Review – Stolen Sorcery & Other Misadventures (Guild Codex: Warped, Book 4) by Annette Marie and Rob Jacobsen (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 282 pages
Publisher: Dark Owl Fantasy
Release Date: April 7, 2023
ASIN: B0BPRHNSF2
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Guild Codex Warped series
Source: Borrowed eBook from Kindle Unlimited
Rating: 4/5 stars
“What’s a hardworking MagiPol agent need to do to get a little R&R?
Between Agent Söze, the treacherous Internal Affairs tyrant who’s taken over my precinct, and the super illegal sorcery my partner Lienna was hiding in said precinct—which is now missing—my usual routine of busting magical criminals has fallen apart in favor of hectic damage control.
But that went out the window too when a respected Guild Master was found dead. Agent Söze is trying to cover it up, which is all the reason I need to make solving the murder my top priority.
Except now Agent Söze is trying to arrest and/or kill me. Not entirely unexpected, but both dangerous and highly irritating.
With the clock ticking on the next mysterious Guild Master murder, Lienna and I have to find a way to prove Agent Söze is behind it all. We need rock-solid evidence to bring him down, which is kind of tricky when crooked agents, shady allies, and cutthroat assassins keep complicating matters.
And if we don’t get to the bottom of it fast, my next day off will be in the morgue as another corpse to be swept under the corruption rug.”
Series Info/Source: This is the 4th book in the Guild Codex Warped series; there are five books planned for this series. I borrowed this on ebook through Kindle Unlimited.
Thoughts: I think this was probably the best book in the Guild Codex: Warped series so far. The Guild Codex: Warped series has been the weakest in the Guild Codex universe in my opinion. This book kicks things up a notch; we actually get to know the main characters a lot better and get to dive into Kit’s warping powers in more detail.
Kit and Lienna are trying to keep their heads down and out of trouble but the new leader of the MPD, Agent Soze, just has it out for them. Suddenly GMs are showing up mysteriously dead and Kit and Lienna have assassins hunting them down. They end up on the run, while trying to prove Agent Soze is behind it all.
This book was action-packed from start to finish and I really enjoyed it. We actually get to delve into both Kit and Lienna’s past a bit more and watch them open up to each other some. This has been an issue with the previous books in the series, the characters just haven’t seemed to have a lot of depth and history…this book starts to remedy that.
I also love the inclusion of portal magic and how we start to learn more about Kit’s warping powers and the limits of those powers. This has been another complaint of mine; Kit’s powers have seemed fairly limitless in the previous books and didn’t really follow any laws of magic. In this book we finally start to scratch the surface and gain a better understanding of his powers.
This book was super easy to read and very engaging. In previous books in this series I have really struggled with staying interested in the story and mainly read them just to get background for the other Guild Codex books. This book I actually enjoyed and stayed interested in the whole time. It helped that a lot of my other favorite Guild Codex characters were in the story as well. We get to spend time with Robin and Zylas, as well as Darias and a few other members of the Crow and Hammer.
My Summary (4/5): Overall this was the best book in the Guilde Codex: Warped series. I really enjoyed it a lot. The characters are finally gaining some depth, I enjoyed the plot, and the action was fantastic. I also enjoyed getting a better look at Kit’s warping magic and its limits. I am excited to see how the final book in this series “Mage Assassins & Other Misfits”, which is supposed to come out in Sept 2023, wraps things up for this series.
