Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Magic Thief | 2008 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
| 2 | Lost | 2009 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
| 3 | Found | 2010 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
| 4 | Home | 2014 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
| 5 | A Proper Wizard | 2014 | Sarah Prineas | Buy |
Sarah Prineas’s Magic Thief series is set in Wellmet, a city divided by a river and powered by a dwindling supply of magic. The protagonist is Conn (short for Connwaer), a pickpocket who makes the mistake of stealing from the wizard Nevery Flinglas. When Conn touches Nevery’s locus magicalicus – a stone used to channel magic – he survives, which should have been impossible. Nevery takes him on as an apprentice.
Across the series, Conn discovers that Wellmet’s magic is alive and under threat. He travels to the city of Desh to confront the predator magic Arhionvar, befriends a tiny dragon named Pip, and eventually learns that the magics of cities were once dragons themselves. The books mix city-level stakes with Conn’s personal growth from a street kid who steals to survive into a wizard who protects an entire city.
The first book earned Prineas a Publishers Weekly Flying Start designation and a Beehive Award. A Proper Wizard is a shorter novella published digitally in 2014 that follows Conn, now a respected magister, as he helps a skeptical young apprentice from a neighboring city.