I loved the synopsis of this book - the idea certainly made me want to read it ………………… this type of story- a mix of Sci Fi and Fantasy is among my favourites .
However I found the story hard to get into , quite repetitive in places BUT I persevered and in the end I can say that whilst not one for my shelf it was worth reading .
The characters and the worldbuilding make up for any deficiencies and I did become invested in the outcome .

I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

If Rustpunk isn't a genre or word then it should be and this book is the reason for that. A truly amzing world which is so rich and well described that you can feel yourself there. The characters are expertly penned and within moments of meeting anyone you build a relationship in your mind. So much depth to this novel that i'd dare to say it has a touch of Frank Herbert's genius about it. One of my top reads this year. Pick it up, i'm sure you'll love it as much as i did.

A good fantasy and a new to me author I'm happy I discovered.
It was an engrossing and entertaining read, I turned pages as fast as I could because I wanted to know what was coming next.
It's a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, I loved the world building and the character development.
The plot flows without any issue and will keep you hooked till the last page.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

"Only at Tarakan valley will you feel at peace"

* * * * *
5 / 5

It is rare that one book contains so much of the elements and ideas that I love to read about. The Lost Puzzler read like the author had looked into my brain and written this book for me: a speculative, futuristic world featuring ancient cities, people with tattoos and special powers, an unreliable narrator, a young man gifted with a peculiar power, and a hunt for a confusing, wild truth.

"We read books to solve a mystery, and the more I heard about Rafik the more I was intrigued, even obsessed, with finding out what had happened and why"

There are two interwoven stories in The Lost Puzzler. The first is that of the primary narrator, an unnamed man set on a quest by his Guild of Historians. He is tasked with searching for a woman who knows what happened to a young boy around fifteen years ago. Through this Historian we are introduced to the City of Towers with its ancient Tarakan technology, violent bars, roving gangs and for-hire “trolls” who have willingly modified their bodies with technology, smoking drugs to dull the pain of these modifications.

Through the narrator and his search we hear the tale of Rafik, a young man born to a wildness village. We jump back into the past, to Rafik’s highly religious community who view the tattoos of the Marked as signs of the devil. When Rafik’s fingers turn black with ink, his family sneaks him out and sends him to the city. There he passed from hand to hand, shot over, haggled, bought and sold for the tattoos on his fingertips that mark him as the rarest of rare: a Puzzler. I’m a total sucker for this sort of thing; I loved the Arcane Ascension books for the same sort of reason: some people are gifted with RPG-like powers that work in a ‘real-world’ sort of way.

"These men told him what was wrong with him; they had named his malady. He was a Puzzler. Now he had to find out what that meant"

Essentially, Rafik can open locked doors and treasure boxes. In the Salvationist-era society, where wealth and fame is to be made in what are essentially dungeon runs, fighting beasts to get to locked nodes of Tarakan treasures deep in the mountains, Rafik is a prize above all others. I adored the way the author wove together a realistic, gritty, imaginative fantasy world with RPG mechanics. It worked so well and had me turning pages manically.

Jump back to the future and our Historian. Something happened to Rafik and we want to know what. The story got weirder and weirder as it becomes apparent that the reader is being lied to, the truth is being fudged in the tale we are hearing. There’s a great balance in The Lost Puzzler. There’s a balance between the draw of the mystery of what happened to Rafik and the action that’s going on in the present. The world is interesting and otherworldly without being alienating and hard to understand. There’s gun fights and pit jumps and moments of terror, balanced against moments of happiness and peace for Rafik.

The Lost Puzzler is an engaging, beautiful, and balanced debut novel that I urge fantasy and sci-fi readers to pick up.