Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Summary from GoodReads
From the New York Times bestselling author of Sorcery of Thorns and An Enchantment of Ravens comes a thrilling new YA fantasy about a teen girl with mythic abilities who must defend her world against restless spirits of the dead.
The dead of Loraille do not rest.
Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.
When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.
As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.
The dead of Loraille do not rest.
Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.
When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.
As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.
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REVIEW
I received the e-ARC from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Well...where to begin from this book? The world which looks like Dark Ages but with a twist in magic? But let us take it from the beginning: Artemisia a nun in training who aspires to be a Gray sister has the power to sense demonic energy and along with the Order they try to have souls pass to the afterlife...without coming back as revenants or demonic spirits to haunt them.
When an attack in her covenant brings her in contact with one powerful relic which houses a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard, she will have to deal with more than her dislike to socializing with the living.
Among politics and power-hungry people, war, and a threat that may consume her world, Artemisia and the Revenant in the relic, try to navigate into discovering who may be the true villain and that sometimes magic is not always bad or good. And holiness may hide a part of true villainy.
For a book that had no romance in it, only action and secrets it was enjoyable and very interesting. While I didn't like Artemisia very much in the beginning I enjoyed how she came into power with the relic and her banter with the spirit. The friends she made along the way and the trials she had to face made her braver and by the end of the book, I was hoping for a sequel. While I am not sure if we will ever get one I would like to explore this world more as it has potential for more books.
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