fickle, nightmares are real, and trolls make excellent bakers . . .
young and alone in Alabama, the victim of a chronic, mysterious
illness. Until a man in a shabby cloak steps out of her mirror and
demands her help to defeat a bloodthirsty wizard.
hallucination—just one more insult from her failing body—and
orders her intruder to take a hike. But the handsome figment of her
imagination won’t take no for an answer, and kidnaps her anyway,
launching her into a world of utmost danger—and urgent purpose.
unstable nations, Tandara is a land of shapeshifters and
weather-workers, queens and legends. Ravenous monsters and greedy
bounty hunters patrol unforgiving mountains. Riverboats pulled by
sea-cattle trade down broad waterways. And creatures of nightmare
stalk Raine herself, vicious in the pursuit of her blood.
She’s part of a band as resourceful as it is odd: a mage-shy
warrior, a tattered wizard, a tenderhearted giant, and a prickly
troll sorceress. Her new friends swear she has powers of her own. If
she can stay under their protection, she might just live long enough
to find out . . .
South Alabama, and grew up climbing trees, searching for sprites and
fairies in the nearby woods, and dreaming of other worlds. The
daughter of an English teacher and a small-town judge, Rushe
developed a love of reading early on, and haunted the school and
local libraries, devouring fairy tales, myths, and tales of
adventure. In the seventh grade, she stumbled across a worn copy of
The Hobbit, and was forever changed. She loves fantasy and
paranormal, but only between the pages of a book—the flying monkeys
in The Wizard of Oz give her the creeps, and she eschews
horror movies. A psychic friend once proclaimed the linen closet in
Rushe’s bedroom a portal to another dimension, and she hasn’t
slept well since. Rushe is a world-class chicken.
Raine Stewart lives in Alabama and has been suffering from a strange, unidentified illness for her whole life. So, when she sees a man come through her mirror she thinks he is a hallucination. What else is she supposed to think when she is told that she is a lost twin, a wizard, and from another world. I mean she sees her dead aunt’s ghost, this can’t be real right? But Raine soon learns that it is true. She has a great power in her that she is going to have to learn how to control if she is going to find a missing magical stone and defeat the evil wizard.
I really enjoyed this story. I admit that Raine had a tendency to get on my nerve sometimes with how she treated the others in her group. I did have to remind myself that a lot of that comes from the fact that she does not have a lot of experience around people. But that excuse can only last you so long.
Beyond that, I loved this world. There was so much happening, you had a great group of people to follow along with, and I enjoyed all the twists and turns to the story. I really liked how Raine had to work at her powers. She was more dangerous trying to use her power than if she would have just stayed back. But this makes the story more believable as opposed to her just coming to Tandara, being able to save everyone right off the bat, and just fitting in perfectly.
This is a great story and a fantastic start to a trilogy. I’m excited to see where Rushe is going to take us in the next book.
I received A Meddle of Wizards from Silver Dagger Book Tours for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.
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