The Magician's Guild - Trudi Canavan

I picked this book up from a Charity Shop in my home town centre a few years ago, this particular shop I always felt was awesome. It was a relatively large shop, split across two sites, one of which was filled with books. It was crooked, and packed, and there was a guy who used to volunteer there, I'm not sure if he still does, who could tell you off the top of his head if just about any book was currently available. This shop moved sites about a year and a half ago to the main street, this meant it was smaller, all on one site, had ready traffic (it'd always been a bit out of the way before), but also that the book part got relegated to the basement. It's still my favourite charity shop to look around, but it lost something in that move in my opinion. 

Anyway, I saw this book and I bought it. Nothing more went through my mind, the entire Black Magician trilogy was there, and frankly it was beautiful. I came home and put the books to one side; because to be honest I was a little scared they wouldn't live up to the expectations I'd managed to build up while carrying them around for an hour.

Occasionally I would think 'I have those caravan books....' but for a while they were lost in my bookcase, I find this is a not infrequent problem, and I'm excited for the day when I'll have enough shelf space to see all my books, although I'm not convinced it will last. Anyway earlier this year I found them, and since I've been on a bit of a series binge this year I decided to read the whole lot. 

The Magician's Guild I would say did live up to my expectations. It had a unique concept of magic, which at the same time was not indifferent to previous worlds. It conveyed a real sense of danger to Sonea, but at the same time I could see why she would hide from the guild, the very people who have always posed a danger to the existence of her family.

I like the way in which the writing would be able to reach to a wide range of audiences. 

All in all it was one of the best fantasy books I've read in a while and it's a shame I put it off.

Rowen

I'm hoping to post a kind of Advent Calender on the blog, because I'm way behind on my reviews and I'd like to have them at least tamed by the new year. 

25 Days to go