A book review: Touch of Power

I thought I would try something new: Short theme based posts. I say short, but time will tell...

Title: Touch of Power
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Series: 1st book in the Healer series
Pages: 400
Language: English

Avry of Kazan is a Healer, which means that by touching people she can absorb their wounds and diseases into herself. However, the healers are blamed for the plague that swept through the land and wiped out six million people. Now healers are being hunted down and executed. After healing a child in the city she stays in, Avry faces the gilliotine, but a band of rouges help her escape in exchange for her help healing a friend, Prince Ryne. They travel across the land toward the Nine Mountains, chased by mercenaries, facing magical danger and are mixed up in the struggle for power that insued after the plague. All the while, Avry will have to decide whether she will heal Ryne, the last man she would ever decide to heal, and sacrifice her own life for peace.

I found this book very entertaning and had a hard time putting it down. Snyder knows how to keep the reader longing for more. It is not one of the most challenging books I have read, but it does not have the sappy, muchy love talk that so many other fantasy books suffer from. The feelings are hidden between the lines, and that is something I can like and it also leaves something to the imagination. Underneath every line is a feeling of curiosity that I cannot help but be affected by and this is what I believe keep me reading.

Avry is a strong, stubborn, intelligent and kind person, many of the qualities I aspire to maintain – and what I love the most about her is her fantastic sense of humor and sarcastic remarks. it is facinationg how she can be so annoying and sharp-tounged and still endear herself with almost everyone she meats. Her traveling companions brings lovely flavours to the story: the kindhearted giant, the hyperactive inexperienced boy, the two sharptounged monkeyes and the guy who you can try to hate, but in the end is too good not to love. I could go on, but I am going to leave you to aquaint yourself with the rest.

This book deserves a six on the dice. It is everyhting a fantasy novel should be and I cannot wait for the next book to come out in 2013 – I will have to console myself with Snyder's other series (Study and Glass).