Mark This Book Monday: Magic Study by Maria V Snyder!!

Hello guys!!

A new week starts, I'm working night shift today and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a quiet shift so I can read a new release tonight (spoilers: it's The Orphan Queen!!).

I've been in a serious fantasy binge reading as of late, and so continuining the Study series was a given, so today for our first Mark This Book Monday entry of the week, I have the review for the sequel!



Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Magic Study is the second book in the Study trilogy and unlike other books, this one doesn't suffer from sequel slump or second book syndrome at all! As a sequel, you can expect some spoilers for book one, so either tread with caution or go read book 1 and return later!

The book starts once a lil time has passed from the end of Poison Study, but not much. Yelena had to leave Sitia to avoid her fate as a magic user, she had to leave Valek behind and she is on her way to meet her family and then learn magic with Irys, and to say that she is rather unprepared to deal with any of that is a bit of an understatement.

Yelena doesn't remember anything about her past or her family and when she is taken to their homestead and her brother is clearly hostile and accuses her of being a spy, things don't start on a very good note. I loved Yelena's parents and their different personalities, but it took me as long as it took Yelena's to warm to her brother Lief. What an arse!

There's political intrigue, there's magic lessons and Yelena discovers that she has more magic that she or Irys even imagined and learning how to control it is going to be a tough journey, even more since there's big danger afoot, and Yelena has that tendency to action without much of a second thought. She feels like if she can do something, she must do it, but with little to no consideration on what can happen once she actually DOES.

We meet some new characters aside from Yelena's family and two of them will be present in the next book as foes, I'm quite certain of it, and I do hope Yelena will be wise enough to not underestimate either of them! But we not only get new bad guys, we also meet more Magicians, other students and Kiki. Kiki might very well be my favourite character and she is Yelena's horse! You might be raising an eyebrow here, but you'll understand once you read the book!

We discover much more about magic and the different ways to yield it and manipulate it, and aside from the Sitian magicians, we also meet the Moon Man and his tribe which I feel will play an even bigger role in the next book. And we discover that Yelena's powers are not unheard of but they have a rather bad reputation.

There's also a lot of back and forth when it comes to discussing the political differences between Sitia's goverment and social situation and Ixia's and how it is better now after the Commander took charge or how it was better when the royal family was in charge. Yelena seems to find herself a bit torn on occasion, but she seems to able to appreciate both types of government and see both the good and the bad.

Valek is absent for most of the book, but he's never far away from Yelena's mind, but not in a way to keep her from her life and her lessons and her mission, and once he arrives, they go back to making a great team and working great together! I would have loved some more quiet moments for them together so their relationship wouldn't always develop in the battlefield but it seems to be the way it is for them!

All in all, a great sequel for a very interesting fantasy series! I cannot wait to read the next book! Well deserved 4 stars for this one!





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