Friday Reads: Fire Study by Maria V Snyder!!

Hello there! Happy Friday!

Friday is my day off this week since I work the weekend and yesterday was my day after night shift and I was fuzzy-brained all day!

Today's Friday Reads will be a bit uphazardly done, but I do plan to have two reviews up, and the first one is the final book in the Study series!



Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have thouroughly enjoyed reading this series! Since this is the final book in what originally was a trilogy you can expect some spoilers for events that happened in book 1 and 2, so keep that in mind!

It's a wonderful fantasy series that also has a good look at political differences between two countries and how things are seen differently from inside each one of the sides!

Yelena is still trying to accept her magic and to what point it might determine who she is. It already determines how the people around her react to her, judging her based on the acts of another. And despite how big the mistrust from others is, the worst rejection comes from Yelena herself, since she is scared of her powers and her magic.

Being the Soulfinder is a scary and largely unknown power and Yelena is not sure how to get herself train and get her abilities under control. The First Magician is the biggest advocate for Yelena to be eliminated for being too dangerous and once that possibility is ruled out, she decides she'll be the one to train Yelena, and that doesn't sit well with Yelena at all, as is to be expected. And driven by her fear of her own abilities, her mistrust of her own control and her unwillingness to face it all, Yelena ends up running head first into trouble without much planning or thinking.

The plot was continuining from what started in the two previous books and expands in worrisome ways. I didn't really guess who the bad guy behind it all, because it was such a verbal and in your face character, you wouldn't have expected such deception too, even if it was also the most obvious at the same time.

We get a lot of our beloved characters all working together and it's good that they come become because Yelena is gonna need all the help she can get trying to figure out her abilities, finding the Warpers, fighting the Fire Warper and trying to prevent an all out war between Ixia and Sitia.

Valek and Yelena undergo their first and biggest bump in their relationship because of Yelena's fears and denial and her trying to make sure no one gets hurt because of her makes her push the ones she love away, and takes their right to choose what to do, if they want to help or even how to help. But I still really enjoy how they make a fantastic team and Valek always seems to know when to get to her aid no matter what.

The ending wrapped up things rather well, leaving enough threads here and there for possible new stories with the either the main or the secondary characters and I'm glad that they are a reality, because I am in love with the world of Ixia and Sitia and I want to spend more time here! Very well deserved 4 stars for this end of a trilogy (that is not as final now any more!).



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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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Saturday Pages: Poison Study by Maria V Snyder!!!

I'm working this weekend, but at least I'm doing so with very awesome co-workers, and today we've decided to have lunch together before work!

As the first Saturday Pages entry of the week, I have the first book of a series that has been sitting in my Kindle library for probably over 2 years and that I wish I had read before! But better later than never, I guess! And it is exactly what I needed with my fantasy reading binge!



Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another series I had postponed reading and that I should have started long ago! Truth be told I am now in a fantasy reading binge since the end of last year, so it really was the right time for me to start this series.

In Poison Study we meet Yelena in prison, awaiting the day her death sentence will be executed, but she gets a rather unusual offer made to her instead. She'll learn to be the food taster of the Commander and if she wants to stay alive she'll have to stay put to get the antidote to the first venom she was given to identify. Valek will be her teacher, the one that will have her life on his hands and he's the Commander Advisor (and occasionally assassin).

Yelena is a very interesting character. She is not an innocent wrongly jailed, because she did kill a man, but the more we get to know her, the more we agree with her reasons for it. Ixia's law doesn't have any room for self defence, and killing someone is pusnished by death. She finds a way to save her life and grabs it with both hands, and she needs to be extremely strong to get through her training, the palace gossip and intrigues, the family of the man she killed since his father is a General of Ixia and dealing with Valek and his power over her life and death.

The world building in this book is phenomenal! We are given so much detail here and there about the society of Ixia, its goverment, leader and the most recent history. The Commander is a most interesting character, that seems both a reformer and a dictator and that you end up feeling a bit torn about whether to support him or dislike him. And we even get some really interesting revelations about it that truly surprised me. Unexpected & really well done diversity right there!

As fantasy it does have the middle ages/medieval feel to it, but Ixia is actually rather modernized after the take over by the Commander. There was a revolution and now there's a strong point on equality, from opportunities, to uniforms, to the equal application of the law to everyone. But there's also the choking control of movement for the citizens and probably a growing bureocracy to take care of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one reminded of a communist dictatorship.

The main characters were fantastic and I loved every interaction between Valek and Yelena! From rebelling against the man that has her life in his hands, to becoming teacher and apprentice, to becoming friends and allies and eventually... well, more! There's so much to them both and their pasts that what we see at first and we discover very much about them both together and apart.

Yelena is a great character, there's so much about her we don't know, that she even doesn't know! Raised as an orphan for charity and then suffering horribly, she has plenty of scars to heal. And she does that not only by making friends, trying to stay alive, but also trying to learn how to defend herself. She starts training with two soldiers and they become the brothers she never had. Ari and Janco added a support line for Yelena completely platonic and helped her get stronger and better, and they do have some wonderful humour added to the story, the banter between them and with Yelena was simply fantastic!

You might be wondering is there's any magic in this book, and yes there is, but magic is forbidden in Ixia, so that's an added complication! The plot is weaved between Yelena's survival and a threat to the government and the Commander himself and it's done in a very intricate way, one that we wouldn't have imagined at first!

The romance was quite unusual but I don't want to talk about why much, in case I end up spoiling something, but let's say I'm very happy to see how both of them can still attend to their duty and what they feel like they need to do, even if that means putting their relationship second for some time and not mean that they love each other any less!

Very much deserving of 4 to 4.5 stars and fantastic first book in a fantasy series that I'd recommend to any fantasy lover!





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