Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Sorcery of Thorns

by Margaret Rogerson
Published: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2019
Pages: 464
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Amazon, Goodreads

There is always more than one way to see the world. Those who claim otherwise would have you dwell forever in the dark.

About the book

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

Review

Sorcery of Thorns is set in a world in which books live; they bleed, hurt and are often dangerous, especially those called grimoires which hold spells and other magical information for sorcerers. Elisabeth, a young apprentice librarian who grow up in one of the Great Libraries after be abandoned as a baby, is woken up one night by one of the grimoires breaking free - and becoming a malefict, a hideous monster grimoires transform into when they become defective. She uncovers a shocking, deadly secret that threatens the world she’s always known.

The world is what I love most about this book. I’ve always felt like books were alive to me, that they all hold stories and are just waiting for me to pick them up so they can tell me about it.

The author parallels the importance of literature with the reverence given to grimoires in Sorcery of Thorns. Librarians have dangerous jobs; they are trusted with grimoires and are often exposed to physically threatening circumstances, such as a feisty grimoire who will bite off your fingers if you get too close. I can tell the author really loves literature.

They were knowledge, given life. Wisdom, given voice. They sang when starlight streamed through the library’s windows. They felt pain and suffered heartbreak. Sometimes they were sinister, grotesque - but so was the world outside. And that made the world no less worth fighting for, because wherever there was darkness, there was also so much light.

My favorite stories are those centered around badass, independent, sassy women who don’t need no man, and this book is no exception!

Elisabeth is highly intelligent, sarcastic, brave, bold, loyal and the kind of person you want on your side when shit goes down.

Was that a thing people just did - just gave up? When there was so much in the world to love, to fight for? “I cannot,” she said fiercely. “I never will.”

I really loved Elisabeth's character, as well as Nathaniel’s and Silas’s.

RATING (out of five puppies)