Review: Reliquary by Sarah Fine

Hey all, Dani here.

I’m excited to be sharing this review today for the newest book by Sarah Fine, Reliquary. I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, so I have to add this disclaimer that receiving a free copy does not influence my rating in the slightest.

Okay, now that that’s over with…

Summary

Mattie Carver’s engagement party should have marked the start of her own personal fairy tale. But when her fiancé, Ben, is violently abducted the next morning, her desperate quest to find him rips her away from small-town life and reveals a shattering truth: magic is real—and Ben is hooked. It’s not the stuff of storybooks. It’s wildly addictive, capable of producing everything from hellish anguish to sensual ecstasy almost beyond human endurance.

Determined to find out who took Ben and why, Mattie immerses herself in a shadowy underworld and comes face-to-face with the darkly alluring Asa Ward, a rogue magic dealer, infamous hustler…and her missing fiancé’s estranged brother. Asa has the power to sense magic, and he realizes Mattie is a reliquary, someone with the rare ability to carry magic within her own body, undetected. Asa agrees to help find Ben on one condition: Mattie must use her uncommon talent to assist his smuggling operations. Now, from magic-laced Vegas casinos to the netherworld clubs of Bangkok, Mattie is on a rescue mission. With Asa by her side, she’ll face not only the supernatural forces arrayed against her but the all-too-human temptation that she fears she can’t resist.

My Thoughts

I think this might be my favorite Sarah Fine book so far…though to be fair I’ve only read her Guards of the Shadowlands series, but man, oh man, this was such a good book.

Also…Asa is my new book boyfriend, and I like him so much better than Ben.

Reliquary is pretty action packed, which should be clear since it basically starts with Ben’s abduction, and then Mattie is dumped into a world she had never known about, a world of magic, which is addictive and leads to a dangerous adventure of a lifetime.

I’m pretty sure that I’m now addicted to this series, so I’m kind of glad that the next book is supposed to be out in a couple months.

Learning about the different types of magic was great, and I’m sure there’s a lot more depth to the magic system, but since we are learning from Mattie’s perspective, and considering the chaos of the situation, there isn’t time to go into an in-depth discussion and history lesson on the topic.

This review sort of sounds like a rambling fangirl experience, but I was just so impressed with the descriptions and the characters and the story in general. When I first read the Guards of the Shadowlands books there was so much detail, especially considering the characters’ psychological states. And while that was cool and all, it made the reading experience a little slow.

Now that Sarah Fine has put out quite a few books–Reliquary is her 12th published book–I feel that she has figured out her writing voice and tone, and she blends together action, description, emotion, and dialogue beautifully to create a story the reader can get drawn into and want to read more of.

Man, Ben doesn’t deserve Mattie at all. With everything that happens in this book, it is clear to me that the second book will have quite a bit of tension, and maybe there’s a chance that things will get better with Ben and Mattie, but I will continue to hope for Mattie to leave him for Asa. He is such a wonderfully complex guy, and I just loved how we gradually got to know more and more about him through the book. It made me grow more and more attached to him. And the chemistry between Mattie and Asa…well, I greatly enjoyed it.

I want to read the next book, Splinter, soon. So with any luck, I’ll be approved by NetGalley and 47North for it too, because I really want to know what happens next.

Where to Buy

Reliquary is out today so you can pick it up at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Booksamillion, and Book Depository