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Marie Andreas
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The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Marie Andreas (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,410 ratings
See all formats and editions

Magic. Mayhem. Drunken faeries.

Archeologist Taryn St. Giles has spent her life mining the ruins of the elves who vanished from the Four Kingdoms a thousand years ago. But when her patrons begin disappearing too—and then turning up dead—she finds herself unemployed, restless, and desperate. So she goes looking for other missing things: as a bounty hunter.


Tracking her first fugitive—the distractingly handsome and strangely charming Alric—she unearths a dangerous underworld of warring crime lords, demonic squirrels, and a long-lost elven artifact capable of unleashing a hell on earth.


Chased, robbed, kidnapped, and distressingly low on rent money, Taryn just wants one quiet beer and to catch her fugitive. But there’s more to Alric than his wicked grin—is he a wanted man or the city’s only hope? With menacing mages in pursuit and her three alcoholic faery sidekicks always in her hair, Taryn’s curiosity might finally solve the mystery of the elves… or be the death of her and destroy her world.

Join the adventure today!

If Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, invaded Stephanie Plumb’s Jersey and fell into a raucous, twisted Middle Earth, they might find Taryn St. Giles already waiting for them in this high action fantasy caper.-- Jessa Slade, award-winning author of QUEEN OF STARLIGHT, Sheerspace Book 1

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  1. Book 1 of 6
    The Lost Ancients
  2. Print length
    340 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    March 23, 2015
  6. File size
    4670 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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  10. See all details
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From the Publisher

fantasy, strong female characters, humor, magic, adventure
fantasy, humor, adventure
fantasy, action, adventure

Editorial Reviews

Review

2017 San Diego Book Awards Winner

About the Author

Marie is a multi-award-winning fantasy and science fiction author with a serious reading addiction. If she wasn't writing about all the people in her head, she'd be lurking about coffee shops annoying total strangers with her stories. So really, writing is a way of saving the masses. She lives in Southern California and is owned by two very faery-minded cats. She is also a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association).
When not saving the masses from coffee shop shenanigans, Marie likes to visit the UK and keeps hoping someone will give her a nice summer home in the Forest of Dean or Conwy, Wales.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00V5JF4GA
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Marie Andreas (March 23, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 23, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4670 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 340 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,410 ratings

About the author

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Marie Andreas

Marie Andreas

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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Marie is a multi-award winning fantasy and science fiction writer with a serious reading addiction. If she wasn't writing about all the people in her head, she'd be lurking about coffee shops annoying total strangers with her stories. So really, writing is a way of saving the masses.

Her first fantasy series, The Lost Ancients, starts with The Glass Gargoyle. The rest of the series is complete at six books total. A continuing series follows another adventure and started with The Seeker's Chest.

A space opera trilogy, The Asarlai Wars, launched with Warrior Wench, and continued with the Victorious Dead. The final book, Defiant Ruin, is available now. More adventures in a second trilogy start with Traitor's Folly!

A steampunk adventure, A Curious Invasion, followed by The Mayhem of Mermaids, will conclude in 2023 with An Intrigue of Pharaohs.

Like portal epic fantasy? The Essence of Chaos is the first book in the books of the Cuari series. The third book, Destruction of Chaos, releases in 2023.

Lighter romantic fantasy can be found with the completed Magic & Sorcery Chronicles. Three royal sisters face challenges and romance on their way to the throne.

When not saving the masses from coffee shop shenanigans, Marie likes to visit the UK and keeps hoping someone will give her a nice summer home in the Forest of Dean or in northern Wales.

Marie is also a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) and NINC (Novelists, INC).

To find out more about the books, and future series, please visit her website at www.marieandreas.com--especially if you happen to have a small cottage to give her.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
2,410 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Elderflower
5.0 out of 5 stars Back To Buy the Bundle
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2017
Verified Purchase
This was just so much fun, and intriguing to boot. I came bouncing back to buy everything else in the series, not so much because I'd been left hanging as because I felt I was just getting to know the characters and wanted to further my acquaintance as quickly as possible. They're not just unusual and interesting, they're terrifically likable.

"Rollicking" is a very good word for this book, though it also has an underlying wistfulness to it. The protagonist is young and on her own in a world that's not all that hospitable; she's just scraping by, but since she is following her passion for ancient artifacts, she's basically happy. The "people" she has collected around her turn out to be much more than she realized, and to care about her more than she recognized too.

It's well-written, funny in the makes-you-smile way, and nicely produced -- the mechanics are all sound. The first-person voice is informal and conversational, very pleasant. The plot moves along remarkably. One reviewer complained about the protagonist's cluelessness -- to me, she seemed smart enough. She reminded me of myself at that age -- doing her pretty decent best with not enough knowledge or information. You know, growing up. I loved this book.
2 people found this helpful
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P. D. HENDERSON
4.0 out of 5 stars Not a classic but I enjoyed it.
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2019
Verified Purchase
I'm giving this one 4 stars because I really did enjoy the book a lot, but the honest truth of it is that the book has a lot of problems and probably only deserves a 3-star rating. It's hard to say exactly why I enjoyed it. A combination of the novelty of concept and a coincidental hitting of just the right buttons to tap in to my personal interests.

PLOT
The plot was a fairly predictable rehash of several standard fantasy themes. Am ancient prophecy of doom, clueless innocent stumbling into a complex conspiracy and being mistaken for a major player, helpless little girl that suddenly turns out to have amazing powers. It's all stuff that's been done to death in every medium possible. The lead character gets led around by the nose, stumbling continuously from one disaster to the next. More on that under characters, but it was frustrating to watch as the heroes repeatedly charge ahead without any plan and take no precautions to keep their stuff safe, and then repeatedly get abducted and lose all their stuff, take turns rescuing each other.
Some day, I'll go back and read this again just so I can count the number of kidnappings. I think it's probably a record.
On the plus side, the plot does finish. It has a few ups and downs, a big climax, and then it resolves without a cliffhanger (although the last page brings up a new question as a hook into the next book, but it's more of a teaser than a cliffhanger).
3 stars for plotting

CHARACTERS
There are a lot of characters in the book, but very few of them get any real detail. Even by the end of the book most of them don't have any personality quirks that make them stand out in any way, or memorable at all, actually. The only exception to that is the fairies, who get enough extra attention to make them interesting. All of the fairies seem to have the same personality though, but at least it's an interesting and memorable one. The main character is a frustrating mess. It's all written first person so you can't get an objective view of her, but I could only make sense of the book by assuming that she must be a little bit addled or at least mentally sub-par. There's just no other way to explain: "after already being kidnapped twice, I get a suspicious feeling, I am pretty sure this is a trap and I should go get my friends before going in, but, oh, never mind, I'll just go on in anyway". I don't know if it's what the author intended, but allowing the assumption that the main character has an IQ of about 85-90 makes the rest of the book a lot more sensible. Other than that she doesn't seem to have much of a personality. She never seems to have strong opinions about anything and just blindly gets pulled or pushed from one scene to the next.
2 stars for characterization

WORLDBUILDING
I don't usually split worldbuilding into sub-classes but for this one I have to differentiate between concept and description. The concept of the world is very good. The author has created a unique world populated by many different magical species. At first, the gargoyles, fairies, trolls, etc. made me think the was pulling entirely from existing mythos, but then she also has new 'races' that are completely new. The problem is that we never get any good idea of what most of them look like. The descriptions are almost non-existent, there are some details, just nowhere near enough. The structure of society is described in slightly better detail. Sort of a characature of our own. The rich control everything. The legal system exists but seems to be kind of a joke. The book isn't a comedy, but the world would work well as one.
So 5 stars for the concept but only 2 for the implementation, so call it 3.5 average, round up to 4

WRITING
The writing itself was very good. The author kept me immersed in the book almost constantly. There weren't any places where I had to go back to reread because I'd lost the thread or the writing had gone off track somehow. So the readability of the book was high. Even though the book is over 300 "pages" (Kindle pages are slightly smaller than a real book's) it took me less than three days to get through the whole thing. Faster than many shorter books.
So 5 stars for the writing style.

EDITING
There were three occurrences of major errors (things like dropping a sentence in the middle or repeating a paragraph), and a handful (less than a dozen) of small typos, misused words, etc. Overall I'd say that's not too bad for a 300 page book.
I didn't notice any of the more subtle story editing issues. There probably are some but I missed them so I can't mark off for that. Other than the one thing that if I were editing I would have inquired whether the author had considered pinching up the humor aspect. I think it would work better that way but I know not every author can write that way.
4 stars for the editing.

OVERALL
All in all I enjoyed the book a lot. It wasn't the best thing I've ever read but it was still good. The numbers above would average out to 3.6, so that rounds to 4 stars overall. Maybe I spoke too hastily when I said it didn't really deserve 4 (though I think a properly weighted average might be a little lower).

I'm not specifically giving a full on recommendation for this one, I think it depends on whether you, as a reader, can handle the frustrating aspects enough to enjoy the writing. So I'll leave that decision up to the individual. But I will be buying more of the series, which is big for me because I rarely do (there's more than enough free stuff out there). I'll probably skip a few and get book 4 or 5 though. I don't think I could handle a whole series of 6 books for this.
13 people found this helpful
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Michelle Lowe
5.0 out of 5 stars Mystery, mayhem, and drunken faeries! Oh my!
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2023
Verified Purchase
This was a fun book, set in a magical, fantasy world, full of infringing characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and writing style that Andreas provided. Her imaginative world-building is charming and delightful, and the pacing is perfect. I felt sorry for our protagonist, Taryn, not being able to catch a break or even get laid, for that matter, due to some strange, and sometimes morbid interruptions. The book leaves on a cliffhanger, leading to a second adventure of mystery, mayhem, and, I’m sure, drunken faeries! I highly recommend this book!
One person found this helpful
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Lizzy Murphy
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, sexy and with a hell of a lot of fighting.
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2023
Verified Purchase
This book isn't like any of the others I've read. The fact that I couldn't put it down is a no brainer. Being the first in a series makes me wonder at the magic thats to come. This one being just the beginning with cast of magic, elves, fairies, multiple old magical races and some never heard of before. With rescues, battles, explosions, willful romance and a dead body or two; this is a good story where most of you questions were tied up by the end of the novel (no cliffhanger!). But enough to be curious about for the next book. I'd love to see where this goes and I hope you are too.
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars interesting world
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2024
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I liked the world, but the writing needed some clearing up. The story wandered a bit. I'nglad I read the book, but I need to think on if l want to read the next one.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Jayne Henderson
5.0 out of 5 stars captivating
Reviewed in Canada on April 2, 2023
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A very interesting view of what the fey world would be like. Full of little surprises I never thought of being betrayed in the way this author has.
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Saffy
5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic story
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2024
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This is thoroughly entertaining and a good rollicking story!
Can’t wait to read the next one ….definitely recommend reading this
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Pam
5.0 out of 5 stars Geweldige characters
Reviewed in the Netherlands on November 15, 2018
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Er zit behoorlijk wat humor in dit verhaal. Vooral de elfjes zijn fantastisch. Bovendien zit er een behoorlijke dosis archeologie en oude tombes in, a la Indiana Jones. Wie wil dat nou niet?
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in Australia on January 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
The storyline was eels thought out and was easy to follow will recommend this book to all amazon readers. Thank you
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Dokaha
5.0 out of 5 stars Wunderful book
Reviewed in Germany on February 10, 2018
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I loved the wonderful characters, especially the little mischivious fairies, the story was real fun to read, even for an non native english reader. Looking forward to reading the following stories.
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