River of Thieves by Clayton Snyder

Jason over at Off the TBR created Self-Published Fantasy Month. Its purpose is to feature more authors and their works during the month of September. Read about more about it here.

Snyder’s first book in his Thieves Lyric series starts off with quite a fun premise. Two partnered thieves run a ruse where Cord commits a robbery, hides the stash, and Nenn ‘kills’ him to make it look like a heist gone bad… but cursed Cord will reawaken in a bit and off they go with the money and the guards none the wiser. It’s worked several times, always with the results of sticking it to the oppressive King Mane.

Yet, while Cord and Nenn are ok with the small time money and the not-so-small-time money, it’s time to really get to the heart of the ruler’s power. They contrive a plan (‘Oh, No! Not another plan!’) to steal from the King’s bank. They collect a dream team: Lux, an undead sorta-wizard and Rek, the tea sipping/ cat loving muscle.

They make it to the city swilling beer and smoking up a bunch of slipweed along the way. Narrated by the take-no-shit badassery of Nenn, this story is full of wit and great belly laughs. Snyder has penchant for dialogue and imaginative fight scenes, and dying scenes (Spoiler: Cord dies several times and every one a cherished moment of gore and hilarity.)

The author cuts the narrative with great little stories of lore to increase the background and worldbuilding and to deepen the relationship between Cord and Nenn. There’s a good bit of sexual tension thrown in between Nenn and another one of the travelers… but I won’t say which one.

The book is a three-parter with the first part, the ‘final heist’ being just the intro to this collection of misfits. They continue to fight through the crown’s defenses and all the spies and gods in their midst…  Pirates and necromancers and spiders… thanks, I hadn’t had a fear of them until reading this book! Btw. I think I even caught a Neil Young lyric reference…

A very good opening book in what promises to be a fun series. Nenn and Cord have the banter and Synder adds the grim action and worldbuilding for them to play in.