Benjamin Black, sexy thief with a cause, wants to get back to his own world. The world Maya thought she created. Only now he says she's his reason to stay in this one. Adam Richards, once a cop, now a ruthless crime lord, wants to be immortal and he'll do anything, including hurting Maya's loved ones, to get what he wants. The problem is, the men are inextricably linked through Maya's drawings. Ridding the world of Adam means Benjamin disappears from Maya's life forever Published first published January 9th To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
To ask other readers questions about The Canvas Thief , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jan 27, Marlene rated it liked it. Read all my reviews at http: Coyote over the cliff, as long as I kept r Read all my reviews at http: Coyote over the cliff, as long as I kept reading running and didn't look down.
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Maya Stephenson is an artist, with a gift. All artists have a gift, but Maya's is special. That might be a little too special for most of us. Maya knows that the world we live in has a few folks in it who are a bit odder than we think.
The Canvas Thief (Chapter One) | But It's a Dry Heat
However, Maya promised her mother that she would suppress her vision, and act normal. Because her Uncle Andrew could see the way Maya can, and Uncle Andrew wasn't just "taken away", but his family was made to forget him. The taking away part would have meant he was crazy, but the making people forget, that's powerful stuff. So Maya began channeling all her visions into her art. Except Maya didn't draw what she saw. She was trying way, way too hard to be normal. Since she was a teenage girl trying very hard to be normal, she drew boys. And she made up a story about them.
A cops and robbers story. Adam Sayre was the cop, and Benjamin Black was the robber, the extra-talented thief. Maya was so talented, and she concentrated so hard on making those drawings of Adam and Benjamin so perfect, that eventually Benjamin and Adam manifested from the NeoVerse to the Real.
And because Maya's magic created them in endless pursuit of one another, they remained tied to one another. For ten years, as Maya changed from girl to woman. And her fantasy men learned the ropes of the real world. Benjamin Black lived and loved and lost. And decided he wanted to Fade from the Real to EverVerse, so that he might never lose anyone again.
Adam Sayre learned to manipulate the system that, as a cop, he was supposed to be a protector of. Adam decided he wanted to stay in the Real forever. Both Benjamin's and Adam's decisions required something from Maya to fulfill. That first, perfect drawing that made them 'real'. Benjamin tries to steal it, and Adam tries to manipulate Maya into it.
Any woman strong enough to create life from the NeoVerse too strong for that. But the collision course of their three lives changes everything. Maya discovers that the rules of 'normalcy' she has lived by are so, so unreal. Benjamin learns that being hurt once does not make him immune from being hurt again. The story catches you up and keeps you in its grip, which is a really good thing, because the worldbuilding doesn't quite hold up. Coyote, I chose not to look down after I ran off the edge of the cliff. Maya never intended to make her characters real; she had no idea she had that power.
When love enters the picture, as it does in The Velveteen Rabbit, the question of whether love is enough to make the man she loves 'real' enough to remain in the so-called real world becomes one of the big questions of the story. Feb 22, Tahlia Newland rated it really liked it Shelves: I think some people are being a bit picky here. Maya is an artist who in order to live a normal life, hides the fact that she sees through the glamour of paranormal beings. She created comic strip characters from an early age, two in particular, Benjamin Black, a sexy thief and Adam Richards, the cop who in her stories is out to get him.
One night someone who looks like I think some people are being a bit picky here. One night someone who looks like Benjamin Black breaks into her home and she soon discovers that he is her character come to life in the real world.
The Canvas Thief
They fall in love making Maya his reason to stay in this world. Adam Richards, is here too, but instead of a cop he is now a ruthless crime lord, who wants to be immortal. He needs Maya to draw more characters to work for him but she needs to get rid of him before he hurts her loved ones to force her to cooperate.
Ben is a lovely character, a thief with ethics and a good heart. The ending is one befitting a romance but unexpected in its detail. I enjoyed this book a very much and give it 4 stars. Dec 24, Jen Davis rated it it was ok. But I just could not get into this book. It wasn't necessarily bad, I just didn't connect with it. The premise is pretty unique. An artist discovers that two of the characters she created have come to life. She falls in love with one while the other reveals himself to be a power-hungry villain. The light bisected his face, revealing fair skin and coppery-red hair.
He walked over to the large set of drawers. The top drawer contained landscapes, while the next was filled with crisp commercial art projects. A black-and-white sketch of the red-haired thief was the topmost drawing in the third drawer. He pulled out a knife and used it to riffle through the images. Even with the knife as a buffer, contact with the drawings sent bright spikes of pain up his arm, confirming that they were not what he sought. He closed the drawer, a little too loudly, and opened the next. Unlike the others, this one would have no effect on him, so he grasped it with his fingers.
Pulling the artwork from the drawer, he started to shut the drawer. How had he allowed someone to sneak up on him? Mind racing, he turned around, his movement slow and nonthreatening. Benjamin squinted; his superior night vision discerned a heavyset middle-aged woman and the business end of a shotgun pointed straight at him.
She held the weapon braced against her right shoulder, right hand at the trigger, left poised to work the pump action. Judging by the steely glint in her eyes, she had no compunctions about shooting him. Under stress, he said the stupidest things. He lowered the drawing to the drawer. Her dark eyes narrowed, but he saw a flicker of hesitation.
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Perhaps he could appeal to her innate fastidiousness. In his head, he cursed. He debated his choices, weight on the balls of his feet, muscles relaxed but tingling wit anticipation. Magic, by his estimation, was a crutch for an incompetent thief. But if this ordinary woman could sneak up on him so easily, he was the very definition of incompetent. Watching the woman, he prepared to cast a spell. Magical energy always flowed through his blood, waiting, like a kind of adrenaline, and now he used his anxiety to compress it like a spring, potential energy pushing back, humming inside him.
Her thumb moved over the keypad, and Benjamin inhaled and held his breath. He rubbed his index finger over the top drawing in the drawer, hoping sheets of paper would be a suitable substitute for the usual spell component, a handful of dirt. Her broad thumb pushed two numbers and Benjamin spoke the spell words, each syllable vibrating the compressed power within him.
He exhaled and relaxed. Shaped by the words, the spell roiled down his arm toward the drawings, leaving in its wake a prickly pins-and-needles sensation. He grabbed a handful of drawings and he flung them to the side just as the spell reached his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a lanky manlike shape built on a framework of fluttering sheets of paper. Instead he dropped low, rolling toward the woman. The gun roared, but as it was aimed at his doppelganger, buckshot sprayed harmlessly over his head.
He grabbed it about six inches from the muzzle and shoved the dangerous end away from him. She shrieked in outrage and surprise. Pain erupted in his shin as her foot connected with his leg. Benjamin got his other hand around the barrel. Her grip loosened, and for a second he thought the gun was his. Too late he realized why. She shifted her hold on the weapon and drove its stock at his neck. Though blunted by his grip on the barrel, the force of the wood against his throat brought tears to his eyes.
He lost his hold on the weapon just as the woman gave it a fierce tug. She tumbled backward, into the hallway, and Benjamin, seeing his chance, slithered past her and bolted down the hallway for the front door. The gun belched another splatter of buckshot and hot fire etched his shoulder. He stumbled out into the cold December night and down the short flagstone walkway.
The front gate, mercifully, opened easily and he skittered out and dropped low, keeping behind the adobe wall that surrounded the front yard. Instead the tremors of a familiar emotion—despair—moved though his body.