Review: More great worldbuilding around an endearing character
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 3, 2013
Blood Healing(The Healers of Meligna, Book2)by K.J. ColtI received this in ARC form from the author and read it immediately and should probably have had this review posted much earlier.I was busy waiting for other events of my own to unfold on my end and then became distracted, which might have been to some benefit. As it was I was distracted into reading  The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova which has some parallels to issues I struggled with in these two books of K.J. Colt's. These books are a bit out of my genre although I could almost imagine them to take place on some other world and bring the element of science fiction fantasy to them I felt more that they were about some era long ago. Not being inclined to history, I sometimes found extra sleep in those classes, I was at a loss to what era this might depict where they treated children so poorly. After reading the memoirs it would be easy to place these close to or earlier than the same time that Casanova was alive. Although I had a feeling Casanova exaggerated his life and exploits the whole does seem to give one a feel for life and society of that time.I purchased this and reread it to refresh my memory. As I've mentioned with the past book I was moved to great anger with the parents of our heroine Adenine. I felt they did terrible things to her and though it took a while in the story I felt K.J. had acquitted herself well with a fair explanation for all of the circumstance. If you have not read that book I would recommend reading it before you read this one. This one stands well alone though, so if you are not inclined I think you will still find this one quite entertaining and thought provoking.There is a thread or plot point that is the main thread around which everything is woven, which is a trope that I have seen in many of my favorite genre. You will have to read to recognize this because it's a major part of the story that makes it interesting and drives the main character. It is the way that it is developed here and how in this story it begins to be partially resolved that make this piece precious.Our main character is just turning fourteen and is facing some things in life that would be troubling to many young teens today. This is one of the elements that I picked up from the memoirs if Casanova in that it seems parallel to how the children of that era were treated, especially the young girls.  This goes a long way in explaining the parents but not yet acquitting them in my eyes. What they are guilty of is still severe and I find it amazing that Adenine has come to forgive them, though as I read I could easily see that in her nature that is what she would do.As the story begins, where the last one left off, Adenine is en-route to her new life as a healer with her friend Jemely, a protector Hawrald and her nemesis Healer Euka. There are some interesting things pertaining to character development that go on in the first few pages especially when we meet Absylam with whom Hawrald seems acquainted with and has apparent reservations about, but despite this he finally relinquishes his protection over Adenine to Absylam.In this book Jemely undergoes some hardships that make her character seem less important to the story, but it's the very hardships and their outcome that lead to the best of plot twists that will take us into the next book.In her new life in Meligna, Adenine is shown one way of life that is quite easy and free and not at all as expected. But it is because she is being shielded from knowing all of the truth that she gets this impression. When fortune turns on her she will see things in a much different light. Adenine has grown much from the past book but, she is far from finished with her development. She has qualities that could make her a great leader, but she is naive and too trusting, which gets her into no end of troubles.  This is something she shares with Casanova who, though always seeming to be so clever and accomplished in fooling others, often found himself caught up by those less intelligent but more crafty than he.  It is a character flaw that stays with her throughout the book but in the end she might be better for all that has occurred. There seems no end to the drama and the intrigue that unfold in her life while Adenine goes through it unaware of the tenuous thread that holds her where she is.Adenine spends almost too long a time rushing into things that have all sorts of catastrophic effect on her friends. Part of this might be forgiven in that she has, at the beginning, a long road to finding out who her true friends are. It seems at some point that her concern for Jemely and her refusal to be betrothed to someone she can never love will lead to her ruin, but there are other things in the mix that are bringing things to a climax.This book contains all the twists and turns, intrigue and plotting, romance and danger that I often found in such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.This is yet another well told tale by K.J. Colt in a series that has garnered my attention. I think anyone who loves the old classic masterpieces of romance and who loves good world building in Fantasy should enjoy both of these books while at the same time enjoying some interesting thought provoking ideas that may well prove too real toward our past, even though fanciful in many ways, it's possible that some of these notions might have been entertained at some distant time and had similar consequences.J.L. Dobias