been asked to become the 5th keeper and she would dearly like to take her place with Sinew, Herro Dan, Olga Ciavolga and Toadspit – Morg and Broo too. The challenge is that her parents have not recovered from their sentence in the House of Repentence when she first ran away. They are ill and frightened. They depend on her and she feels the guilt and shame of having brought on their frailties.
While trying to make her decision, Goldie visits Toadspit, Bonnie his brave sister follows and is kidnapped. Goldie and Toadspit follow to rescue her and Toadspit is caught. Now it is up to Goldie to rescue them both in the wild city of Spoke during the Festival of Lies when everything is backward and upside down and only the opposite is true.
The magic that surrounds the lives of those who live in these books add a touch of mystery that makes you wonder – true or not. No- it might be – well, maybe a little. What will happen to Mouse? How does he tell fortunes? What doesn’t he talk? What about Pounce? What about the cat? Why are animals, long thought to be extinct returning? How is that part of the overall plan? The new villains are not so new, but still just sinister as ever. At the end there may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon. We’ll have to wait until October to see. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.
Another fun twist for me was learning that semaphore, margrave and margravine, bombardon and skerrick are real words. The first means communicating messages with a flag system. The second and third words on my list are the male and female titles given in medieval times to the families of the king’s protectors. The fourth is an instrument like a tuba. And the last means a very small piece of shred. I’m glad I looked to see if they were real or not – they were!