Review: The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg


From Goodreads.com:

In a kingdom on the verge of a grand renaissance, where natural science has supplanted failing sorcery, someone aims to revive a savage rivalry...
For Portier de Savin-Duplais, failed student of magic, sorcery's decline into ambiguity and cheap illusion is but a culmination of life's bitter disappointments. Reduced to tending the library at Sabria's last collegia magica, he fights off despair with scholarship. But when the king of Sabria charges him to investigate an attempted murder that has disturbing magical resonances, Portier believes his dreams of a greater destiny might at last be fulfilled.

As the king's new agente confide, Portier - much to his dismay - is partnered with the popinjay Ilario de Sylvae, the laughingstock of Sabria's court. Then the need to infiltrate a magical cabal leads Portier to Dante, a brooding, brilliant young sorcerer whose heretical ideas and penchant for violence threaten to expose the investigation before it's begun. But in an ever-shifting landscape of murders, betrayals, old secrets, and unholy sorcery, the three agentes will be forced to test the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine...


A good, old fashioned fantasy book full of magic and mystery, every chapter of which I enjoyed and read non stop from page one and had a hard time putting down. The character building, world building and plot are wound together magically and beautifully, keeping the reader engaged from page one. One thing when I am reading a book with a lot of dialogue is I like to read the conversations out loud and see if it's "realistic" (well, as realistic as in the language and back and forth, rather than the topic itself), and "The Spirit Lens" has hit the mark. The characters and plot were amazing and definitely kept me engrossed and I escaped in to the world of Sabria.



Reviewed for Night Owl Reviews

disclaimer: I do not receive compensation for my reviews, books are provided at no cost in exchange for my HONEST and UNBIASED reviews. I am a hobby reader and reviewer.

1 comment

  1. Sounds like a great book, thanks for the review and the growing wish list.

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