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Available
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Series
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Collections
Publication
DAW
Description
"Mags, Herald Spy of Valdemar, and his wife, Amily, the King's Own Herald, are happily married with three kids. Their daughter, Abidela, dreams of building on her parents' legacy by joining her father's network of spies, hoping to offset her seeming lack of a Gift. But when Abi senses the imminent collapse of a bridge only moments before it happens, she saves countless lives, including that of her best friend, Princess Katiana. The experience, though harrowing, uncovers her unique Gift--an ability to sense the physical strains in objects. Intrigued by the potential of her Gift, the Artificers seek to claim her as their own--but only the Healers can train her. Through training with both of them, Abi discovers unique facets of her Gift, including a synesthetic connection to objects that allows her to "see" as well as feel the strains. Her Gift may also grant her a distinct advantage as a spy--there won't be a building in the entire kingdom of Valdemar with a secret room that she doesn't know about. With the help of her mentors, she must hone her gift to uncover the hidden secrets in the depths of Valdemar."--Amazon.com.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member eyes.2c
Those gifts keep morphing!
A new gift! Queen's spymaster Mag's daughter, Abi, finds herself with a different gift, seeing and feeling abnormal stresses in constructions. A bridge is about to collapse and Abi is able to save the day.
Off to School of Artificers, for her, with training in construction
Of course there's a conflict with a snotty nosed highborn but given her background, Abi has more than a few tricks up her sleeve.
Then events take Abi beyond the Valdemar border and face to face with some nasty mages.
The ending was a bit flat, and really, although I quite enjoyed aspects of the story it was just not all that different from previous tales.
A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley
A new gift! Queen's spymaster Mag's daughter, Abi, finds herself with a different gift, seeing and feeling abnormal stresses in constructions. A bridge is about to collapse and Abi is able to save the day.
Off to School of Artificers, for her, with training in construction
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and with a talented healer. Stresses in bones and illnesses being likened to stresses in architecture.Of course there's a conflict with a snotty nosed highborn but given her background, Abi has more than a few tricks up her sleeve.
Then events take Abi beyond the Valdemar border and face to face with some nasty mages.
The ending was a bit flat, and really, although I quite enjoyed aspects of the story it was just not all that different from previous tales.
A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley
Show Less
LibraryThing member quondame
Readable mostly quick moving mostly cookie-cutter installment of Valdemar stories, though the central character is not herself a herald. The last few chapters, with the most action, somehow are the ones which drag the most, as Abi goes south on a mission.
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
A very good book - much better than the last several Valdemars. I got completely caught up in it, nearly missed an appointment. I really like Abi, and I find the "small" stuff she deals with more interesting than the big evil magic Perry crossed in the last book - or, for that matter, more
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interesting than what she's dealing with at the end of this book (though the original mission would have been fun). The political jokes/snark somewhat detract/distract from the story - obnoxious Dudley Remp of the very small hands, and Judge Bader Genberg...sheesh. Turns out Abi is asexual, which is excellent - that's not a point of the story, or anything of importance, it's just a fact about her which gets uncovered quite late and makes sense (in her mind) of a great many earlier things. I only noticed in retrospect, after the reveal, that in this story the main character never drops everything to gush about a partner or potential partner - something that annoys me every time. There were a few editing errors - typos, mis-named characters (and having two major secondary characters named Tory and Trey also thoroughly confused me at the beginning!), minor stuff. I am delighted at this latest Valdemar book, and looking forward to the next the way I haven't in years. Show Less
LibraryThing member Glennis.LeBlanc
The latest follows another one of Mags kids that turns out to have a unique talent for finding stresses in buildings. She joins the Artificer students and has a run in with a rich kid and that kid gets kicked out of the school. The only reason this comes into play later on there are more run ins
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
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with the family to get revenge on her for having the boy kicked out under truth spell. There is a small mystery at the end of the book but the overall story feels more geared to a YA audience instead of an adult one.Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
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LibraryThing member jamespurcell
A good addition to this fine series. Abi has a special gift, and she is not even a herald. Training with the Artificers enhances her gift; that of identifying stresses in structures providing new challenges for the daughter of Valdemar's spymasters.
LibraryThing member kmartin802
Abi is the daughter of Herald spymaster Mags and his wife Amily who is the King's Own Herald. She has grown up with the children of the king and queen. She has been trained by her father to be dangerous, to be another layer of protection for the royal children. She has also been trained to be
One day, while on an errand with her best friend Princess Kat, Abi gets a bad feeling about a bridge they have to cross. She knows that the bridge is in immediate danger of collapse. She and Kat manage to save all the people on the bridge before it does collapse. Now, she has a unique Gift to learn to use: she can feel the stress in non-living things.
Abi is sent to be trained as an Artificer which causes all sorts of resentment from some of the other students who feel that she took the place of a more worthy candidate just because of who her parents are. Especially resentful is Dudley Remp, a first class bully who feels entitled to whatever he wants because his father is rich. When he attempts to assault her after class with the help of a couple of his sycophants, she breaks his finger. When his father comes to demand that she be beaten and expelled because she hurt his son, her father casts a Truth Spell which quickly shows what happened and leads to his being expelled instead. However, she has made an enemy who isn't just going to go away.
At the end of her training, Abi has to come up with a Master Work to prove her accomplishments and she chooses to rebuild the bridge that had collapsed some years earlier. To do so, she needs to reinvent a technique for supporting bridges that she learned from a ruin in the city. Before her bridge is finished, though, she is asked to accompany a small group of Masters as they travel to a land bordering Valdemar that is thinking about becoming part of Valdemar.
This journey gives Abi a chance to explore more of Valdemar and learn more about things that Master Artificers do. She is traveling with three other Masters, a Herald who is one of her father's agents, and three mercenaries who have been hired to guide them. Things go well at the beginning but quickly go downhill when they come to a town that had a previous visit from "Valdemaran Artificers" who caused a part of the city wall to collapse. They learn that the group has Mages and they believe that they are Karsites who want to ruin any relationship with Valdemar and who can control demons.
They need to find a way to restore Valdemar's reputation and get rid of the Karsite spies. The story was exciting. I liked the Abi grew and changed through the story and identified a path for her life that will make her happy and fulfilled. This was truly a coming of age story.
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observant. She sometimes wonders if that will be enough for her to be a help to her father and her kingdom since she seems to lack any magical gift.One day, while on an errand with her best friend Princess Kat, Abi gets a bad feeling about a bridge they have to cross. She knows that the bridge is in immediate danger of collapse. She and Kat manage to save all the people on the bridge before it does collapse. Now, she has a unique Gift to learn to use: she can feel the stress in non-living things.
Abi is sent to be trained as an Artificer which causes all sorts of resentment from some of the other students who feel that she took the place of a more worthy candidate just because of who her parents are. Especially resentful is Dudley Remp, a first class bully who feels entitled to whatever he wants because his father is rich. When he attempts to assault her after class with the help of a couple of his sycophants, she breaks his finger. When his father comes to demand that she be beaten and expelled because she hurt his son, her father casts a Truth Spell which quickly shows what happened and leads to his being expelled instead. However, she has made an enemy who isn't just going to go away.
At the end of her training, Abi has to come up with a Master Work to prove her accomplishments and she chooses to rebuild the bridge that had collapsed some years earlier. To do so, she needs to reinvent a technique for supporting bridges that she learned from a ruin in the city. Before her bridge is finished, though, she is asked to accompany a small group of Masters as they travel to a land bordering Valdemar that is thinking about becoming part of Valdemar.
This journey gives Abi a chance to explore more of Valdemar and learn more about things that Master Artificers do. She is traveling with three other Masters, a Herald who is one of her father's agents, and three mercenaries who have been hired to guide them. Things go well at the beginning but quickly go downhill when they come to a town that had a previous visit from "Valdemaran Artificers" who caused a part of the city wall to collapse. They learn that the group has Mages and they believe that they are Karsites who want to ruin any relationship with Valdemar and who can control demons.
They need to find a way to restore Valdemar's reputation and get rid of the Karsite spies. The story was exciting. I liked the Abi grew and changed through the story and identified a path for her life that will make her happy and fulfilled. This was truly a coming of age story.
Show Less
Original publication date
2019-07
Local notes
Valdemar - Family Spies, 2
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Lackey |