Review: Amy Tintera – Ruined

Ruined
Amy Tintera

Em’s family has been either captured or killed because of their powers. Em has been in training since it was found she was useless – no powers to speak of. While her heart is filled with fury and a desire to free her sister, that slowly leaks out in favour of a hint of love and a lot of confusion. Why can’t people get along without killing each other?

Em had to kill to get her new position in the court. I wonder whether some people are looking down on her as having ‘cheated’, and in fact, some of the dialogue is about revenge and trying to hold down sensible ideas after killing people. It’s something I’ve been contemplating lately, with all the fiction I have been reading. It does sound like sometimes the easiest solution is to kill the figurehead!

This was a throbbing fantasy novel that pulled me in, turned me around, and then spat me out the other end. This had the suspense that I needed, and just a hint of romance but mostly revenge. Yes, the storyline has probably been done lots of times, with falling in love with your assassin etc, but I didn’t mind.

Cliffhangers! Arg! It’s killing me at the moment. Almost all of the novels I review at the moment I receive directly from the publisher, and I’ve been able to tighten up my budget by taking out the buying books part. If the publisher doesn’t send me the next novel, there’s a good chance I will never read it, and that’s just sad.

Is this high fantasy? Mm, depends how you define high fantasy. For me, this is ‘just’ regular fantasy. No extreme worldbuilding or explanations of magic systems that I would associate with epic fantasy. But you know what? I didn’t go into this expecting that (it’s not a Brandon Sanderson after all), and I really enjoyed it. I’m giving it 4 stars, and I can’t wait for the next novel.