I originally read this book 10 years ago, on a whim because I could not for the of me remember an author name. I had been wanting to read John Moore, who writes amusing fantasies as well. when sending my dad out to get me those books he returned with this one. it's a fantasy, author's last name is Moore and it's amusing so far as he could see.

Best mistake ever. ( )

A fun little fantasy story. Characters were not developed extremely deeply. It was fun. Don't know if I will go on with the series. ( )

Not bad, not great. 2 1/2 stars if I could.

I like Shintaro Karish. He's an interesting person with hidden depths. Lee on the other hand, needs a good wallop across the backside. She's not the most reliable narrator and her attitude could do with some major adjustment. Her I found to be quite annoying and irritating.

I found the Matching circle to be a bit *too* much like the Hatching grounds in the Pern books, sans the hot sands, clutch of eggs and a golden queen. In fact, the history of the world the Sources and Shields protect sounds an awful lot like McCaffrey's background for the colonizers of Pern ... Hmmm.

Once Moore gets away from her background, however, she sets up an interesting world with problems of its own. The characters are well written and well rounded. The villain comes across as a little two dimensional, but I think most villains are in some ways in any case. However, his grievance sounds quite plausible ... It'll be interesting to see how she develops the themes in later books. ( )

This book (and series) has a number of things going for it:

(1) A really interesting premise.
(2) Two really interesting main characters, with a fascinatingly awkward relationship between them. The heroine is a bit clueless relationally, which makes the story more entertaining. We don't know much about the hero (nothing is told from his perspective); we just see the heroine get to know him better, but we also suffer from her misunderstandings. The hero has an interesting background which is only hinted at in this book, but is developed to great effect in later volumes.
(3) A decent mystery story.
(4) Plausible bad guys, with good points as well as bad, suffering real grievances, who you could imagine developing a real following. (And, of course, you have no idea who they are until near the end--as it should be, in a mystery story.)
(5) A lot of humor and sarcasm.

I usually do not not read either magic or romance books that much, but this one was good enough that I really enjoyed it. And it made me gobble up the rest of the series.

(The subsequent books are also good, though more uneven. This first book I have wanted to reread multiple times, which I did not feel about the subsequent books.) ( )

Not exactly rocket science but I really enjoyed it. I found the bad guys and the evil plot obvious from the beginning, but I have a habit of doing that in almost all fiction, so take that with a grain of salt. Regardless, I enjoyed the world building and the characters immensely. Will definitely read more in this series, especially when I'm in the mood for something light and amusing. ( )