The Alabaster Staff

Well now, I'm rather happily surprised by this book. I quite enjoyed reading it. It's shorter than your typical D&D novel so it made a relatively short read.

The plot of the book centres around Kehrsyn, a down-on-her-luck rogue who just happened to get caught in the wrong sort of situations, and has the bad luck to get pulled deeper into the mess. The protagonist is a very believable character. She's forced into thievery to survive, yet has a strong enough moral character that it digs into her conscience. She's a rather likeable rogue who's just trying to do the right thing, to the best that she can. It never feels over-the-top and there's a certain element of mystery in a who-done-it kind of way. The supporting cast and the villains are also very nicely fleshed out, each with just enough of exposition that you can feel the depth of character.

There's enough twists and turns in the plot to make it so very worthy of being part of a series for rogues, unlike the 2nd book of the series. The pacing of the plot is pretty stable, picking up towards the end as you see how all the loose ends start falling into place.

The bonus of it all is that the story is set in Unther, a part of the Realms that has seen a major upheaval recently. It's a part of FR I've never read of before so the bits of lore certainly help paint a picture of that region

Very good, much better than I had expected.