By Ari Marmell
Pyr, $16.95, 280 pages

Adrienne Satti has been hiding for years – running from false charges of murder, she has reinvented herself as Widdershins, a thief at the top of her game. Her past comes back to haunt her, though, when her thieving suddenly becomes deadly and multiple parties are out to kill her. As she starts investigating, though, Widdershins finds that the answers lie in the past that she is running from, a past she will have to face in order to move forward.

Thief’s Covenant is the first book in the Widdershins series by author Ari Marmell and starts out with a great concept – a young girl in hiding who is strong, loyal and smart. Widdershins, though, is headstrong to the point of annoyance – she makes rash decisions with no thought, has illogically strong emotional reactions to circumstances, and appears to have no insight into herself or her choices. This is a fine place to start from, but the character doesn’t develop or change throughout the story. The use of the flashbacks, also, is not useful in this novel – there are no segues, and the transition from past to current storyline is jarring. These things, unfortunately, keep the book from being great.

Reviewed by Barbara Cothern

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