Shaykitteh's World of Books

I have this book in hardcover, paperback, and now kindle... So I guess you can say that I enjoy it! This is a review of the kindle edition that I received for Christmas from my awesome husband! Even though I love this series and this book, I gave this review 4 stars because a lot of time is spent establishing the characters and it takes a long while to get into the action.

The Imager Portfolio is a completely different series than Recluse. Different characters, different place, different motives. For example, there is no "good against evil" in this series... it's weighing the necessity of one evil against another. Magic aside, this is probably the closest to real life that I've seen Modesitt write.

Rhenn is a young man who started out as the son of a factor but didn't feel the drive to go into the wool or factoring business.  He became an artist instead, a Journeyman Portraitist. However, he is hiding a secret that he only recently discovered... he has the power to be an Imager, one who can "Image" or create things out of what seems to be nothing.

This story follows Rhenn as he crosses the Bridge of Hopes to Imagisle where he learns that the world isn't all that he thought it would be and that neither is Imaging. Thrown into a world of corruption where it's common for there to be attempts against a Counselor's life, and there the youngest Imagers are also dying, Rhenn must learn all that he can, as quickly as he can, to save his own life and the lives of those surrounding him.

This is very well written, and being a completely different Universe than the stories I had read by Modesitt before, I appreciated that there was no concrete good and evil. All people are made up of both, and you just have to hope that you make the correct decision in the time allowed to you. I loved seeing how the different characters develop during the story, and how REAL they all seem to be.

Rhenn's story is told over the first three books of the Imager's Portfolio, so I know that we will see more development of him and the world the surrounds him.

If Imager is a book that interests you, the kindle version is currently available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002HHPVB2/?tag=shasworofboo-20.

If you enjoyed my review, I would appreciate if you could mark it as being helpful on Amazon as well, as this is useful to both the reviewer and the author. I have included the link to the Amazon review in the Source section at the bottom of this review.