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    Review of SEA GLASS by Maria V. Snyder (see her website)

    GLASS BOOK 2

    Mira, September 2009

    Glass magician Opal Cowan isn't ready to obey the summons from the master magicians. Instead, she carrys on with her plan. She's captured the blood magician Janco and intends to force him to re-switch bodies with her ex-boyfriend Ulrick. But everything seems to go wrong. Ulrick isn't especially interested in switching back, city guards are always chasing her and, when she finally does go back to the master magicians, nobody will believe her story.

    As far as they are concerned, the war against the blood magicians is over. The last of that power-addicted group has been locked in Opal's glass prisons and hidden away. And according to the Councilor, Janco/Ulrick had fooled Opal...there's no truth to the story of them switching bodies.

    Opal doesn't want to rock the boat, but she believes she knows the truth. After helping her new boyfriend Kale, with the glass orbs used to gather energy from storms and uncovering a plot, she graduates and decides to strike out on her own...away from all of the master magicians who want to keep control over her and use her message magic for their own purposes. But Opal soon uncovers evidence that something is very wrong in the land of Councilor Moon. Staying alive for long enough to bring the evidence to the magicians is going to be a trick.

    Author Maria Snyder (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of fantasy by Snyder) continues her exploration of the fantasy world she invented with her POISON STUDY series.

    Snyder's writing is engaging, and the fantasy world she creates intriguing. I found myself getting impatient with Opal, however. She always believes she knows best, even when she doesn't, refuses to listen to anything she doesn't already agree with, and throws herself into danger without taking adequate precautions or building a web of alliances to make her actions possible. A good chunk of the middle of the book is tied up in finding a possibly out-of-control magician, with a threatening family and a youth who clearly wants to escape yet who cannot, yet Snyder drops this subplot and never resolves it (perhaps we're seeing the seeds of a future series). On a minor, but annoying note, Snyder consistently refered to a Bo as a Bow in the earlier books in the series. In this one, she uses Sais as the plural for Sai (should be Sai). Each time I see this typo, I find myself pulled out of the plot.

    Full disclosure: SEA GLASS was provided to me for review purposes.

    Three Stars

    Reviewed 10/08/09

    Buy Sea Glass (Glass, Book 2) from Amazon

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