Scent of Magic - Maria V. Snyder

[goodreads]

Title: Scent of Magic (Healer #2)
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 414
Date read: September, 2014

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.


I stand corrected. Just when I complain about Maria Snyder's books being formulaic, along comes one that doesn't fit the bill. I started out not being terribly interested in the chapters told from Kerrick's POV, but fortunately that quickly changed!

However, the book obviously suffers from "middle book in a trilogy" curse, in that not much happens as the characters get in line for whatever's about the happen in the third book. I liked it well enough, but wasn't quite as enamoured of it as the first book, as there were too many side plots that weren't of any great interest to me. It's still a solid 4 star book though (okay, perhaps 3.5 star, but leaning more towards 4 than 3), and I'm very keen to get started on the last one.

Especially with that ending!!! Grrrrr!!!!