Title: The Prisoner Healer
Author: Lynette Noni
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Length: 416 pages
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Kiva Meridan is a survivor. For ten years, she has worked as the healer in the notorious death prison, Zalindov, making herself indispensable. Kept afloat by messages of hope from her family, Kiva has one goal and goal only: stay alive. Then one day the infamous Rebel Queen arrives prison on death’s door, and disrupts all of Kiva’s carefully laid plans. The queen is sentenced to the Trial by Ordeal; a series of elemental challenges against the torments of air, fire, water, and earth, assigned to the only the most dangerous of criminals. Aware the sickly queen has little chance of making it through the Trials alive, Kiva volunteers to take her place. If she succeeds, both she and the queen will be granted their freedom. But no one has ever survived.
I’m super excited to be taking part in the social media blast for this book. Make sure you check out all these other posts to see what they have to say.
Let me just state the facts: this is book is brilliant. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this book, but that is the whole point of a review so I’m gonna try.
You are so immersed in the story right from the very first page. The setting of the story being set in a prison is so enjoyable and unique. I haven’t read a young adult book like this. And considering you don’t leave the prison for the majority of the book, it never becomes boring or stale. I think thats a sign of a great book.
There’s so many fantastic characters in The Prison Healer and I especially enjoyed Kiva. She’s the main protagonist and she’s really likeable. She carries the story, and has great depth and complexity. There’s also brilliant side characters like Jarden and Tipp, you feel them become a team and its so enjoyable to read. There was also a romance that I was a total sucker for. It was really believable and I wanted more.
There is a lot going on this book but it never becomes messy. Lynette manages to tie it all together brilliantly and the plot never got lost. There’s a trail, theres a rebel queen outside the prison gates stirring trouble in the prison. It just felt like a really layered story. A story that I couldn’t put down and one I didn’t want to end.
Now can we talk about that ending?! Can we? Because you know I need to. It is going to be hard to talk about without giving away any spoilers, but I’m going to try. Let me just say it was epic. EPIC! There was a twist that I did see coming, but I didn’t find that disappointed it was still really interesting. But then. THEN. Those last few pages, that second twist. I didn’t see it coming, my jaw was on the floor y’all.
I can’t recommend this book enough. I think this is a brilliant start to a new young adult series. It’s imaginative, exciting, gripping and epic. I loved it. It was also so much fun to actually crack the code at the end.
All I have left to say is I need book two. I need it now. I better not have to wait long.
Thank you so much to Kate at Hodder & Stoughton for my copy of this book in return for an honest, unbiased review. This one is out now.
Until the next review
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