Jeanette Raleigh

An epic, episodic fantasy about a healer and the two paladins she befriends. I had fun reading the book, but I felt it needed more polish--not in the sense that it had bad editing (it was fine), but in the sense that the episodes didn't flow effortlessly together, and this caused a lot of interruptions for inserting backstory and explanations because of it. The ending left me hanging as to the romantic fate of the two main characters, which I thought was really risky for the writer to do, but I thought she pulled off well.

It's tricky writing a healer character: they don't go forth and do battle. Fortunately, the author paired her with a couple of good paladins with distinct personalities, which made for an interesting mix. The main character quickly falls in love with one of them and nearly dies trying to save his life--healers have to take risks, too. The author is continually putting the main character in danger instead of leaving her at the back of the party, doing little healings and buffs, which (as a gamer) I really liked.

The social system of the plains folk was interesting--another risk that the writer took. I'd like to see more of that culture, but this wasn't really the book for it, I think.

Overall, a nice effort by an author who likes to take risks and pulls them off reasonably well.… (meer)