Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson is a beautifully written world that will appeal to book lovers and make you want to live in its rich depths. It is a world in which certain books are magical, called grimoires, and are capable of magic and destruction if damaged. As a result, there are wardens who keep dangerous grimoires locked up and protect society from them in case of disasters and apprentices who are training to take on the mantle of warden in the future. Elizabeth Scrivener is one of those people, although she was left on the steps of the Great Library as a child and has grown up exploring its halls – unlike her peers.

Elizabeth Scrivener is one of my favourite new characters, but I’m a (future) librarian I’m biased. She is strong-willed, intelligent, loves to read, she’s super tall, fearless and determined. Her counterpart is a sorcerer, Nathanial Thorn, and she has been taught her whole life that sorcerers are evil and not to trust them. His type of sorcery is necromancy, which people immediately associate with death and evil. He also has a demon that he has sold his soul to in order to access his powers. That sounds like a person that you wouldn’t like, but I loved Nathanial. Together, they make a fantastic duo that immediately made me fall in love with them (and Silas). I wanted to stay on their adventures forever. I’m in love and I’m so heartbroken that these characters and this world have concluded (for now, I still have hope there will be more stories in this world.)

Although there were some scenes that lagged and probably could have been cut to make the book flow more smoothly, I loved the entire story. The plot. The characters. The world. I wish that the author had allowed the climax and conclusion of the book to flow just as smoothly, because that was the one aspect that felt incredibly rushed to me. It was built so gorgeously up to a point and then it was suddenly done. I was left with a sense of disappointment and confusion, because it was clear it needed a few more chapters to truly coalesce into what it was meant to be. Other than that, it is one of my new favourite books and would have been perfect (true 5-star) if the ending hadn’t seemed too perfect and easy.

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