Crosspointe Series

The Cipher
By: Diana Pharaoh Francis

Write up:

Distant member of the royal Rampling family, Lucy Trenton's ability to detect majick has embroiled her in a dangerous intrigue that threatens her very life. Her only hope lies in her most persistent suitor, ship captain Marten Thorpe, but Lucy isn't sure she can trust him...

This is one of those books I picked up on a whim without any kind of word of mouth or review to point me to it. I saw the cover and thought it was interesting so I decided to try it out. These type of books can be a gamble and turn out to be very bad decisions.

For a while there...I thought it was going to be a wash. The book starts with an introduction of Lucy Trenton who is a kind of customs agent for Crosspointe, which is a big shipping port. We also learn that due to some court case, all members of the royal family have to work for a living and be productive to society, but I found that this was not fully explained enough and it left me with some confusion. We also learn that the country is under constant threat from something called sylveth a strange magical substance that horribly disfigures and changes people into creatures and all manner of horrors. This is washed onto their shores by the magical storms that crush any ships in its way. The only thing protecting Crosspointe from total destruction is a wall called The Pale...which was built generations ago by one of the founders. All this is explained at the beginning of the book...in what I found a rather confusing way. Either there was too much time spent on exposition, or there was too little time..so I was left with many questions. But once the main action of the book started to come together things went very quickly and was very satisfying. Good thing for the book is that the good part made up about 1/3 of the book. But it took a while getting there, and I almost quit at one point. I hate not finishing books.

But the main action of the book centers around Lucy's ability to sense magic. She learned early on not to speak of this power, and it was due to this secrecy and it driving her to collect illegal magical objects, created by the same founder that built the Pale, that leads her to be drawn into a plot to bring down the royal family. She finds herself being blackmailed by a stranger who know about her secret stash of banned objects, and he demands that she complete various tasks for him else he expose her. During one of those tasks, she find out that there is even more going on that some persona vendetta against her. Once her enemies spring their trap the book takes off in some good drama and suspense that made you want to keep turning the pages till the end. Lucy finds herself running for not only her life, but those of her friends and family...while fighting the magical influence of one of her objects. There is a small romance portion to the story, and it is not typical as Marten Thorpe ends up playing a role in the plot to bring her down...though unsuspecting. In the end Lucy finds herself in a position even more powerful than a King. I was very satisfied with the ending...thought it left some things unresolved.

I looked around and saw that there are two more books in this series, but each one focuses on a different character and appears to be standalone. For this book though....the beginning dragged, but it really picked up a quarter in and held on so:

Overall grade: B