Terrific Touch

4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes

This is a great introduction to a world that seems to be filled with magic and intriguing characters.  The world feels like a superb mix of the fantasy and dystopian genres. 

There are a lot of different magics in this world but also a horrible plague with no cure.  This has led to a disorganized mess when it comes to cities and government.  Even a plant in this world can kill you, the death lily description kind of made me think of Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors.  In some towns there were almost no people so that means that there's nobody to keep the peace and enforce laws.  This chaos and lack of unity means that some of the previous leaders are trying to take over the whole country.  There seem to be three options for their leader: The religious zealot, the guy who does horrible things for power, and the guy with the level head and a plan.

Avry is a healer, her power allows her to channel the injuries or sickness into herself to heal someone.  Healers used to be well respected but they were essentially shunned after the onset of this plague with no cure.  They were blamed and with no cure to be found the healers were seen as harming instead of helping and now most of them are dead.

After healing and getting caught Avry is rescued/kidnapped by a group that wants her to heal someone.  The leader of this group, Kerrick, has some secrets of his own that he's hiding.  I really didn't like him at first but he slowly grows on you, so far I don't think he's as good a male lead character as Varek from Magic Study was, but I do hope that he keeps growing as a character. 

One of my favorite side characters is Belan.  He's a great character especially when he threatens to rip a certain love interest's arms off if he hurts Avry again.  Belan is big like a bear and very protective of the group and Avry.  I hope to see more from this character in the next book.

The author is definitely not afraid to kill off characters and I know that one death really surprised me.  Though this death also gave Avry more drive to succeed.  All these characters have a lot to prove and even more to lose.  There is a lot of death and near death happenings. 

Overall this book is full of surprises and has an intense ending that seems to promise quite an interesting future.