Quick-take: Thieves of High Fantasy.

Dan's Review

Theft of Swords contains 2 books in a single volume The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha.

The Crown Conspiracy

Royce Melborn and Hadrian Blackwater are two thieves with loyalty to no one. Through cleverness, they get roped into and blamed for an assination. An epic journey of escape and rescure ensues.

Overall, I enjoyed this "Part 1" (since the author decided these are no longer separate books). If anything, it moves fast. There is 1 major plot oddit that botered: The detour to visit the wizard. This seemed to contain no purpose at all. The wizard did drop a couple useful nuggets of information, but that could've been found regardless. Then the incredibly powerful wizard is gone.

The two thieves are simply too skilled. The old meme about "playing 4D chess while everybody else is playing checkers" holds true with these two. Every scene shows them at masters of another handy skill.

Avempartha

Fast forward a few years later from The Crown Conspiracy, and Royce and Hadrian are recruited by a young girl to help her father slay a beast in a small village.

We learn more about the history of the area and some lore about elves. There is a mystical tower with a lot of interesting pieces to it. My big question is... this tower has been sitting here for 1,000 years and nobody has figured out a way to get inside it? And supposedly these 2 thieves will be able to do it?

There are some decent fight scenes, and the ending was interesting. I am trying to see the author's motivation to have the two of these together, and I don't see it. I thought Book 1 stood well enough on its own, and book 2 has a bit of a cliffhanger. Ah-ha! That's why the 2 are joined. Book 1 closed everything out too cleanly. The author wants readers to end on a cliffhanger to lead into the next book. That's why these are bundled now.

Score: 4. Read book 1 and then decide if you want book 2. I plan to move on to book 3.