Magic Lost, Trouble Found - Rated 
Magic lost, trouble found is a book of strong and interesting characters placed in an equally solid fantasy world. This is more fantasy than anything but being set in the fantasy city of mermeia it has an urban feel to it.
The book follows a short span of Reine Benares life as she tries to work her way out of a rather tricky sistuation. She's a seeker, she finds things and has moderate magical ability, this doesn't bother our heroine and the fact that thanks to a friend of hers she gets lumped with a powerful stone that exponentially enhances her magical skills doesn't sit well with her. This book thrives on the difficult and sometimes funny situations are heroine gets into, she lands into one mess after the other but its her her attitude that really makes this book shine; she's a lead that exudes a great deal of control not only in herself but in how she manages to effect the situations she's manuvered into without being in your face and gun-ho, she's clever thoughtful and her first person narrative works well.
The narrative is descriptive and gives a good sense of a fantasy world thats claustrophic and atmospheric, though the world does seem a bit narrow.
The rest of the characters are without exception drawn perfectly, all of their places in the book are just right. The characters and plot develope very nicely and the next book is set up whilst giving this a good ending.
This makes for a strong read; I think why I like it so much is because of its subtly, this extends to everything from the world to the characters and particually Reines's love life, theres a couple of men in her life but her scenes with them fit in with the plot and don't feel stuck on. If you like this I would reccommend poison study by Maria v. synder as its got a similar tone to this.
meet raine - Rated 
a new fantasy series of books begins with magic lost, trouble found, introducing main character raine benares. living in a typical fantasy city she is an elf lady and a seeker. a lady who finds magic objects for people. even though they may need to remember the old saying about being careful what you want. streetwise and cunning, she's caught up in a recovery of an object gone wrong. and as a result gets stuck with a deadly artefact and all sorts of people on her tale who are to get it.
The book runs for roughly 342 pages and is pretty much self contained although there's room for further adventures for the main character come the end.
Alas I can't quite give this five stars because whilst the main character is appealing and there's some nice ideas and decent world building here I didn't find it as smooth a read as I was expecting. The prose didn't quite grab and there are a lot of strange character names to take in.
But view this as a promising first novel and it's just about enough to make me try more by the writer. So I have her second book on order.
hmmm - Rated 
hmmm.... I read the whole book but it was a struggle..basically I found this book boring, to long for the unexciting storyline and it is written in first person which is not the authors strong point. There is no depth to the story the characters are dry and one dimensional..I don't like giving bad reviews but I wont be buying the other books in the series (those people who gave the book five stars must be friends to the auther..or maybe its just me?). If you want to buy it do so, but if I was you I'd try reading 'Magic Study' by Maria V. Snyder which I brought at the same time as 'magic lost trouble found' all I can say is one is in the bin and the other one has drive me to buy the second in the series.
Original fantasy - Rated
This is a single, well-written story. It is written as though narrated by the main character, who has a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour throughout. The characters are good and, more importantly, the world in which they live is rich and interesting. The characters possess various magical abilities that puts them into broad categories (seeker, guardian, spellsinger, etc.) - all of which I found to be quite original and well thought-out.
There are several places where it is difficult to know which character is supposed to be speaking, and in a few places the plot elements make very little sense... but overall the book is well worth reading if you like to see a strong female as a central character.
Sword and Sorcery Adventure - Rated
Lisa Shearin writes the first book to a fabulous sword and sorcery adventure.
This story begin with Raine and her cousin Phaelan standing in a alley way across from a very nasty necromancers home watching Raine's friend Quentin attempt a break and enter. This is the start to a wicked old style adventure story with a touch of romance to cap it off. Once Quentin retrieves the amulet he is commissioned to steal, the amulet bonds to Raine who at this point is a sorceress with only moderate powers. The amulet is the conduit to an alien rock call the Soul Stealer. This stone has great power and with Raine bonded to the conduit that power is available to Raine if she so choices. In a world where sorcery is the norm, great power is the ideal and the Soul Stealer has limitless power a lot of bad people would do anything to have that power for themselves regardless if Raine is dead or alive.
I brought this book by chance and I am very glad. Excellent Book, great world building looking forward to the next in the series.
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