Review: Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder

Scent of Magic
(Healer, #2)
By: Maria V. Snyder
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: Dec. 25, 2012
Genre: YA
Rating:



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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.

My thoughts...
I loved Touch of Power and was excited to jump back into Avry and Kerrick's realm but I was left disappointed with this one. Avry and Kerrick separate in the beginning of the book. They're goal is to take down Tohon. Everyone thinks that Avry was killed when she took the plague from Prince Ryne. When they go their own ways, Avry changed her look and joins the army in hopes of defeating Tohon and Kerrick ends up prisoner to a tribe. The story is written in both Kerrick's and Avry's point of view.

I loved Kerrick and Avry together, so I was disappointed that they are separated the entire book. Hell we barely see the other characters from the first book. However, that isn't why I had trouble with this story though. I was never able to fully get into it. I found myself continually scanning through pages to get farther in the story line. It could have something to do with the ARC copy I received. The formatting was horrible. First off, there were no chapters, no stopping points. Remember how I said that the story is in both Kerrick and Avry's POV? Well the switch between them didn't even warrant a separate paragraph. So I would be reading about Avry running around with her comrades training and then all of a sudden she's being tortured by a tribesman. It would take me a while to get my bearings that this was Kerrick, not Avry and by the time I got adjusted, they'd switch again. Now I'm sure this problem will be fixed for the finish copy but that was a huge distraction for me. Just when I would start to get into the story a bit, I would be knocked off kilter again.

I just didn't really enjoy the second story to be honest. This happened with her Poison series as well. I was hoping though, that since I was so in love with Touch of Magic, that I would gobble this story up as well but that just wasn't the case. It's a decent story once the formatting is fixed but even so, I won't be clamoring for the next book. I found that everything that I loved from the first book was missing in this one. It didn't even seem like it would be the same storyline.


Favorite part...
"We don't take orders from you, Sergeant." Quain said. "Your man tried to assassinate-"
"He isn't mine. My man has eyes that change color with the seasons."


Previous reviews from Healer series
Touch of Power