The Thief's Apprentice Books in Order

The Thief's Apprentice is Roethle in gaslamp mode, and it is a very good fit. The setup sounds playful, a thief, an automaton, a detective, Victorian London, but the books quickly show their darker side. Arhyen only wants to steal a journal from a famous alchemist. Instead he finds a murder, a living machine named Liliana, and a conspiracy that reaches far beyond one bad night.

London is more than wallpaper here. It is grimy, crowded, and ready for something awful to happen under the surface. Alchemy, clockwork, class power, and secret organizations all rub together until the city starts to feel like a pressure cooker. Every revelation about artificial life or stolen formulas makes the setting a little more unstable.

The central pair do most of the work. Arhyen brings bluff, agility, and self-interest that slowly gets worn down by actual attachment. Liliana brings the biggest question hanging over the series. If she has a soul, what does that mean, and who gets to decide? Their partnership gives the books both emotional pull and mystery structure.

Bodies keep turning up.

What starts as one dead alchemist becomes a larger story about experimentation, power, and the cost of turning people into tools. The tone sits somewhere between fantasy mystery, gaslamp adventure, and a lightly gothic crime story. You get banter and forward motion, but also a real sense that the science of this world is outrunning anyone's ethics.

If you like magic mixed with machinery, or fantasy that behaves a bit like detective fiction, this series is easy to recommend. Start with Clockwork Alchemist and read straight through. The books are tightly linked, and the later ones hit harder once you already care about Arhyen, Liliana, and the fate of a city that keeps mistaking invention for progress.