Book Review: Touch of Power By: Maria V. Snyder

Book Description:

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan assumes their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored 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—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. Because the price of peace may well be her life....

My Thoughts:

*sigh* I LOVE these types of romances...

Hard, tough, over bearing, man meets stubborn, good, sarcastic, opinionated girl and you've got an AWESOME story/romance.

This is a fantasy where people have healing powers, power over water, land, air, life, death, plants etc. so you'll always find adventure in these types of books. 

I enjoyed every single character. I felt the author did a great job with the characters and made it easy for you to like them and relate in some ways to some of them. 

However with that I didn't feel the author did a good job explaining their loyalties to Kerrick or the prince they were trying to save. I enjoyed the banter, sarcasm, jokes, etc of this band and they searched and found their healer. There just wasn't too much of a back story as to why they so readily vowed their loyalty to this mission of finding a healer and healing the prince to stop some other bad guys. 

I liked the twisted sense of humor and twisted mind of the main bad guy who of course has powers that would be fitting his character. I enjoyed the twistedness of they way he did things because it made me kind of be sad for him and hate him all the same time. 

There were times when I was worried that there was going to be a love triangle and thank goodness there wasn't! the romance between Avry and another character was wonderful I loved it, and loved the struggle on each side and have the hope the entire time reading that they would get together. I love subtle things like that, where one is so hard but you see him slowly melt and the girl fight back and slowly melt, I love it! 

The ONE thing that kept me from giving this book 5 stars was the sex at the VERY END OF THE BOOK! It wasn't detailed it was very "classy" and you just knew what had happened. But like in Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study (sex at the end too) it was ridiculous and completely unnecessary! Am I against sex in a book? not to a certain degree but I'm very careful at what I allow myself to read in that aspect. I just found the idea of when she decided to write that 2 characters had sex (in both books) just gross! The location and timing in Poison Study was unrealistic and sanitary I mean really?! The timing in this book was ridiculous and unnecessary, in my opinion, and just GROSS! 

Sexual Content: moderate (PG)

Language: moderate (PG)

Violence: moderate (PG) (there is some blood, guts, and gore, but nothing extreme- mild)  Drugs/Alcohol: none

I would recommend this book as a good romance book! Just rolling my eyes at the end...

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