Magic Study -- Maria V. Snyder

Well, I'm officially addicted.  When is the third book coming out?  March 2008??  That's crazy talk!  Cah-Razy!

This is what happens when I get excited, kids.  I start speaking middle-school-ese.

Magic Study is the sequel to Poison Study.  Due to that whole order of execution thing, Yelena has left Ixia and Valek.  In Sitia, she will be reunited with her long-lost family and learn how to control her newfound magical abilities.

Sounds simple, right?  Hah.  Yelena learns quickly that her life in Sitia won't be easy:  Her brother hates her.  HATES her.  Everyone but her parents and her mentor seem to believe that she's an Ixian spy.  There's a soldier who wants to torture her to death*.  It turns out that the Ixian royal family wasn't completely exterminated all those years ago -- a child made it out alive, and now he's All Grown Up and wants his country back.  And he wants Valek's head on a pike.

I'm going to just come right out and say it (C.C., get ready):  HORSES!  There were horses, and I LIKED them.

Anyway, yeah.  Clearly I liked the book.  I was much more into the romance angle this time, Yelena and Valek's reunion made me a little swoony, even, and spending more time with Ari and Janco was just fab.  If you liked Poison Study at all, definitely read this one. 

I guess I'll have to tide myself over by reading Assassin Study, the serial about Valek.  (Good god, I can't believe I'm planning to read something at eHarlequin.com!)

*What is it about this world and the ungodly amount of people who are fans of the raping and the torturing?  Sometimes it feels like there's a rift between this universe and the Vachss universe.  Yecch.