Book Review: "Master of None" by Sonya Bateman

 

ONE UNLUCKY THIEF. ONE UNLIKELY GENIE. ONE VERY ODD COUPLE.

Gavyn Donatti is the world's unluckiest thief. Just ask all the partners he's lost over the years. And when he misplaces an irreplaceable item he was hired to steal for his ruthless employer, Trevor—well, his latest bungle just might be his last. But then his luck finally turns: right when Trevor's thugs have him cornered, a djinn, otherwise known as a genie, appears to save him.

Unfortunately, this genie—who goes by the very non-magical name of "Ian"—is more Hellboy than dream girl. An overgrown and extremely surly man who seems to hate Donatti on the spot, he may call Donatti master, but he isn't interested in granting three wishes. He informs Donatti that he is bound to help the thief fulfill his life's purpose, and then he will be free. The problem is that neither Donatti nor Ian has any idea what exactly that purpose is.

At first Donatti's too concerned with his own survival to look a gift genie in the mouth, but when his ex-girlfriend Jazz and her young son get drawn into the crossfire, the stakes skyrocket. And when Ian reveals that he has an agenda of his own—with both Donatti and the murderous Trevor at the center of it—Donatti will have to become the man he never knew he could be, or the entire world could pay the price. - from Goodreads.com

This is book one in a three book series, with a short novella labeled as being between books one and two.

The description pulled me in, and I thought this could be good if the author can figure out how to get a Djinn story going versus the common shifters/magic wielders/fae stories all over the place. It just didn't happen. This is the first car that starts the train derailing from the tracks. There wasn't much character build=up, background (aside from him being a "lucky" thief at times, but unsuccessful at it (??). A Djinn shows up out of the blue with a story of why he there for the MC...kinda sketchy, but okay. All the additional characters? Nothing. There are just wallpaper for the MC to hang on, paint on, kill off when needed... pick something.

The story was a quick read, and does leave the traditional open-ending that there are additional tale(s) going to continue. The lack of substantial world-building just made me feel like "blech". The story description was the 2-minture long movie trailer, that contained every good part of the whole 3-hour movie. Needless to say, I won't be reading any of the other books in this series. The author does have some other series, and I may try one of them, hoping it was not like this one.