Study this Series

Yelena, a young girl sentenced to death for murder is given the chance to live, 

and in the palace no less...

The catch?

She must be the food taster for the Commander of Ixia whose last food taster was 

not 

so 

successful. 

Faced with a rebellion and certain death if she leaves the commander's palace, Yelena is torn and tossed by the fates.  

The story continues in Magic Study.

Here we find our heroine finding out her identity and her potential as a magician.  Her search for her lost family takes her on a perilous journey.  There are some wonderful characters in this novel. 

In the last book of the triology, Fire Study, Yelena is struggling with her enormous powers.  Her internal struggles continue as she also works to avoid a revolution and find a murderer.  Conflicts abound in this one.

Maria V. Snyder is a wonderful story-teller.  I thought her writing style was intelligent, yet fun and easy to read.  A great combination of fantasy, science-fiction, and romance.  These stories remind me a lot of The Black Magician Trilogy books (but steamier.)

I look forward to reading more of Snyder's work! 

End of the series depression

I finished reading The Diamond of Darkhold to the kids. They LOVED it of course. We'd skipped the third book The Prophet of Yonwood because it goes out of sequence and didn't want the 7 yr old to get too confused. This book was darker than the first two, but still had a good ending and makes you really think about the choices we make today and their impact on our future and our great-grandchildren's futures. I finished The Prophet of Yonwood and enjoyed it, but it was very Salem witch trial-like to me and didn't go with the other books as much as I'd have liked it to. It was fun to find the little reference to something that happens in that book in The Diamond of Darkhold though.


We are all in a depressed, coming down from a series, mood now. I hate when a series wraps you all up in it like these (or the Twilight books) do and then you are disappointed with many books to come...

To try and refrain from disappointment I started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to the kids. I LOVED these as a kid. I hope mine like them as much!