Hello everyone!
C.L. Carhart is an author I didn't know before I picked up Gift of Fire a couple of weeks ago, but I'm happy to say that I'm intrigued enough now to wish to continue.
Particularly as I'd still really like to understand some of the rules of this magical world!
More importantly, however, I think that the author just writes really, really well.
I'll talk more about that down at the bottom, the way I would normally do it of course, but the thing is that when you read as much as I do, there's just no chance of NOT running into bad writing every once in a while. That just makes actual good writing something to really hold on to.
But enough of this blabbering nonsense from me.
It's time to check our magic gauges again, in the next book of the series: Gift of Stone.
Links to previous related works can be found at the bottom of the page, as per usual.
Like the title suggests, Gift of Stone is going to cover the elemental magic dealing with anything and everything to do with stone in any way, shape or form.
This book begins a little bit differently than Gift of Fire did, in that Zehra, our heroine, isn't actually born a witch - but she becomes one through a ritual performed by a priest who also happens to be a private investigator (important for later) and occasional lover though always best friend of the man who gifts her the magic.
Philipp and she were meant to marry afterwards, but he sadly doesn't make it through the ceremony so she's left on her own, and what's more, remember how in the previous review I talked about the city's leader dying, and the ancient spirit that protects said city now looking for a new host?
Well, she's found it - in Zehra. This puts her directly in Henning's path.
Henning is the adorable priest and keyholder of the city from the first book, but he and Zehra don't exactly hit it off on the right foot, mostly because she's holding way too many things close to the chest and he misunderstands, so can't really make informed choices when talking to her.
It should be noted that this book has to arrive with a couple of trigger warnings, because Zehra's childhood is rather awful. Sold by her father because of his gambling addiction, she falls into a child pornography ring and is only rescued as a teenager when she's no longer of use to the dude selling her body, which is how Philipp gets her out of there.
Philipp also breaks that ring apart, with her help, and educates her as well as helps her work her way through some of her trauma, but that's not where it ends.
See, the plan was to rescue her family from bondage, or at the very least her mother and brothers - which, working with the PI, Zehra realizes it'll only have to be the one brother, because the older of the two is already too deeply indoctrinated within their father's line of business.
Oh and also, she manages to get her mom in trouble because the dark priest who's working with her dad and keeping the compound under magical protection clocks into the fact she's there, so her mom gets punished for it.
Time's ticking then, so Zehra and the PI hatch a plan to get them out, all while she's circling Henning and trying to figure out how to make THAT work.
See, Henning's a sweetheart and he's never going to push or step over the lines in the sand she'd drawn, but the two of them ARE fated to be together, and more than that she's simply just attracted to him, pure and simple, and yearns for what a normal relationship might be like, though she's worried he won't want her once she tells him everything about her past.
But once her mom and younger brother are safely in her master's old compound, protected by HIS magical shield, a little situation crops up in which the brother just doesn't keep his mouth shut, so Zehra tells Henning most of her story.
Henning being who he is obviously just loves and respects her even more, much to her relief.
And of course the other shoe drops at that time when her brother, the teenage idiot, wanders out from under the protective spell and gets snatched back to the compound. Zehra then learns that Henning's cousin (or at least mildly related to him) has been gathering information for the dark priest who happens to be her father, wanting a dad so badly she'll do any bad thing he tells her to do.
Also, said priest actually wants to kill Henning and take over as keyholder, marry Zehra, and just be a nuisance.
Zehra heads on over to the other compound in the hopes of saving her brother, which leads to some rather dark and twisted scenes because the dark priest? Well he's one of those people you generally have nightmares about.
Zehra's power finally explodes and Henning shows up almost immediately in answer, because HIS powers and duties are directly tied to her through the spirits that inhabit them, so he can help her break out. Unfortunately, while they catch the priest and break this criminal ring wide open, they aren't able to save her brother, who also had some really wicked things done to him, was rendered infertile, so his own father and brother decided he wasn't worthy to keep on living.
This breaks Zehra completely because she admits her final secret to Henning: that she, too, can't have children, because of a procedure all girls had done while in the ring she was in.
Henning just hushes her and marries her later anyway, though not before she manages to visit some higher plane of existence, or halfway to Heaven maybe, I'm not sure, where she meets up with Philipp again and they have a little romp in the grass so that she can get it out of her system and head back to Henning to be his wife forevermore.
The book ends with the knowledge that Zehra's mother married that PI, and a few years later Zehra gets a call from an incredibly powerful witch telling her that she's met two women who want to perform the same ritual Zehra and Philipp did, to make one a witch, and that they seem to be sisters - and a couple?
It's confusing and the book isn't out yet, but I'm intrigued and interested and can't wait!
I was fond of Henning in the first one, Gift of Fire, and interested to see which witch was resisting the bond between them, though it turns out it's not quite so simple as that. Zehra isn't a witch born, not in the traditional way, and the elder who helps in the process to transform her into one unfortunately passes during it. She has a pretty dark history and the circumstances around her are likewise dark so, make sure to read the warnings and triggers at the start of the book just to be on the safe side.
None of it was triggering to me, though it WAS upsetting, because no one should have to endure as much as she had.
I will say that the second book finds and hits its stride a bit better than the first one did, and I enjoyed checking in with the people from book one, though it would have been fun to introduce others from the magical community beyond the officials we have to deal with because of the legal circumstances that arise.
I was intrigued to see the power this city witch can wield when needed, and it's definitely awe-inspiring. I think, as we move deeper into the series, we'll also be able to learn more about the other elemental magic and how it works, as well as about the systems that keep the society in place.
The author has done a wonderful job in crafting this society, but I'd still love to learn more about the rules and such.
I have to point out that the Goodreads blurb is a bit misleading though, as it seems to want it to look as though Henning keeps pestering Zehra for the bond, when the reality is quite opposite. He's unfailingly gentle and supportive, making me love him even more, and Zehra's personal story throughout the book (the central story, as it were, of rescuing not just her family but also herself in the process, though sadly unsuccessful in some aspects here) grows by leaps and bounds.
I really only have one thing, but it did settle this at 4 stars rather than 5.
I would have loved for her benefactor, Philipp, to stay out of it after his job was done. He was the first stepping stone that Zehra needed to regain a sense of self and worth, and in my personal opinion it dilutes what the two had and what she and Henning have, by having her pine and crave this guy so much. I would have liked it more if Philipp really were just the one to help prepare her for Henning, but as soon as they meet up in that celestial dream sphere and he's all handsome and hot as sin, I knew where it was going. I'm disappointed by that, but I'm not the author and can only really express my own emotions.
Other than that, which I'd love to be able to change, I was gripped by the story of this book and am definitely intrigued enough to check in with the Teutons of Franconia once the third book releases!
None of it was triggering to me, though it WAS upsetting, because no one should have to endure as much as she had.
I will say that the second book finds and hits its stride a bit better than the first one did, and I enjoyed checking in with the people from book one, though it would have been fun to introduce others from the magical community beyond the officials we have to deal with because of the legal circumstances that arise.
I was intrigued to see the power this city witch can wield when needed, and it's definitely awe-inspiring. I think, as we move deeper into the series, we'll also be able to learn more about the other elemental magic and how it works, as well as about the systems that keep the society in place.
The author has done a wonderful job in crafting this society, but I'd still love to learn more about the rules and such.
I have to point out that the Goodreads blurb is a bit misleading though, as it seems to want it to look as though Henning keeps pestering Zehra for the bond, when the reality is quite opposite. He's unfailingly gentle and supportive, making me love him even more, and Zehra's personal story throughout the book (the central story, as it were, of rescuing not just her family but also herself in the process, though sadly unsuccessful in some aspects here) grows by leaps and bounds.
I really only have one thing, but it did settle this at 4 stars rather than 5.
I would have loved for her benefactor, Philipp, to stay out of it after his job was done. He was the first stepping stone that Zehra needed to regain a sense of self and worth, and in my personal opinion it dilutes what the two had and what she and Henning have, by having her pine and crave this guy so much. I would have liked it more if Philipp really were just the one to help prepare her for Henning, but as soon as they meet up in that celestial dream sphere and he's all handsome and hot as sin, I knew where it was going. I'm disappointed by that, but I'm not the author and can only really express my own emotions.
Other than that, which I'd love to be able to change, I was gripped by the story of this book and am definitely intrigued enough to check in with the Teutons of Franconia once the third book releases!
xx
*image not mine
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