Sunday, December 16, 2012

Review: Scent of Magic


Scent of Magic (Healer #2)
by Maria V. Snyder
Published December 18th 2012
by Harlequin MIRA
ARC from Netgalley
Summary from Goodreads:
Hunted, Killed—Survived?

As the last Healer in the Fifteen Realms, Avry of Kazan is in a unique position: in the minds of her friends and foes alike, she no longer exists. Despite her need to prevent the megalomanical King Tohon from winning control of the Realms, Avry is also determined to find her sister and repair their estrangement. And she must do it alone, as Kerrick, her partner and sole confident, returns to Alga to summon his country into battle.

Though she should be in hiding, Avry will do whatever she can to support Tohon’s opponents. Including infiltrating a holy army, evading magic sniffers, teaching forest skills to soldiers and figuring out how to stop Tohon’s most horrible creations yet; an army of the walking dead—human and animal alike and nearly impossible to defeat.

War is coming and Avry is alone. Unless she figures out how to do the impossible ... again.

Thoughts:
When I first saw the cover for this book, I was all curious and excited. Is that Kerrick? Avry looks old for a teenage healer and I sometimes forget that she's supposed to be a mere sixteen year old. In fact, the Healer series doesn't read like a young adult fantasy because the characters seemed so adult like in their actions and thoughts. This could easily be marketed or gets mistaken as an epic fantasy.

Since Avry and Kerrick have finally proclaimed their love and acted on it by the end of the last book, it is imminent that their relationship is put to the test in this one. As Kerrick joined his friends to fight against the powerful King Tohon, Avry decided to once again reached out to her sister who has decided to be a part of Estrid's army by going undercover.

I am liking Avry a lot more in the second book compared to the first one because she gets to prove herself to be quite the kick ass chick and not just healing ungrateful people here and there. But I am left at the edge of my seat the entire time since I was so worried that her cover would be blown over by the other soldiers in Estrid's holy army.

I know some readers are very disappointed that Avry and Kerrick spent most of the time being apart in this book but since I'm not really big on romance, I don't really mind. Read this instead for the awesome magic stuff, the intense battle between so many forces and the scary undead soldiers of King Tohon. I know zombie fans will be delighted with this one. There's not only human zombie but animals too. Seriously creepy stuff.

Verdict: 5 stars.
In my Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge 
Available on: Amazon

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