Friday, April 10, 2009

Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder Book Review

Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder
(Mira, Paperback, 2008)
Rating:

Yelena is finally beginning to understand her magic and she is no longer in danger of spinning out of control. Her magic is strong, though, and people are whispering that she is a Soulstealer. There hasn't been a Soulstealer for hundreds of years but the last ones were evil men who killed thousands with their magic. Yelena fears her magic and tries to ignore it. On top of everything, she is still banned from Ixia and now the magicians at the Citadel have turned her out. Yelena struggles to accept her magic and find a place in the world.

Maria V. Snyder can certainly maintain the excitement and suspense of a multi-book series! I love that each book in Yelena's series has a satisfying ending, yet leaves open a few things so as to start the next book. Fire Study explores Yelena's magic in greater detail and the conclusions are mind blowing and unsuspected. All of my favorite characters returned for this third (and supposedly last) book in the series...Valek, Ari, Janco, and Yelena's brother, Leif. There were times when it felt as if my heart stopped because of the gut wrenching plot twists. I normally don't like to know the outcome of a book, but I just had to beg my friend to tell me what happened to Valek at one point. I was so caught up in the characters and their futures that it was impossible for me to keep reading without knowing. It's not very often that a book captures me that wholly. If you haven't read this series yet, do so. Maria V. Snyder is a master of fantasy writing.

I'm super excited about Maria's next book, Storm Glass, which is available later this month. Storm Glass tells the story of Opal who was a minor character in the Study series. Tirzah at The Compulsive Reader received an early review copy and, lucky for us, she gave it a great review.

7 comments:

  1. Really? I was disappointed with Magic Study. I don't know, it was good but Poison Study was amazing. I guess I should finish the series though. And then the Glass books have you seen them?

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  2. I actually read the first two over the summer, but just fizzled out by the time I got to book three. You're definitely making me want to pick them back up again! :)

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  3. You've made me really want to read this series!

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  4. I find the linking of books, the making of trilogies, to be fascinating business. Thank you for sharing all of these reviews at once.

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  5. I just picked up the first one in the series, great to see that you enjoyed them!! Nice review!!

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  6. I am absolutely dying to read this series. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to get my hands on it with a small town library. Doomed. Doomed from the moving here. But! What else is goodreads for, ay?

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  7. I agree totally about Valek, what a character! I fear finding a man like that in real life would prove quite impossible..., what a shame! The trilogy has become one of my favorites, and I read "Fire study" in one day, only interrupted some hours at school. Allready looking forward to reread the great story!

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