No Heart for a Thief is a dark epic fantasy novel, the first in the Malitu trilogy, and the debut from James L. Dulin. It touches on some themes that I personally enjoy seeing being used in fantasy, such as colonialism and rebellion; and it has a really particular style of narration that also caught my interest.

This is a story about a man who has tried to maintain himself out of the fight against the occupation, Kaylo, who has chosen to keep a reclusive lifestyle in hopes of forgetting his violent past. This relative peace gets broken as he is forced to save a girl, Tayen, from the soldiers that killed her family, unchaining the consequences of that act. Soon, Kaylo becomes a sort of master and mentor for Tayen in hopes to keep her far from her vengeance wishes, trying to protect her; this girl recognizes Kaylo as the legendary Ennea's Thief, the Hero of Anilance, making Kaylo acknowledge that he can't run from his past forever.

What starts with this is a greatly crafted dual-POV story, switching between Kaylo's past and Tayen's present, weaving it to create a character-driven plot around the occupation of Ennea by the Ghoulsh, and how our main characters have lived it. Because it is important to remark, that despite Ennea being a land under occupation and in war, this theme is going to be treated in a much more intimate way, taking the focus on how those characters have lived it and how it has influenced their lives. It becomes a really dark story even from the start, with death and violence in it, but treated with respect and focuses mostly on how it has affected our characters.

Another theme that gets touched, despite it being in a more light way, is how history gets modified depending on who is the one telling it, usually getting oriented to the side of the winners. We can see how Ennea's beliefs have been modified, firstly after the internal wars between tribes, and secondly by the Ghoulsh invasors; creating an internal struggle in a spiritual sense for Kaylo.

Worldbuilding is certainly another of the aspects that you can see has got a great amount of work behind it. Ennea is an interesting land, which has a long history before the period we are being spectators, with their own beliefs and customs; there are several small examples that are great illustrating it. 
Magic is also an important part of this world, the Song is a sort of hard magic system, but with diffuse rules. It is interesting to see how it has also evolved with time, and how due to the circumstances, these diffuse rules have appeared, showing more intricacy as a result of the lack of clear knowledge about it. The way it is cast and how it is executed by connecting nature spirits is another of the aspects that made it really spectacular to read it being practiced.

Pacing is solid during the whole novel, but it suffers a little bit at the start of the story, especially until we are aware of the particular style of this narration; in that sense, using a dual POV is both, a strength and a weakness. Tayen's storyline is slightly slower, while Kaylo's is highly emotional, being my particular favourite.

In summary, No Heart for a Thief is an excellent debut, a dark fantasy story with a great scope, but centered around characters. If you are looking for a different way to reflect colonialism and rebellion, or if you want a character-driven fantasy story, I suspect this book is perfect for you.