Magic Lost, Trouble Found

Title:	Magic Lost, Trouble Found
Author:	Lisa Shearin
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Benares (1)
Ranking:	Poor
LibraryThing:	Title:Magic Lost, Trouble Found ISBN:978-0-441-01505-4 (Add Book)
Read:	2008-07-31

My name is Raine Benares. I'm a seeker. The people who hire me are usually happy when I find things. But some things are better left unfound.

Thoughts

I used the 50-page rule on this book; actually, I got to page 84 before I decided to check if I'd read 50 pages to give the book a fair go. But even by page 84, I didn't really care whether I found out what was going to happen next or not.

Reading the blurb of this made it look like fun; a likeable sympathetic main character, some peril, some interesting magic, a conundrum to solve. Unfortunately, while it did deliver that, it didn't do it in the proportions I was hoping for. My greatest disappointment was that the world-building left somewhat to be desired. You see, the heroine is supposed to be an Elf. But she comes across like a human who just happens to have pointy ears. All the characters do. Not quite as bad as reading an account of a D&D campaign (no random monsters and no dungeons with random treasure) but since I like my non-humans to be non-human, and my cultures to be Other -- especially after having a lovely dose of culture-clash with Fledgling -- this book was not what I wanted to read.