Relics isn’t the sort of book I’d normally read.  It’s a book that involves selling relics from the fantasy world.  Unicorn horns, nymphs, fairies, satyrs – you’ll find them all in this book.  However, since the protagonist in the book was a researcher in the field of criminology, I figured I’d give it a shot – criminology does interest me.

Story

The book takes us to London and follows Angela as she attempts to find her missing boyfriend, Vince.  Vince has mysteriously dropped off the grid, and Angela takes to the streets to find him.  Her first surprise is that he only does freelance work for the real estate company that is purportedly responsible for his full time employment.  The bigger shock is that he works as a relic hunter, tracking down relics of fantasy creatures for a notorious criminal’s personal collection.  When Angela meets someone even more scary than the crime boss, her heads starts to spin.  What the hell is going on, exactly?  Before she can try to make sense of it, she needs to shake the people that are following her so that she can find Vince.  She cobbles together a motley team of allies to help her – but will they be in time?

There’s plenty of action in the book, as well as more subtle conflicts as well.  Definitely a lively tale.

Characters

Lebbon’s characters are definitely fascinating.  It’s a diverse cast that includes characters from the human and fantasy realms.  The characters definitely feel alive, with plenty to like (or hate) in their personalities.  I felt that it was very easy to identify with Angela, and also easy to hate the antagonists.

Verdict

I read the book mostly because the protagonist was a criminologist.  As it turns out, there’s not actually very much criminology in the book – most of the plot involves the supernatural aspects of the story.  It was grounded enough in the human world to avoid losing me in the details.  The tone is definitely serious, with a lot of negative events occurring.  While I don’t typically read books in the fantasy genre, I did enjoy Relics.

Relics is available for sale on March 21.

[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Relics for review purposes.]

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Kosmo is the founder of The Soap Boxers and writes on a variety of topics. Many of his short stories have been collected into Kindle books.

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