Reviewed by Chris*

TITLE:  Eye of Truth

SERIES:  Alchemists and Elementals #1

AUTHOR:  Cassie Sweet

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  246 pages

BLURB:  

Theodyne Thespacian is a thief. Caught and imprisoned, he’s done his time and vowed never to return to the life of pulse-racing excitement and easy money. But when one of his former associates tells him about the Eye of Truth—an artifact that will open worlds of untold wealth—it seems like the perfect crime. However, for Theodyne, with the brand of a thief on his face, to be caught again means death. So instead he goes to the Villa of Nicodemus Valencia, the Master Alchemist who owns the artifact… and applies for a job.

Nicodemus descends directly from the founder of the Gold School, and of all those in that bloodline, he possesses the strongest gift for alchemy. His formulas have made him wealthy, though they’ve failed to give him the one thing he’s longed for most—love. When Theodyne appears at his Villa, he recognizes potential for alchemy and offers him apprenticeship. But then an ancient foe purged from the lands long ago reappears and threatens the Gold School, the Eye of Truth, and all the Dominical city-states. Nicodemus and Theodyne must now band together in courage to battle evil and can only hope they will not lose all they’ve come to hold dear.

REVIEW:  

Theodyne is a thief, and he has the brand on his face to prove it. Just released from prison, Theodyne does not hold out much hope for a better life than before–especially since his life before was, thieving aside, rather nice. But now he has no money, no family, no friends, and a brand on his face that means no one is going to trust him. With no prospects of having a way to feed himself past the night, Theodyne is mightily tempted by an old “friend’s” talk of The Eye of Truth, an artifact that could set him up for life. If he steals it, anyways.

But from the first moment Theodyne walks into Nicodemus’s villa he can tell that something is different. And when Nico offers him an apprenticeship in the alchemist guild under Nico himself, Theodyne is tempted to leave everything behind and follow the older man on nothing more than hope. Hope and perhaps a quickly growing attraction to the smart, kind, and powerful man offering him a future. But even if Theodyne takes the offer, he will have to contend with his past sins, and the growing darkness in the world around him.

This book has a very Italian flair to it, even though it is set in a fantasy world. Much like Italy during the Renaissance, Dominical is made up of a collection of city-states, each with their own ruling family. Unluckily for Theodyne the city where he lives (and ‘worked’) is run by the family of an ex-lover…which does not exactly help his prospects any. But that is actually a very small portion of his problems. The Church–again like Renaissance Italy–is power hungry and is becoming more and more vocal in their dislike for the alchemists. Mostly because they have money and power that the church wants. Which wouldn’t be a problem for Theodyne except he finds himself apprenticed to an alchemist, and falling in love with said alchemist.

The setting of this book was just great. I loved the general feeling of it. I don’t know much about the Renaissance time period, but I could definitely feel the history in this book–even if the book was not strictly speaking set in historical Italy. The author did a really good job of borrowing the sense of place and time, but also adding their own fantastical flair to the story. The alchemy blended seamlessly into the more historical aspects and really brought the story off the page.

Not that the slow-burning romance between Nico and Theodyne  didn’t help in that. There was pretty big spark between the two from the moment they met. Be it magic or chemistry, the two seemed to work well together and you could really see it. But you could also see the hesitation on both their parts. Theodyne can’t believe that someone like Nico is real and not going to vanish or change his mind. Nico is torn between his duty to teach Theodyne and his desire to love and show him the world around that has been going unnoticed for so long.

If I have one complaint it would be that the climax seemed a bit disjointed. There seemed to be several climaxes, actually, and the way they worked together was not as seamless as I would have liked. It meant that the rhythm was off for the last couple chapters and it made it feel like the author wasn’t quite sure where they wanted to end the book.

While you could definitely feel that this book is mostly laying the foundation for the coming books in the series, it didn’t hold back with the emotion and conflict. As a hook it worked perfectly because I know I have to read the rest of the series now.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner

Amazon

ARe

*I previously published my reviews under the name Carissa. As I work to update my profile on Love Bytes, please be aware that posts may be found under either my old name or my new name–depending on when they were originally posted. Hopefully the change-over will not take long and everything will be easier to find at the end of this all.