Fantasy/ Dysopia/Science Fiction
From Goodreads:
Xhea has
no magic. Born without the power that everyone else takes for granted, Xhea is
an outcast—no way to earn a living, buy food, or change the life that fate has
dealt her. Yet she has a unique talent: the ability to see ghosts and the
tethers that bind them to the living world, which she uses to scratch out a
bare existence in the ruins beneath the City’s floating Towers.
When a
rich City man comes to her with a young woman’s ghost tethered to his chest,
Xhea has no idea that this ghost will change everything. The ghost, Shai, is a
Radiant, a rare person who generates so much power that the Towers use it to
fuel their magic, heedless of the pain such use causes. Shai’s home Tower is
desperate to get the ghost back and force her into a body—any body—so that it
can regain its position, while the Tower’s rivals seek the ghost to use her
magic for their own ends. Caught between a multitude of enemies and desperate
to save Shai, Xhea thinks herself powerless—until a strange magic wakes within
her. Magic dark and slow, like rising smoke, like seeping oil. A magic whose
very touch brings death.
With two extremely strong female
protagonists, Radiant is a story of fighting for what you believe in and
finding strength that you never thought you had.
Radiant is a long twisted journey
featuring two main characters.
Xhea, who thinks she has no magic but can see ghosts and Shai who is a
ghost and has more magic than others.
Most of Radiant is back-story and world building. All of that is done while following
Xhea and Shai as they try to survive in a world that was destroyed some time in
the past. Magic is a big part of
this world and those with little live in the ruins. Those with a lot live in towers kept aloft with magic. During the story Xhea and Shai spend
time in both.
It is an easy story to fall
into. Radiant is well
written. The main characters are
well defined. The main plot is the
only weakness. Xhea and Shai never
had a goal other than to stay out of the wrong hands. Their journey is used to build the world and to tell the
back story. It is only
in the Epilogue that there is a hint of where they are going and why. I still
enjoyed the book and will pick up book two when it comes out. I want to see what will happen to
the two and where they will end up.
Talos published Radiant by Karina Sumner-Smith in 2014.
I received an ARC of Radiant from Edelweiss in return for an honest review.
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