The Pain Merchants by Janice Hardy
Nov. 10th, 2009 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Nya has a secret she must never share.
A gift she must never use.
A world she must never question.
And a sister whose life depends on her doing all three.
Fifteen-year-old Nya survives on odd jobs and optimism, finding both in short supply in a city crippled by war. Then a bungled egg theft and a stupid act of compassion exposes her secret to two powerful groups – the pain merchants and the Healers’ League.
They discover Nya is a Taker, a healer who can pull pain and injury from others. Unlike the League apprentices, she can’t release that pain into their store of enchanted metal. All she can do is shift it from person to person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from the forces occupying her city.
But when a new disaster strikes, Nya finds that her talent is suddenly in great demand – but at what cost?
The first in a new YA trilogy, debut novelist Janice Hardy transports readers to Geveg, a country that’s been conquered by the brutal Duke of Baseer. Nya is a teenage girl who mixes petty theft with odd jobs to make ends meet and support her sister, Tali, an apprentice at the Healers’ League who can cure people by removing their pain and placing it in pynvium, an enchanted metal. Nya can also remove people’s pain, but can only shift it into other people, a skill which her mother insisted had to be kept secret.
When Nya botches an egg theft, she reveals her gift to Danello, an attractive city guard. Soon she finds herself hunted by the city’s pain merchants (people who will remove pain for money, but not necessarily cure the problem) who see her as a way to continue making money when Geveg’s pynvium stocks run dangerously low by having Nya transfer a patient’s pain to other people (whether willing recipients or not). Despite her repulsion at the notion, when Tali and many other apprentices in the Healers’ League begin to disappear, Nya finds herself forced into the first of a series of bargains that will challenge her principles and increasingly place her, Tali and even Geveg itself, in peril.
It’s refreshing to see a fantasy novel set in a different world to ours and Hardy sets hers out with confidence and flair. Nya’s a survivor who knows the value of secrecy – her mother made it clear that she had to keep her gift hidden and never use it and as Nya’s situation becomes more precarious and her choices more stark and unpleasant, the tension really ratches up. Perhaps the events could flow a little too smoothly and it might have been preferable to have Nya take more time to agonise over her options and formulate her responses rather than instantly react to them. In addition, while Nya and Tali are well drawn, Danello and Aylin (Nya’s best friend) don’t stand out. That said, I could have easily read this book at twice its length as so much originality has gone into the thoughts and concepts.
While Hardy wraps up the main thrust of the story within this novel, there’s a strong set up for the second and I will be waiting impatiently to see what happens to Nya next.
The Verdict:
An excellent debut filled with original ideas and strong characterisation. Definitely worth a look.
A gift she must never use.
A world she must never question.
And a sister whose life depends on her doing all three.
Fifteen-year-old Nya survives on odd jobs and optimism, finding both in short supply in a city crippled by war. Then a bungled egg theft and a stupid act of compassion exposes her secret to two powerful groups – the pain merchants and the Healers’ League.
They discover Nya is a Taker, a healer who can pull pain and injury from others. Unlike the League apprentices, she can’t release that pain into their store of enchanted metal. All she can do is shift it from person to person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from the forces occupying her city.
But when a new disaster strikes, Nya finds that her talent is suddenly in great demand – but at what cost?
The first in a new YA trilogy, debut novelist Janice Hardy transports readers to Geveg, a country that’s been conquered by the brutal Duke of Baseer. Nya is a teenage girl who mixes petty theft with odd jobs to make ends meet and support her sister, Tali, an apprentice at the Healers’ League who can cure people by removing their pain and placing it in pynvium, an enchanted metal. Nya can also remove people’s pain, but can only shift it into other people, a skill which her mother insisted had to be kept secret.
When Nya botches an egg theft, she reveals her gift to Danello, an attractive city guard. Soon she finds herself hunted by the city’s pain merchants (people who will remove pain for money, but not necessarily cure the problem) who see her as a way to continue making money when Geveg’s pynvium stocks run dangerously low by having Nya transfer a patient’s pain to other people (whether willing recipients or not). Despite her repulsion at the notion, when Tali and many other apprentices in the Healers’ League begin to disappear, Nya finds herself forced into the first of a series of bargains that will challenge her principles and increasingly place her, Tali and even Geveg itself, in peril.
It’s refreshing to see a fantasy novel set in a different world to ours and Hardy sets hers out with confidence and flair. Nya’s a survivor who knows the value of secrecy – her mother made it clear that she had to keep her gift hidden and never use it and as Nya’s situation becomes more precarious and her choices more stark and unpleasant, the tension really ratches up. Perhaps the events could flow a little too smoothly and it might have been preferable to have Nya take more time to agonise over her options and formulate her responses rather than instantly react to them. In addition, while Nya and Tali are well drawn, Danello and Aylin (Nya’s best friend) don’t stand out. That said, I could have easily read this book at twice its length as so much originality has gone into the thoughts and concepts.
While Hardy wraps up the main thrust of the story within this novel, there’s a strong set up for the second and I will be waiting impatiently to see what happens to Nya next.
The Verdict:
An excellent debut filled with original ideas and strong characterisation. Definitely worth a look.
