Review: A Refreshing Take on Its Magical Rules
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 26, 2013
Sacred Promises by Jennifer Hines and Mindy Bigham is a YA fantasy about eighteen-year-old Abbey Morgan, a woman who attends a private school for elementals, warriors, shape shifters, and mystics.Abbey, a long-time orphan, arrives at college with a big secret. She is the reincarnated Gaia and future queen of the magicians. There has not been a queen for two hundred years, and Abbey is desperate to keep her secret until she can assume the throne when she turns twenty. Bad things happen to the queen candidates. They are either killed or their virtue taken. Abbey must keep her purity vow until she assumes the throne, or she loses her magical powers.Sacred Promises has a refreshing take on its magical rules. Earth magic appears in many forms, from controlling elements, to teleporting (called shimmering), to fierce physical combat. Abbey is also tempted by her handsome student mentor Kaleb, and a charming wolf shape shifter named Darian. The plot twists around Abbey’s growing dangers of keeping herself eligible for the queen position.It was refreshing to read a YA story where the main character balanced her headstrong decisions with listening to mentors (including the memories of predecessor Gaia queens). The writing craft was very good with limiting adverbs and keeping the descriptive passages to a manageable length. In a half dozen places, the story used an incorrect word. These obvious grammar errors pulled me out of what was otherwise a very good story.I recommend Sacred Promises to YA fans looking for a well-constructed magical world filled with neat characters and a plot with unpredictable turns.