Janice Y. (jai) reviewed on 1/31/2007 + 310 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 16

This is one of Patricia Brigg's earlier works (I think her 4th book possibly), and it is stand alone. It centers around a woman - Aren, with slight magepowers - the power of Sight specifically. In her world, women with such power are killed and men with it are forced to choose between becoming a bloodmage (an evil, much feared mage) or death. When her brother's power was discovered, he choose death while Aren continued to hide her ability. One day she has a vision but again suppresses it at a very high cost. The same day she feels the magic in the world reawakened - someone has taken off the bindings placed upon the magic in the world by the bloodmages. Aren's ability increases and she informs the villagers of her Sight, but this is not welcomed information. Meanwhile all the wildlings are reawakening and Aren knows only her sight will keep the villager's safe, no matter how much they may dislike her now. I found the premise interesting, but the execution felt unfinished. It is told mostly in the first person of Aren, but often a sentence or two would describe someone or a place and then pages later it would be referenced and I would have no idea who Aren was talking about. This is the same for her visions - she would see someone die in a far away place and I would say - ok who was that? huh? even though Aren seemed to know. I could piece things together somewhat, but I often felt like I was missing something and it broke the flow of the story for me to feel like I should flip back to see if there was something I missed (sometimes it felt like the information I needed was provided *later*). Also the first person sometimes shifted to third from the Hobs or someone elses point of view for a couple of pages, then move back to Aren. It was not a smooth transition. It felt even stranger knowing that I did NOT have this problem with Briggs' later books.

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