Whitney Firestone is the greatest thief in all of the Glass Kingdom, at least in his own mind, and he will never hesitate to brag about his accomplishments. This is especially true when there is a crowd to be had, and copious amounts of alcohol don't hurt either. Most people dismiss his tales out of hand, but that only encourages him to make his accomplishments even more grand. So much so that in a moment of boasting to an unreceptive audience he vows to steal the glass crown off the king's head to prove his abilities. This promise sets up a series of events that result in this mischievous thief needing to go on a quest with Torsten, the Wearer of White. Torsten is a holy knight who has dedicated his entire life to the Glass Kingdom, and he has no tolerance for those who break the law. This trope pairing contributed to my inability to get into the first half of the book, but fortunately the excellent world building and overarching story eventually won me over.

There is obvious potential humor in pairing a blowhard thief with a stick-in-the-mud knight; however, the relationship between the two characters never turned into anything magical for me. If you think this pair is going to be anything like Royce and Hadrian from the Riyria books then think again. While Whitney does have his moments, Torsten is such a bland character that he doesn't even make a good straight man. The true strength of this book turned out to be with some of the secondary characters combined with the larger story arc. Conflicting religious belief systems of rival gods and goddesses, war between kingdoms, and a few different magical systems eventually combined into something I cared about, but it took a while for sure. Although the main quest of this book is wrapped up it, some of the remaining threads left me intrigued enough to pick up book two in order to find out what happens to the Glass Kingdom next.

For audiobook fans this is a tough one. I am a fan of Luke Daniels and feel he has many excellent performances to his name, but I don't think he was the right choice here. The voice he used for Whitney was just too over the top for me and I believe it was part of the reason that I didn't embrace the story for a while. The reviews on Audible indicate that people either love or hate his performance, so YMMV, but ultimately I recommend reading this one over listening to it.