Review of Touch Of Power by Maria V. Snyder

Format: Paperback
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Romance
Pages: 390
Publisher: Mira Ink
Release Date: 20/12/2011
Find The Author: Website
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Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan assumes their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honoured for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Territories, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.

Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince, the leader of a campaign against her people.

As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for.

In a world similar to Ixia in Poison Study, Avry of Kazan has spent her last few years hiding from the world, and the people who want to kill any healer they meet. Finding herself stuck with a soldier named Kerrick, she unwillingly travels across the nine mountains to save a dying Prince, meeting friends, foes and people she thought were lost forever.

The world in this book is vast, very vast, and interesting too. Avry lives in a world of healers, who are being hunted down due to this whole plague thing. Hearing a child dying, she heals her and finds herself discovered and sentenced to death, which is where Kerrick comes in. He needs her to heal his Prince, who is locked in a stasis until Kerrick can find a healer to cure him.

There's a lot of travelling in this book. Hobbit style travelling. Caves and all. However, the slower moments seemed to always be an opportunity to teach me more about the 15 Realms (I think it was 15) and the long history of it. There's quite a lot of info-dumping from both the world and from Avry's life, that quickly grew tiresome.

I was, and I still am, I little unsure about Avry and Kerrick's relationship. It was pretty obvious he would be a love interest from the first few pages. Then there's the part when he bitch slaps her across the face. That was a bit awkward. On top of that, I have no clue if Avry genuinely likes him, she's quite a flighty character. However, they do go great together (weirdly) and those were times I enjoyed the book the most.

This was a good start to the series, but I thought that it could have been much stronger in places. A lot does happen in between all the travelling and info dumping and there's some great characters in here, as well as some really creepy plants. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the next books!