BOOK REVIEW: The Healer by C.J. Anaya

The Healer

The Healer Series, Book 1

Author: C.J. Anaya
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publication Date: November 1st, 2013

Book Description:

A girl, a prophecy, and two warring gods equals destiny!

Hope Fairmont longs for a normal teenage life, but with a gift like hers, normal equals healing illnesses and injuries instantly. Keeping a secret like that isn’t easy, but a small town is the perfect place for her to heal those who can’t heal themselves, and an even better place for her father, James Fairmont, to hide his daughter from the rest of the world. 

Life takes an unexpected turn when two handsome strangers move into town and begin unearthing other secrets concerning Hope's future and past, revealing to Hope that her gift for healing may be the fulfillment of an ancient, Japanese prophecy gone wrong. 

Staying away from these mysterious newcomers would be the smart thing to do, but Victor's gentle, easy manner, and Tie's mixed signals and strange mood swings draw her hopelessly closer to revealing the secret she and her father have been so desperate to hide. 

Hope's life is complicated further with visions of a previous life and the arrival of a supernatural demon sent to assassinate her before she learns what she is truly capable of. 

With the support of her father, the fiery loyalty of her best friend Angie, and the child-like love of Kirby, a ten-year-old patient, Hope must fight against the forces of a relentless demon god while unwinding the tangled pieces of her past, proving to herself and those she loves that destiny isn’t determined by some cosmic reading of the stars, but by the individual choices one makes.

Buy Links:

Amazon US ¦ UK

MY REVIEW

Hope Fairmont longs for nothing more than to be normal, but for as long as she can remember, she's always had the ability to heal people. The only person aware of Hope's gift is her father, the Chief Surgeon at the local hospital where Hope moonlights as a janitor so she can help heal patients. At least, Hope thought her father was the only person aware of her ability. When two new students arrive at Hope's school, seeming to know more about her than she does, she starts to wonder just who and what she is. A love triangle ensues between Hope and the handsome newcomers, who have taken it up as their duty to protect her from the demon sent to kill her before she discovers the truth behind her origins.

This was just an okay read for me. I can't say I loved the characters, but I didn't hate them either. Tie, the troublemaker, was my favourite character. He added amusement to the story and the interaction between him and Hope was always fun to read. I am more Team Tie than I am Team Victor, who seemed to have a stick up his butt the whole time. The biggest problem I had with the story was that it dragged for far too long without much intel being given to encourage me to read on. Given that Tie and Victor already knew the truth about Hope and were very pesent throughout the book, it just took too long for the real meat of the story to emerge. The same hints surrounding the characters' identities were being thrown around too much. It was an overload, yet the characters never followed through with revealing the truth until we were more than halfway through the book. I got tired of Tie trying to get Hope to confess that she has the ability to heal people and her having to constantly lie. There was just took much focus on keeping Hope's gift a mystery that the story lost its appeal.

I gave up twice but picked the book up a third time as I hate not finishing what I've started. Even though the story picked up towards the end, I still wasn't enthusiastic about continuing with the series. I should have loved this book, as it had many fine qualities about it, but, sadly, I didn't quite connect with the story as I hoped I would. Over the past few years, I've read so many stories that are similar to this that it becomes hard to identify one from the other. The story needed to have something unique to make it stand out from the rest, and it just didn't present anything fresh to entertain me.

The story has good potential, but this book just didn't do it for me. If I do continue with the series, I do hope there's a little less mystery and procrastination and I hope it's a little less overly descriptive than this one was.

VERDICT

Award: Bronze

Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Source: Author