Mattie Carver’s engagement party should have marked the start of her own personal fairy tale. But when her fiancé, Ben, is violently abducted the next morning, her desperate quest to find him rips her away from small-town life and reveals a shattering truth: magic is real—and Ben is hooked. It’s not the stuff of storybooks. It’s wildly addictive, capable of producing everything from hellish anguish to sensual ecstasy almost beyond human endurance.
Determined to find out who took Ben and why, Mattie immerses herself in a shadowy underworld and comes face-to-face with the darkly alluring Asa Ward, a rogue magic dealer, infamous hustler…and her missing fiancé’s estranged brother. Asa has the power to sense magic, and he realizes Mattie is a reliquary, someone with the rare ability to carry magic within her own body, undetected. Asa agrees to help find Ben on one condition: Mattie must use her uncommon talent to assist his smuggling operations. Now, from magic-laced Vegas casinos to the netherworld clubs of Bangkok, Mattie is on a rescue mission. With Asa by her side, she’ll face not only the supernatural forces arrayed against her but the all-too-human temptation that she fears she can’t resist.
Sarah Fine first caught my eye a while ago, a bit after her Guardians of Sanctum was released. I hated that book. Not because it was bad, it wasn't. It was one of the most intricate and imaginative plots I've ever read. Not because I didn't finish it, because I flew through the pages. It was just straight up depressing. Kind of like If I Stay by Gayle Forman - great but just makes you feel too sad. But Sarah Fine is an amazing author.
When I saw Reliquary and read the blurb, I clicked preorder straight away. It was a no brainer. Gorgeous cover. Amazing author. And a plot and world building that sounded riveting. I only held off on reading it when it became available because I was caught up in a few other series and I wasn't quite ready for my heart to be ripped out. The upside to this is that when I finally did get around to it - the sequel was only two days away.
This book is pretty much perfect. The world building is unique. The characters are fascinating and the plot is just good. It stands out in a sea of indistinguishable paranormal and urban fantasy worlds. The romance is about the only thing that somewhat ruins this book - and not because it doesn't make absolute sense, just because Asa Ward people, Asa frigging Ward. It's hard to adore Mattie when you just want to belt her over the head for being so stupid. But I think that in itself says a lot about the book because any author that can create a world and characters that can inspire so much feeling within a reader is obviously talented.
Plus I literally finished and proceeded to preorder both sequels.
