{Review} Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder

Scent of Magic
by Maria V. Snyder
Series: Healer #2
Pages: 414
Release Date: December 18, 2012
by Mira (an imprint of Harlequin

Goodreads / Purchase

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.

SPOILERS!  THEY WILL BE MARKED AND WHITENED OUT SO IF YOU WANT TO READ THEM HIGHLIGHT THE PLACE THEY ARE!

I'm not sure how to even begin this review. This is the kind of book that is hard to find the right words for. Amazing would be one, I guess.

 

This book was very different than the first book, Touch of Power, in that it was written from to POVs, Kerrick's and Avry's. This was a good thing and a bad thing, in my opinion. Well I guess they're both bad in a way. The good/bad thing was it enabled Snyder to make every chapter ending a cliffhanger and then force us to read the other person's point of view while still needing to know what happens with the cliffhanger. So that was pretty painful. But then the really bad thing was the fact that Kerrick's POV was much less interesting than Avry's. However, his POV still met up with the story so it was okay in the end. And that's a minor when you think about it.

I did notice that Synder's writing improved from the first book. It was much less choppy and flowed more. As usual her story was intricate and breathtaking. The action scenes were described so vividly that it was like I was right there in the story. The humor added a lot to the book as well, especially in the end.  [SPOILER: The ending of this book was really dark because at that point Avry had lost pretty much everyone she loved and there was no hope for her, she'd given up. It was a very vulnerable and deep part of the book and not at all a place for humor, you would think. But by adding the humor, Synder showed a whole different side to the despair. ]

I was really impressed with how Synder was able to stage everything. After the first book there are a lot of things left to be explained, [SPOILER: the most important being how does Tohon reanimate his soldiers? ] Throughout the book more mysteries were added that Avry had to figure out, and I was absolutely amazed at how Synder was able to stage and explain these mysteries to that I, as the reader, figured them out with Avry.

And then there were the partS of the book that literally had me screaming and yelling. There were so many twists in this book, and I never saw them coming. The ending had me screaming the most. I couldn't believe all the twists and betrayals and I was just sitting on my bed yelling for like 5 minutes straight as I read each twist. It was an absolutely amazing ending and it was funny in a way to see each part of the game to win the realms in the same place at the same time. It was very interesting to see how they worked and who they worked for and how they strove to survive.  [SPOILER:  And then of course you have the last 2 pages which...broke my heart. KERRICK CAN NOT FREAKING DIE! ]

The ending to this book was very open and set up a grand finale for the next book. [SPOILER:  From what I can tell you have Kerrick, Avry, Flea (who can unfreeze people), Quain (who was frozen but Flea unfroze him), Loren, Estrid, and Belen (who is frozen somewhere) vs Tohon, Sepp, and Jael vs Celinna and Wyn. Or maybe Celinna and Wyn are with Tohon, I don't know. The there are the wild cards like Estrid and her army (I'm assuming Flea will unfreeze them) and the northern tribes as well. ]  This next book is going to be fucking crazy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love his cast. Avry and Kerrick are so perfect together and I ship them 100%. Their ship name is KAVRY. Yep. Their romance is so beautiful and awesome and they just fit together perfectly. They are both very strong, willful, loving, and protective, and willing to sacrifice for the greater good. That might end up being a problem though because one would be with out the other. NO EMILY DON'T THINK LIKE THAT!

I feel like I have to mention Avry's sister Noelle because that girl is sneaky and lying and I don't like her. Tohon is evil as usual. [SPOILER:  Flea, I'm so glad you're back from the dead. Belen, we better get you back. ]  Loren and Quain...I know it's hard, but just try to behave please ;P

I absolutely cannot WAIT for the third book. Like is said, that book is going to be absolutely crazy and I'm kind of scared, honestly. [SPOILER: The first thing that better happen though is Kerrick better be healed. ]

5 stars