Scent of Magic (Healer, #2)

by Maria V Snyder

As the last Healer in the Fifteen Realms, Avry of Kazan is in a unique position: in the minds of friends and foes alike, she no longer exists. Despite her need to prevent the megalomaniacal 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 confidant, 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.

• ISBN10: 0778314189
• ISBN13: 9780778314189
• Publish Date: 18 December 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: Mira Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leigha]

Avry goes undercover in the second installment of the Healer series.

While I did not enjoy this book as much as the first, it was still really good. Avry remains an intelligent, likable protagonist. The characters throughout the story have strong motivations for their actions, and all of them move the narrative forward in some way. The political intrigue deepens as important players move around the setting. I'm honestly interested to see if she can wrap up all the loose ends well in the last installment.

Probably the biggest departure of this novel is adding alternating chapters between Avry's and Kerricks' POV. It was a tad jarring at first, but I eventually fell into the groove. It probably would not have been as jarring had Avry's chapters not been in first person, while Kerricks' chapters were in third person. A lot happens during their escapades so the need for both perspectives is understandable.

tl;dr Despite a jarring shift in POV, this second installment is a must read for fantasy romance fans interested in charismatic characters and an intriguing setting.

[ladygrey]

REREAD ETA:
Like way to many YA 2nd books the first thing that happens is our main characters are separated. Which is stupid every single time. Maria V Snyder is particularly notorious for this. I’ve read at least part of 3 series at this point and she does it every single time. She always brings in a new set of strong secondary characters so you can almost forgive her. But not really.

There were parts of this story that were frustrating and some that felt fairly stupid. But by the end they all worked out and had a halfway decent point (mostly) so it wasn’t intolerable. Still not my favorite though.

*****

I liked knowing what happened as this story continued. And the book is alright, but I didn't love it.

The fundamental flaw that runs through pretty much the whole book is that she breaks apart the strongest aspect of her story. And from a plot point of view I can see why she did that - the elements she needed to incorporate and whatnot. But even though it serves a purpose it doesn't make it fun to read.

The energy of the last book was all her characters interacting. But so many of them are pulled in different directions it loses that sense of fun. And she does do an admirable job of compensating by bringing in new characters. And they're good new characters and it does help. Because there's also this sense in the first two thirds of the book that all this plot is happening without emotional impact on the characters. It was full but didn't feel substantive.

Also, there were two places I didn't understand Avry's emotional logic at all. In one place a character says something and Avry reacts with - oh now I understand this. But the two weren't connected at all it's like someone said I'm hungry and she responded with Oh, now I understand why the sky is blue. I just didn't get it. And the other place her emotional logic didn't make any sense at all.

Whatever. Snyder's tell was much more subtle and logical in this book so I almost didn't mind it. And in the end I didn't dislike this book. And of course I'm going to read the next one to see how it ends.

[Danielle Ackley-McPhail]

Excellent read and a story that kept me engrossed, as Snyder's work always does. Clearly their will be at least one more book, which will drive me nuts until it is here, but the originality of this tale and the vibrancy of the characters has me looking forward to what comes next.

[celinenyx]

A quick and enjoyable fantasy story, Scent of Magic is the sequel to Touch of Power. I enjoyed Touch of Power, but found some faults with it that I couldn't entirely forget. Scent of Magic has a whole bunch of faults of its own.

Every one except Kerrick thinks Avry is dead. This puts her in a very convenient position to spy on Estrid's army without anyone suspecting a thing - but Kerrick must go to his realm to head his own army. Separated they both face betrayals, dead soldiers and other enemies.

Let's start off with the good. Maria V. Snyder has an incredibly readable writing style. This book has over four-hundred pages, but I just flew through it as if it was half its length. I think part of this is because she uses very modern dialogue and doesn't shy away from fashionable words and expressions, where as other fantasy writers tend to have a more archaic style (I'm looking at you, G.R.R.). Overall it makes reading her story a breeze.

It's mainly the content that I'm having troubles with. The whole reason why Touch of Power worked was the chemistry between the characters - with most of the characters split up or absent in Scent of Magic that chemistry is gone. For the most part there isn't that much plot to keep the pace going. Snyder tried a trick to disguise that, which I very much despised while reading this book.

Every. Single. Chapter. Ends. With. A. Cliffhanger.

ARGH.

This annoyed me so much while reading. Seriously. Sometimes you just want to finish a chapter and have it being FINISHED. I don't want the chapter to stop the SECOND something interesting happens or something is revealed. Whether you dislike cliffhangers or not, the truth of it is is that it takes away the speed of the story. When Kerrick is in life danger, you don't want to read about Avry washing her hair (making this up, but that's how it feels). Once Avry is finally done with her boring stuff and we're back at Kerrick, the whole excitement has just been completely deflated. And don't get me started on all the chapters that end with a clever (read: overly dramatic, you can hear the DUH DUH DUUUUMMMMM in the background) remark *shudders*.

The story was okay. It wasn't overly exciting, but there were some nice plot twists that I didn't see coming. It reads a bit like fantasy-light. It has fantasy and realms without the commitment. You really don't need to bother with remembering them all because most of them don't play a role anyway, and if they do, it will be spelled out for you.

Scent of Magic isn't that bad, but I'm not so excited about it as other readers either. I will pick up the next book because I'd like to know how the story continues (the story ends with a cliffhanger as well - no surprises there), even though I don't really care about the characters. Especially Avry has become very dull for me, as she barely missed Kerrick who she is supposed to be so in love with. I'm more interested what happens with Danny and Zila and Belen. Figures that the secondary characters are more interesting than the main ones.

[inlibrisveritas]

This book really redeemed this series for me and I’m so happy it did! I had some problems with Touch of Power and while I enjoyed it I had a hard time connecting with the story or the characters. You can see that review here: Touch of Power Review. Scent of Magic really manages to make up for it and I enjoyed it much more than the first.

The plot kicks off almost near the point Touch of Power leaves off and gives you a nice little recap that helped me remember most of the first book before jumping right back into the story. I could tell right away that this one was going to be a much faster paced novel than Touch with much more action through out it, because it starts off strong and I’m happy to say it ends the same way. The war between Tohon and the Realms really gets started in this one and thanks to the two point of views from Avry and Kerrick you get to see two separate conflicts . I have a love/hate relationship with pov shifts because I’m usually more interested in one point of view than the other and being forced to shift over to the least interesting one irritates me, Scent of Magic doesn’t have that problem. Each POV shift is strong in it’s own way and they all kind of end in a way that leaves you dying for more, so it was easy to get lost in both of characters’ stories without feeling like I was being forced to do so. The Lilies are explained more in this one and the mystery surrounding them gets a little lighter but a few more questions are raised at the same time. Kerrick’s pov gives some fantastic insight on the northern tribes that were glossed over in the first book and we find out more about Danny. We also get to see more of Avry in action as well and the political intrigue is definitely thick in this one. Just when I thought everything would be fairly straight forward Synder would add a twist and it would set my mind reeling again.

The characters seemed a bit deeper in this one and I had no trouble connecting with Avry this time around. It seemed like her emotional range really broadened and she didn’t try to play off situations like they were nothing, it seemed like whatever wall was between me and her came down. There is also some great character growth in this one for both Avry and Kerrick, as well as the side characters like Danny. A few people you don’t expect to see much of in this book make a full come back and people really start showing their real potential. The relationship between Kerrick and Avry is one that I can truly get behind now that Avry has opened up more, and with the added tension of the war you can’t help but want the best for them. Tohon is still one of my favorite characters…I love to hate him. He’s so charming and pretty, and at the same time he’s a megalomaniac and a monster. I find myself understanding Avry’s unwilling reaction to him; pure revulsion mixed with a kind of magnetic (and wholly unwanted) attraction.

This is definitely a step up from Touch of Magic and the ending is one of those that make you want to give the evil eye to the author. It’s such torture having to wait to find out what’s going to happen! Needless to say I can’t wait for the third novel to come out!

I received this from Harlequin and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Maria V. Snyder definitely knows how to keep an audience interested! Such a fun adventure with the addition of some fantastic new secondary characters along with the old.
full review coming soon.

[Amber]

There were some slow parts, but the good parts and the CRAZY AWESOME ending made up for it.

Anyone who's been reading my reviews and tweets for a significant amount of time will know that I am a huge fan of Maria V Snyder's books. I've read all of them apart from the Glass trilogy and have really liked to loved them. Scent of Magic is no exception.

Full review here: http://www.booksofamber.com/2012/12/scent-of-magic-by-maria-v-snyder.html