The Shifter: The Healing Wars Book I

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      The US cover                      The UK hardcover                and UK paperback

Hardy, J. (2010). The shifter: The healing wars books I. Balzer + Bray. (Original work published 2009). 370 pages. ISBN 9780061747083

Genre: fantasy

Other elements: adventure, coming of age, importance of family

Intended reader age: 10 and up

Synopsis:

In Nya and Tali’s world Takers are revered for their gift and trained, if possible, to become Healers. Both Nya and Tali are very gifted Takers able to Heal and take the pain away, but Nya’s ability is flawed. She cannot shift the pain into pynvium like true Healers can, only into other people. She keeps this ability hidden because the Governor-General is starting another war and Takers are disappearing again, just like Nya’s parents did before the end of the last war. When Tali goes missing as well, Nya’s choice to remain hidden is taken from her because she will stop at nothing to get her sister back.

Review:

I was absolutely intrigued with the premise of this story when I first came across it and enjoyed it just as much the second time around as I did the first.

I appreciated Nya as a main character and I found her struggles to be very well done. Nya’s life has been completely torn apart by the war, a war that is still going on in other parts of the world and is promising continued destruction. She and her sister lost everything in the war: their parents, their home, and their possessions. Nya has to contend with trying to find work of any kind on a day-to-day basis, struggling along side other refuges of the war, and often resorts to petty thievery to survive. Her struggles go farther than that though. Her mother’s reaction to her Shifting ability when it first manifested, and the knowledge that the government is always looking for people like her, has influenced her to not use that ability. Then when circumstances force her hand she does not lightly begin using her powers. Each time she has to shift pain there is an internal debate and in the end Nya always sees it as a weapon more than anything else.

Her friends end up giving an external output to the debate she has had ranging through her head the entire time. Danello voices the advantages for when they have to fight, Aylin points out the underlying horror, and Tali continues to point out the good and how she can help her sister do good. They can all see the point the others are making but stick to their initial thoughts.

I also appreciated the map supplied at the beginning of the story. There were quite a few instances where the characters ran from one part of town to the next and then off in a whole new direction, and I had trouble keeping locations placed in my mind.

I think The Shifter does a great job of introducing readers to the characters and the world that the series encompasses. The politics of the world are briefly covered without being too over powering. The other two books, Blue Fire and Darkfall, do delve deeper into the politics surrounding the war and the inhabitants of the world because the characters become more involved in the underlying problems.