Jeff Wheeler

In this second volume of the series, Maia reaches the Muirwood abbey where she is expected to do great things - pass the maston test and open the Apse Veil so that the spirits of the dead can pass onto the afterlife, and living people can pass from one abbey to another as they did in former times, greatly easing communication within her troubled land and also with another country, now threatened by a ideologically motivated enemy.

Maia makes friends and enemies of her own and has to negotiate difficult situations, not least with her erstwhile husband who turns up to make a new alliance with the daughter of her father's second wife. And it seems she is not yet ready to take the test as the political situation becomes more threatening and closes in on the abbey.

As with volume one, I had a number of problems. At least there isn't the confusing switching around in the timeline as in that volume, but it was still a frustrating read. Maia is too good to be true, constantly trying to believe her father won't betray people and won't kill them despite his evident wickedness, abundantly demonstrated by his having her mother murdered and sending a whole family of lords to the block for refusing to sign a document making him superior to the Medium, the spiritual force that his country is meant to revere. There are also inconsistencies: although Maia is immediately attacked by the dangerous spirits that her father deliberately made her prey to in book one whenever she leaves the grounds, she had no problem with them when she arrived with her grandmother at the beginning of the story.

Again there were the parallels with the history of Henry VIII: this time, his second wife is pregnant and loses the baby after finding him with his latest 'conquest' on his lap, an apocryphal story about Anne Boleyn. And that woman's name is almost but not quite Jane Seymour. The document everyone has to sign or face execution parallels the one people had to sign acknowledging Henry the head of the Church of England.

Stylistically, there are a lot of adverbs which become very over the top at times - people whisper softly as if there's really any other way to do that, for instance. It's a minor point but becomes a bit irritating when constantly repeated. I should also warn anyone who doesn't like fictional animals to be harmed, that line is crossed in this.

Given the various issues I had with this, I can't rate it higher than the 'OK' rating of volume 1, so again it's 2 stars from me.… (meer)

I really did love this read. I loved how to this book built on the world but also expanded the magic system in this read. I also really loved how owen grew in this book. I became so emotionally invested in both own and evie realtionship. I also loved the new characters that we meet and how the world was built. It was super fun read with a nice balance between the war elements that i don't always love and the politices that I adored. The end of this book was such a hard read for ship but I am really excited for book 3.… (meer)

I picked this book up on whim and I adored it from page one. I am not always the used to adult fantasy but this book captured me from page one. It was such a easy book to digest and that is largely thanks to young lead only 8 years old. Owen was the prefect point of view to explore this new world and i loved it. Jeff was also able to find ways to develop this world throughout this read and I grew to love this world and these characters. It was such a special read, I loved it. I found this read to be so charming an I also loved the world that was built that book had so many unexpected twists and turn that kept me on the edge of my seat. I can't wait to read book 2 soon. This is a great read for someone is hoping to dive into more adult fantsay reads but they scare them. I found owen POV to be so easy to read from.… (meer)